Good Sports

by Budd Glassberg

Reprinted with permission from the Zionsville Times Sentinel on June 27, 2007

Unable to Rest on His Laurels

“With useless endeavour
Forever, forever,
Is Sisyphus rolling
His stone up the mountain!” – Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Accomplishment is a fleeting feeling. Shortly after ____ (fill in the blank with any of the following; winning the World Series, the Super Bowl, a race, finishing a marathon, becoming a world champion, climbing a mountain), there is a period of satisfaction that permeates the mind and body. I know the feeling. It is addicting. The problem is that it does not last long. Before long, the mind has moved on to other matters often well before the body has recovered from the activity.

Sometimes the accomplishment is a one time only phenomenon like what 22-year old Bob Beamon accomplished in the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City. In the 33 years prior to his world record long jump, the world record had increased by only 8 ½ inches to 27 feet 4 ¾ inches. Beamon’s jump went 29 feet 2 ½ inches shattering the old record by nearly 22 inches. His record lasted almost 23 years. Prior to his record breaking jump Beamon had jumped 27 feet 4 inches and after his gold medal he never reached 27 feet again. Beamon said in an interview with Contemporary Black Biography, “I was basically walking around in a daze, sort of in a state of disbelief, in a sense. But I had all of my marbles together to enjoy the adulation that came with being an Olympic athlete. I was pretty much enjoying every moment. Actually, I had to leave to go back to school. I had to get back to a class I was enrolled in, so it was pretty much only a day and a half later…..I felt that after that, things were very different. To come back and duplicate those energies once you've done that, you have to find some new energies to do that. I felt that once I did, why do it again? I think I had to look for some other peak experiences that were very similar to winning the gold. I had to exert all of my energies and graduate from college. Competing then did not become a top priority.” Beamon accomplished a great deal after the 1968 Olympics, but none of those accomplishments were on the track.

Reaching a pinnacle in sport may grab an athlete and lure him back to the sport to attempt to duplicate an earlier achievement. Too often an aging champion will come out of retirement long after his skill has diminished to try one more triumph in the limelight. Boxing has had its share of these old gladiators often embarrassing themselves in their final attempt to recapture glory. Muhammad Ali and George Foreman come to mind as examples of athletes who could not let go of their sport.

Very few of the gifted bow out while they are at the top of their game. Jim Brown in football and Sandy Koufax in baseball both left their respective sports while at the peak of their abilities, although arthritis forced Koufax to quit. Most athletes wait until their skills have lessened to the point where they are no longer an asset to their team.

Anyone who can look back at his successes with satisfaction and hold the belief that he is the same person who had completed the past deed is to be envied. That person no longer needs to prove to himself that he is successful. All of us know of the aged out-of-shape ex-athlete who still clings to his high school athletic feats as though he still retains the same athletic prowess of his youth.

As an aging athlete, I often reflect on earlier accomplishments and wonder if I am the same person who triumphed so long ago. I am no longer able to run a sub three hour marathon as I had in my twenties. In fact, I doubt I could run one in under 3 ½ hours as I had done only seven years ago. It is difficult for me to remember what it is like to run really fast without tiring. Like Bob Beamon, I must now look for new areas of triumph. Ultra long distance running has provided me an arena in which I would like to excel; endurance.

Even with new goals, I find that there is little satisfaction with each achievement. The common theme that I hear myself say is “So, what have you done lately”. Like the short lived satisfaction of finally paying off all the monthly bills, only to see the next month’s bills are on the horizon. The mailman who empties his bag for the day only to wait until tomorrow to face another bag full of letters struggles in a similar way. So it is with running 50 or more miles. If I do not begin training for something new, it is last month’s Budd Glassberg who ran that far and that person has little to do with the one struggling to run 5 miles today. So it goes for all of us. Unless we are satisfied to rest on our laurels, we are destined to live like Sisyphus rolling a block of stone against a steep hill, which tumbles back down when it reaches the top. Then the whole process begins again.

Budd Glassberg is a resident of Zionsville who is active in the local running community. Visit www.runz.com for reprints of all his columns. You can reach him by email at budd@runz.com.