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Even though my most loved sports are baseball and basketball, I was never quite good enough and strong enough to play for my high school’s varsity teams. I went to a highly integrated public high school in the city, and it was rare for boys of my complexion to make the basketball team. There was one starting player, a point guard better than I was, who was one of two white guys on the team, the other being a tall, gangly three-point shooter who we would chant for to come into the game near the end if there was a big lead or deficit. He rarely played when the game was on the line.
I may have been good enough to pitch for the varsity baseball team, but definitely could not earn my way onto that squad by my hitting. Eventually, I learned how to crush a hanging curveball or slap a decent one to the opposite field, but not until my twenties, about ten years too late to play varsity baseball.
What I did was run on my high school cross country team in the fall and track team during the winter and spring seasons. I was one of the two varsity mile runners for my school and often also ran a half-mile as the third leg for our two-mile relay team.
In our city, there was and still is a hill that had once been the municipal garbage dump many decades ago. It is appropriately called Mount Trashmore, and both our cross country and track coaches had us distance runners run…
