Track and Field Blogs - Patrick Rizzo

When I went back home to Schaumburg after the Boston Marathon this year, I had one person I had to see right away. At 3:00 on the first afternoon I was home, I drove over to the high school to watch the track team run their last workout before the conference meet and to gain insight from the man I would credit with transitioning me from wrestler to runner, my high school coach, Jim Macnider.

“Mac” is one of the most inspirational yet realistic people I know all wrapped into one. He has never been one to give somebody false confidence or to cut an athlete slack. He is fair and he is tough, much like the sport that has shaped his life and character. He is also the most committed and passionate runners I have ever met in my life. As a 1980 US Olympic Marathon Trials qualifier, he fit in his training goals around his teaching and coaching high schoolers. Stories exist from good sources that he would train three times a day, using his lunch hour to get in the extra mileage. But by the time I got to Schaumburg High School in 1997, Mac had both knees and one hip replaced already.

Though his days of racing are now behind him, running remains a part of who Mac is and what he does. Time and mileage may have had their place for Mac in his younger days (4:13 full mile up to a 2:20 marathon) but by the time I got to run for him, those days were in the past. Still, Mac’s competitiveness NEVER faded with time; and he knows how to tactfully incorporate his vast wealth of experiences into coaching a rowdy group of high school guys. Mac’s personal experiences influence how he has done things as a coach and more importantly, as a role model to many young men like myself.

As my career progresses from one level to the next, I always value my increasingly limited (yet increasingly insightful) conversations with Mac. We always find time to meet up when our paths cross. In our discussion on this particular May afternoon, Mac and I discussed the marathon and its current direction in America. He started out by casually complimenting me on my race at Boston, but what followed shows the kind of coach Mac is…and why I have always valued his perspective and realism. “So do you think you have another 4 minutes in you?” he asked me. “I guess we’ll see at Chicago this year,” I replied before inquiring why. “Well if you want to take that next jump, move to the next level, you’d better be looking at 2:13 to get on a world team or to have a realistic shot at the next Olympic.”

A lot of people would be slightly insulted by Mac’s tone in our conversation. Yet that tone propelled me—and so many more of his pupils—to continue looking forward at all times. I know for me, it still drives me to want to accomplish great things just to say, “See I told you I could do it.” Under Mac, we could enjoy our success but never long enough to become complacent. Mac would never let us lose our focus. Even if we achieved every goal we started the season with, we still were encouraged to look forward to becoming better. There was no such thing as “good enough” for Mac.

Seeing Mac after getting out of the hospital last year, he commented that I looked like absolute hell and asked if this meant my journey was over. “Hell no!” I told him. It was just a bump in my road to relative success. I think that was one of only a couple of times the man ever looked at me with any semblance of doubt, and rightfully so. I had hobbled up to his house and I think her wife thought Frankenstein’s monster came to visit or something by the stitches on my face and the lack of movement when I “walked.” My college coach gave a similar assessment with similar doubts when he saw me. He even made me tell the college guys that I still planned to try to run looking as badly as I did (more than one of them thought I may have gotten brain damage when I said I still planned to run Boston in 2 months).

Still I think those two coaches knew me well enough to put me in that exact position on purpose. They know that I respond well to having accountability to others. One of my biggest motivators to succeed is somebody else telling me they count on my ability. In this case, I made those guys a promise that I would finish (albeit an UGLY journey to get there) and I knew they were going to hold me accountable.

Since I am not very good at thanking people for contributions like this, I guess this is my way of saying thanks to Mac, Al, and all of the guys that have held me accountable. Those teammates--past and present--who have helped me gain some positive momentum from the last 6 months. May the next 6 months be an even more glorious journey to even greater success, as a testiment to each of you. It’s all of you that have brought me to this level, and who will help me get to the next. Thank you, guys.