This is a pump-up speech I gave before the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse Invitational Cross Country race last fall. Some background: The top ten runners went to a different, significantly more prestigious meet at Oberlin that weekend, so everyone racing La Crosse was somewhere on the lower end of the team. I’ve done my best to explain any inside jokes in the footnotes. Anything written in all capital letters was screamed. I was honestly scared that I would get in trouble for leading the team in something that sounded an awful lot like a prayer, but I got away with it.
Teammates and friends, I have a dire message from the heavens that it is the solemn and unhappy duty to deliver.
WE HAVE SINNED!
WE ARE DAMNED!
We have not taken the blessed communion of ferritin pills*, we have not followed the commandments and training schedule that our righteous prophet William Freeman** has bestowed upon us, we have not loved the Purple Roo*** with our whole hearts, we have not loved our teammates as ourselves, we were not truly sorry and WE DID NOT HUMBLY REPENT! Our gluttony has made us bloated, our sloth has made us slow, and our pride, oh, our cursed pride has let us believe that we would be unpunished for our unholy actions!
You have only to look around you to see our punishment! While our upright brethren who followed in the way of the light run on the golden pastures of Oberlin, we have been cast into the cursed abyss! And now we must run in the company of those even more wicked than us: heretics, debaucherers, Wisconsinites, low-GPA students, inebriates, and those who worship false mascots! Oh, what suffering has befallen us! We must climb that mountain of death three times, and three times must we run down it****!
But do not wallow in your woe, friends! For if we take our just punishment with noble hearts and good running form, if we honor this unconsecrated course with our hard-earned sweat, if we pay for every moment of lethargy with aching legs and burning lungs, then our salvation shall be upon us! If you cross that finish line with a pure soul and personal record, then you will be granted entry into the greatest reward a division three cross country runner can receive: The Midwest Conference Championships! Our trials will be great but our reward, oh, our reward transcends comprehension! So come, teammates! Let us rule our suffering!
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* Our team has had trouble with low iron levels in the past, so our coach often encourages us to take ferritin pills. I think I was actually the only sinner in this regard last season, though.
** Our coach.
*** The Grinnell Men’s Cross Country mascot. I’ve got no clue what the story behind it is.
****There was a small hill on the course.
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