the coach

I had been running track all through high school and was just about to start my senior season. I had never been great, but good enough to make states last year in the middle distances. Up until this year our only coaches were your typical, out of shape, over the hill, middle aged women who only coached track because they were either mean old biddies who liked to boss around young women or were athletes themselves before they let themselves go and now wanted to relive their fantasies of victory through our hard work and sweat.

This spring though, things changed. We had a student teacher that offered to help out with the track team. She had run track in both high school and college but had used up her last year of eligibility and now was working on her Masters of Education. Her name was Naomi and she was assigned the runners since she obviously was better at it than any of our other coaches. Not only that, but she was faster than anyone else on the team except our top girl in the 100. She could easily beat everyone else in any distance up to the mile. Add to that the fact that she was prettier than most of the girls on the team and our fragile egos were taking a beating. If she hadn't been one of the nicest and most helpful people in the world things might have gotten ugly. Instead, she became one of our best friends, as well as our coach and some of our teacher.

I don't know exactly why, but Naomi seemed to make me her special project for the season. From the first day of practice she pushed me harder than anyone else, spent more time with me and made sure that I pushed myself. Maybe it was because I ran the same distances she ran, but then again so did a few of the other girls. Maybe it was because she saw something in me that none of the other coaches had. I wasn't sure what it was, but at times I enjoyed the extra attention, at other times I hated it when she made me run the extra distance or work extra hard. She seemed to be able to know exactly how to get the best out of me though because by mid season she had me running the best times I had ever run and even a few college scouts were starting to stop by at our meets to check me out.