Happy Birthday Coach!

In a world increasingly governed by the politically correct, I'm happy I received the tutelage of someone allergic to the concept. " Telling it like it is" is a lost art, except in one corner of all of our experiences.  Coach Groves always told it like he saw it and never sugar-coated it in any way.

After running my best collegiate race and placing the highest I ever placed for the Nittany Lions, Coach Groves called me out in flowery language, likening me to a part of the female anatomy.  And he was of course correct, I should have won the race, not placed third.  It took me a number of years to realize it, but he was absolutely right all along.  (He did later compliment most of my race!)

So I figure for 80 years now the world has been blessed with a realist of the highest quality, a vanishing breed likely to be soon gone except for him and a few of us he coached.  I salute him on this monumental day.  I hope he cries again for the Championship of America 4 X 800 on his birthday (4/24/30).  Thanks, Coach.