A Self-Indulgent Essay/A Thousand Little Deaths

I have virtually no writing ability, as anyone knows who has read anything I've written on this web site. I usually cannot get an idea in my head to written prose adequately. The only "A" I ever got was on a paper was one I wrote while buzzed on 2 Guinness Stouts coming back from an indoor meet at Cornell or Syracuse in my Sophomore year. (Don Ziter can verify this for everyone!) I wrote the theme on loose leaf notebook paper with pencil, without punctuation and in two peoples mind-sets at the same time. I guess I can say I winged it, so here comes another one...

After the recent Penn State National XC Meet, it was announced that in the near future, the PSU XC team will no longer run on the Blue/White Golf Courses. Apparently they will soon have their own dedicated XC Course. When I first heard this, I was saddened and didn't realize why. It has gradually come to me that this is just the latest piece of PSU Track/XC history that will be lost. Maybe I am just being overly dramatic, but I feel that a little piece of me will die the day they no longer can run tee-to-greens on Wednesday, or a 10K on Saturday on the Blue Course. A little spot inside will wither when Coach can no longer drive the van over to the next mile marker with JB dutifully writing down splits. (A big hunk of me will hurt when I realize that no future high school runner will get 5th place at States on the 3 mile Blue Course even though he was 7th in Districts and was running with a stress fracture.) No college stud will have to contend with all the tree roots at the same time he's trying to outduel Nick Rose or Craig Virgin and a hill at the same time.

I have a feeling a piece of all of us will die that day. Many may not even know it. It may be just a brief feeling of unease or a moment of dyspepsia after eating a heavy meal. But I think it will happen to everyone who ever ran on PSU's Golf Courses. I suppose some business geeks can prove how much money they will save by kicking us off the courses. Another set of business types will be able to justify the expense of making a new course. I have seen what manufactured XC courses look like (World XC in the Meadowlands with spectators sitting in the stands of the horse racing track!) and I don't like it. The course Coach Groves made for the 1975 NCAA Championships was as close to ideal as any I have ever seen. He called it "My masterpiece" because it was a difficult but fair course. I will hate to see it go. Maybe I'm alone in this, but I doubt it. I know there is nothing to be done to fight PSU's progress in this regard, but I don't have to like it. I'm glad we're golfing at The Elks Club again this year!

Feel free to disagree.