Andrew Schrauben

How about "the sport that got away"... Earlier I wrote about my "Sophie's choice" of sports in high school, wondering what may have been if I ran track instead of playing tennis. Finally I did run track after quitting the tennis team junior year, but I'm afraid I never tried the one event I was born for...

When I joined track I started with hurdles because the coach thought my long legs would be suited for it, and I also did high jump because 1) my friend was a high-jumper, and 2) a very tall and pretty girl did high jump, too. :) Even though my vertical leap was probably strong enough for me to clear 6'6", I never actually cleared more than 5'4" because my form stunk.

Early in the season I strained a hip flexor that prevented me from running hurdles so I moved to the distance events, finding that I most enjoyed the 400m and 800m races. By the end of senior year I was a decent 400m runner - my PR was 60 seconds. My dad watched one of my last track meets and afterwards he was reminiscing about his days as a high school track star, where he set (and still holds, I believe) the long jump record for his high school at something over 20 feet!

After the season one weekend I jogged from my house to school (about 4 miles), noticed the long jump pit and thought, hey, I should try this. I sprinted down the runway and took off - it felt good! Stepping off the distance, I estimated that I soared 17 feet! The best guys on my track team were jumping 17-18 feet, the state champ was doing 24', and this was just my first attempt. As it were, it was also my last.

Alas, what could've been? Had I started long jumping right off the bat, I might have been winning a few meets and who knows, perhaps I could've competed at the state championships just like my dad had done. Maybe I could've topped his "family record", too! With my dad's genes, was I born for long jump? I guess I'll never know, but clearly I let the opportunity get away.