Miller Wins the Race

I spent 13 years at my former district. I was enrolled in graduate school and felt I needed a change along with my new degree.  I planned a timeline that would make me a suitable candidate for becoming an administrator by gaining different experience as a elementary/primary teacher.  Since my current district did not pay in Social Security just for teacher retirement, I transferred to a district that did both, SSI and Teacher retirement.  Remember teachers did not really make enough to put money aside for a 401k or even a decent nest-egg so if I could qualify for two “checks per month”, when I retired, I chose the latter.  Too many teacher’s I talked to who stayed at the other district, deeply regretted  not “jumping ship” when I did.  Even with administrators pay and no SSI..it would have been a tight squeeze..

This aside I was in my 2^nd year at my new school: Miller elementary; it was named after a black WWII hero who came up from the kitchen galleys of a battleship (name eludes me) and manned an AA gun (antiaircraft) and shot down some attacking Japanese planes. 

Forward to the present, I have a 4^th grader whose last name was Miller and wouldn’t you know it he is a grand nephew of the WWII hero too.  Very smart, but had to be the smallest kid in his class. That’s not to say he was scrawny either, on the contrary he wiry tough; just one thing, that youngster had different priorities and his school and his subjects weren’t one of them. 

Between his mom and I we put a modicum of pressure for him to make “just” passing grades and he even did just pass the state assessment test that year, where he hadn’t before.  Little Miller, really wanted to be good at athletics, but his size just kept him a bit overwhelmed by his much larger and faster peers.  This went on all year, till the announcement of field day on a date selected close to the end of school.  That year the kids had to sign up for the different events and the all the events were getting lots of signatures except for the MILE run….  I asked why no one signed on and it was made very plain to me that the 5^th graders dominated that event and no 4^th grader even had a chance to compete or win.

I looked at the list and realized that little Mr. Miller had not signed up for any of the events.  So I asked him to sign up for the Mile run.  He looked and me and said “nahuh…”.  Well, I knew he was pretty fast, again not as fast as the other kids, but a mile race was different I explained to him.. “It’s not how fast you are but how determined you are to win the race.”  He still said “nahuh…”  “Ok you know we always do races at recess right? Well why don’t we practice and come up with some strategy to beat the 5^th graders?” I said, “and if you still don’t want to, you don’t have to enter the race.

Every recess for the next two weeks the kids and along with Miller ran around the playing field, practicing all the events from short races, to relays and the dreaded mile. 

When we set up to practice for that Mile race, I noticed that Miller would run like the wind and was leading the pack the whole time but that last quarter he would get tired and the other kids would pass him up.  

“You were winning then you got tired right?”,  a small, very sweaty boy looked up to me and said “yeah but I got beat” and in the same breath “ I don’t want to race.” “Look “ I told him “Lets do this.” I recanted his race to him, telling him he was running and winning at the start but then he ran out of energy.  Why not save it till the end?” He looked at me like I was from outer space.  “This is what you do just follow the leader of the race when we practice, but on the day of the real race you watch when I give you the signal and you can put on the afterburners and make a race out of it.  Just remember stay behind the leader till I tell you..”    

The day of the race our kids were making a fine showing.  We were winning or placing on almost every event. So it came down to the final event, the MILE. 

Coach called for all the contestants to line up at the marker run two laps around the field (approximately 1 mile).  I went over the strategy with Miller. “.  Just remember stay behind the leader till I tell you..”    Miller lined up and  ran just hard enough to stay behind the leader.  The leader was the best runner in the 5^th grade and was easily setting a pretty fast pace, the kids started slowing down about ½ way it came down to a steady pace (greatly slower) than from the beginning of the race.  I was waiting to about the ¼ mile left and I had to tell my self , wait, wait, wait…NOW! I started waving my arms and hands over my head. Sure enough the leader and Miller saw me both started speeding up but like a lot of races, if you’re the leader, you can sense if someone is just behind you, and being kids you put extra exertion to maintain that lead.  But Miller had no such pressure, he just held back till he got the signal and then like a thing of beauty he poured it on.  Everyone on the track saw it happening, Miller pulled and passed the front runner as if were standing still, you could tell he tried to keep up, but to no avail, he had no more energy, Miller won by at least 15 feet from 2^nd place.

 4^th grade went crazy! It was as if little Miller had won the Olympics. Kids were chanting “ Miller Miller Miller” teachers were crying, the Coach had a grin from ear to ear. 

That ribbon was better than an Olympic medal on that day..