Our Favorite Reality Show

On Sunday night, June 6th at 9:30 pm Kourt, Sam and I sat down on our living room couch to watch our favorite show. It wasn’t the Kardashian’s, but it was a reality show. The best kind of reality show based on guts, determination, talent, mentoring, drama, overcoming odds and simply the best of human qualities.

The beginning of Brandon’s summer had been delayed because his athletes, at Georgetown University, qualified for several national calibers meets. Kourt’s summer has been delayed with Master Classes and coaching tasks at Regis College while Sam is working full time and continuing to increase his own running.

On Sunday we were sitting down to watch the 10,000 meters at the USA Track & Field Junior Championships. Georgetown Freshman Jonathan Green was running.

The piece that made this race so special for Kourt, Sam and I was that we knew, through Brandon, the history of Jon’s accomplishments and his struggles with injury and illness. The fact that he was simply competing was a huge accomplishment in and of itself.

Jon had been a Two-time Foot Locker National qualifier, Two-time Massachusetts Division 1 All-State Cross Country Champion
, Two-time Massachusetts All-State Indoor Two-Mile Champion and course record holder at North Field Mountain and Gardner Municipal Golf Course, two storied Massachusetts cross country courses.

I remember distinctly how excited Brandon was when Jon committed to Georgetown. What Brandon talked about in regard to Jon were his toughness, mental attitude and work ethic. Jon clearly learned these traits from his parents and growing up working at the family hardware store.

Jon developed IT band problems in the middle of his senior year of high school causing his progression to be slowed and his training to be modified. He ran during the indoor senior season still winning an indoor 2-mile championship even when he had to take large chunk of time off.

As Brandon began to develop Jon’s training for his comeback he had to balance Jon’s incredible drive, his biomechanics that were causing issues and help keep Jon within himself while realizing that Georgetown’s goal was to develop him as a runner, student and person over the course of 4 or 5 years.

That ability to completely understand and empower a young athlete based on the athlete’s personal traits is a key to coaching.

Georgetown had to red-shirt Jon for his entire freshman year while the IT band problem slowly healed, only to be followed by an achille tendon issue and then mononucleosis.

During this time Brandon often said, “Dad, this kid is going to be good.”

As Jon began to heal in the spring Brandon was amazed by how quickly Jon was able to start running with the other runners on the team who had trained all year. As he slowly gave Jon more and more intense workouts, his belief in Jon only deepened.

Jon was able to qualify for the USAFT Junior National Championships by running an open 3,000-meter race in 8:29.  Though it was good enough to qualify it was not a time that lead anyone to think that Jon could possibly do well enough in the 10,000 meters, a race that he had never run, to qualify for the USATF World Championships.

A few week before the Nationals Brandon sent me a text outlining Jon’s 5 by mile workout. As we exchange texts about how good it was Brandon said, “This kid can win the 10,000.”

Sometimes you wonder if statements like this are simply a young coaches’ enthusiasm, yet I’ve know Brandon his whole life and statements like that always come with a deep sense that these types of accomplishments are attainable.

I don’t know what he told Jon but I do know that being patient, sticking to a plan and listening to coaching instruction during the race were key components.

With all this background information and a link to the live feed of the race Kourt, Sam and I were huddled on the couch and squinting to see the 6-inch screen.

Jon Green

It was 85 degrees and humid as the race started and the announcers focused on 3 other runners that they clearly felt would be the top finishers. We didn’t even know which runner was Jon because he was wearing a white Georgetown jersey (We were looking for the traditional Blue and Gray) and the announcers didn’t mention him until about 1.5 miles into the race. At that point he was in 7^th place in a closely packed group, looking totally relaxed.

As the race progressed past the 5,000-meter mark the announcers started to mention Jon’s name saying several times that he was a “fly in the ointment”. They started to Google Jon trying to find recent race results and were unimpressed by his 3,000 meter race and 4:24 high school mile.

Between the 4 and 5-mile marks they started to mention what a smart race he was running and how well coached he was. Even at the point they were still focusing on the favorites, expecting one of them to win the race.

With 1200 meters to go Jon took the lead and Kourt, Sam and I went from simply enjoying an analyzing the race to yelling and screaming. You could tell that the announcers were still expecting one of the favorites to come back and win but Jon kept increasing the pace and ran the last 400 in 62 seconds to win in 30:54.

We exploded with excitement and texting Brandon to congratulate him.

After the race Jon was quoted as saying,”(My coaches) helped me quite a bit because this is my first 10k ever. The training I’ve had at Georgetown has been awesome in keeping my fitness really, really high. Obviously, I’m excited to represent my country. I’ve looked forward to this for a long time. I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for Georgetown. My coaches got me here, so they will get me prepared for worlds.”

When I read those words I get a tear in my eye with pride for Jon, Brandon and Georgetown. Brandon will be taking off again to Coach Jon at the World Championships and Kourt, Sam and I will be cheering while we watch our favorite reality show.