In his own words: Jesse Southard - A last minute race

A Last Minute Race

Freshman year for the Wilkinson Memorial Meet, expectations were high for me. As the week progressed I got more and more nervous. I remember a couple of days before my mom reminded me that I had a doctors appointment. So at the next practice I told Coach Tanguay that I wasn't sure when I would get there, but that I would make it. Famous last words.

I sat in the car with my mom waiting to get moving towards Gorham. It was 3:45 pm and I was still sitting in the middle of Portland. I was still hoping that there was a chance that I could make it back for the start of the race. Slowly we began the journey towards Narragansett School, with me jumping up and down in the passenger seat.

Time seemed like it was going by faster than it should, while the distance didn't seem to be getting any smaller. The race was supposed to start as close to 4 as possible. I watched as the clock hit 4, 4:01, 4:02, and eventually 4:10. I had lost all hope of running. I can still remember my mom telling me to stop being ridiculous. All I wanted to do was go home. No way was my mom letting that happen, "You're going to cheer your teammates on even if you can't run."

So we show up at about 4:15 pm is and I looked across the field and saw a group of people all lined up. Next I saw Coach Tanguay running over looking for something. I ran up to him and asked what to do. The next thing I knew I was jogging across the field to the start line and seeing, slowly, my team saw me and realized it was me. I got closer and they were all smiles. I got there and turned around and there was Coach Tanguay ready to give starting instructions to everybody. Less than a minute after getting to the start line I was leaving it at a brisk pace, falling in with Jeremy Collett, Thomas Bradshaw and Ben Foster.

18 minutes and 41 seconds later I had one my first real race and my new life had started.