SAN ANTONIO, TEXAS
1973
The oval running track beneath my feet felt hard and unforgiving. There were three hundred yards left to go. It was time for my kick. Time for my kick. Where is my kick?
“Now!” I screamed, pumping my arms to gain some momentum.
The runner beside me edged into the second lane, forcing me to swing wide.
Twenty men left. I would take them down one at a time. Nineteen. Eighteen. Seventeen.
I could hear the crowd at the stadium screaming. On the grass infield, my coach, looking down at his stopwatch, was yelling at the top of his voice, “Faster! Faster!”
Sixteen. Fifteen. Fourteen. Thirteen. Twelve. Eleven. Ten. Nine. Eight. Seven. Six.
Two hundred yards left. I had to make my move if I was going to break the school record in the mile.
Five. Four. Three.
I was running out of fuel. I started my kick too soon. Behind me a runner began to catch up.
No one catches me on my kick! My lungs were burning and my legs were dead. No one catches me!
He caught me. He passed me.
The last hundred yards seemed like forever. I crossed the finish line and stumbled onto the infield, collapsing in pain. Drenched from sweat in the Texas heat, I rolled onto my knees and threw up the steak dinner I had eaten just three hours earlier.
“Well, you were close,” the coach said, trying to console me.
“Time? What was the time?” I asked between gasps for air.
“It could have been better,” the coach answered, handing me the stopwatch.
Wiping the sweat from my eyes, I looked down at the watch.
“4:37.20.”
“Four minutes, thirty-seven seconds, and two-tenths.” It was almost a full five seconds off the record of 4:32.70. A dismal time.
My friends and teammates, Mike Morris and Mike Dippo, came dashing across the infield. “What was the time?” Morris asked excitedly.
The coach handed him the watch.
“Oh,” he said, disappointed for me. “Man, it looked like such a good race.”
“Hey, don’t sweat it, Bill,” Dippo said. “You’ve got one more race. You’ll get it. You’ll get the record.”
Five seconds, I thought. In the mile, five seconds was an eternity. I had been closer to the record before: within two seconds. Lately, however, my times had been increasing rather than decreasing. I was losing my confidence and my opportunity to put my name in the school record book.
For years I had dreamed of being an Olympic-caliber runner. I read every book on the great high school and college star Jim Ryun. I watched old film of Roger Bannister, the first man to break the four-minute mile. Kip Keino and the wave of African runners thrilled me and motivated me to work harder. With every step I took on the back roads of San Antonio, I imagined I was on the final stretch of the 1500-meter gold medal race. Keino had begun his surge. Ryun was on his heels and I was about to make my move. I would let them take the lead, tire themselves out, and then I would begin my kick. The world-famous McRaven kick. No one could outsprint me in the final three hundred meters. No one.
Today’s race had taken its toll on me. The clock had beaten me. Maybe I was just a mediocre runner. Maybe I would never make the Olympics. Maybe none of this was worth it. I grabbed my gym bag and headed home.
“Bill, phone call!” Dad yelled from the other end of the house.
“Who is it?” I yelled back.
“I think it’s one of your coaches!”
Strange, I thought. I had just come home from Thursday track practice. Coaches didn’t say anything.
I picked up the phone. “Hello?”
“Bill?” came a vaguely familiar voice.
“Yes sir.”
“Bill, this is Coach Turnbow,” he said in a slow, soft Texas drawl. “How are you doing tonight?”
For a moment I was stunned. Coach Jerry Turnbow had been the assistant head football coach at my high school. He had departed Theodore Roosevelt two years earlier to take a head coaching job at a school across town. To those of us on the track team, the high school football coaches were like minor gods. They molded the young men in pads who would lead the school to victory. Football was the only real sport in Texas. Track was just a diversion. And football coaches, well… football coaches never associated with those of us who ran in circles. Besides, I didn’t think Coach Turnbow even knew who I was.
I stumbled for a minute. “I’m fine, Coach,” I answered.
“Well, Bill, I hear you have one race left to break the school record. Is that right?”
Okay, now I was really amazed. How did he know that? Why did he even care? I was a miler on a track team, a track team that hardly anyone in the school knew we had and… the coach wasn’t even at the school anymore.
“Yes sir. I have one race left.”
“Bill, look now, son. You can do this. You can break that school record. All you have to do is run hard. Run hard and you can break that record. I know you can do it!”
“Yes sir,” I said, trying to sound confident. “I’ll give it my best.”
“You do that, Bill.” He paused. “Well, good luck, son.”
“Thank you, sir.”
I hung up the phone and just sat on the edge of the bed. Coach Jerry Turnbow had just called me to wish me luck. Coach Turnbow!
Run hard, he said. Just run hard. I know you can do it!
Twenty. Nineteen. Eighteen. Seventeen. Sixteen. Fifteen. Fourteen.
“Run! Run!” Dippo yelled, sprinting through the infield, Morris on his heels.
I was swinging wide on the last curve. Two hundred yards to go. My lungs were screaming. My arms were pumping. My legs were churning. My kick was there.
“Faster! Faster! Faster!” the coach shouted, waving his arms in a circular motion.
Ahead was the finish line—a thin yellow tape marking the end of the race.
Thirteen. Twelve. Eleven.
My eyes were glassing over from sweat. The pain had left me. The body was in runner’s shock. A wonderful feeling of numbness and euphoria, but it wouldn’t last. Any second now, the lactic acid building up in my body was going to cause my muscles to seize up, and the only thing that would get me across the finish line was pure willpower.
Run hard, Bill. Just run hard. I know you can do it!
One of my favorite movies of all time is Frank Capra’s Christmas classic, It’s a Wonderful Life, starring screen legends Jimmy Stewart and Donna Reed. The movie is set in the mythical town of Bedford Falls in the 1930s and ’40s. Stewart plays George Bailey, a young man who has taken over his deceased father’s Savings and Loan. Reed plays his wife, Mary. Other characters in the movie are George’s younger brother, Harry, whom George saved from drowning when Harry was just nine, and George’s forgetful Uncle Billy. The villain in the film is the mean old Mr. Potter, a soulless banker who only lives for the money he can make off people.
George longs for the day when he can leave the small town of Bedford Falls and see the world. He wants to do big things with his life, really big things. But as the movie progresses, George never makes it out of Bedford Falls. Instead he stays in the town, going about his daily life and trying to keep the old Savings and Loan from being taken over by Mr. Potter. But eventually, bad luck befalls George Bailey and he decides that it is better to end his life and leave the insurance money to his family.
George goes to a nearby bridge, ready to jump off, when God sends an angel to help. The angel is an awkward fellow named Clarence. He tries to convince George not to end his life. George won’t listen and tells Clarence that his life has been worthless and it would have been better had he never been born.
Clarence the angel decides to show George what life would have been like—had George never been born. They head back into town, and, much to George’s surprise, the town is no longer the quaint Bedford Falls but a run-down, seedy place called Pottersville. Mary, his wife, never married and is an old maid librarian. Other things in the town have changed, and not for the better. As the scene continues to unfold, Clarence takes George to the town cemetery. There, barely visible through the overgrown grass, is the tombstone of his younger brother Harry. The tombstone shows that Harry died when he was nine.
George, not understanding what Clarence has done, screams that this isn’t right. He yells, “That’s a lie! Harry Bailey went to war. He got the Congressional Medal of Honor!” He stopped a kamikaze from sinking a ship. “He saved the lives of every man on that transport.”
Then comes the seminal moment in the movie. Clarence says, “But George, you don’t understand. Because you were never born, Harry died that day on the ice. Harry wasn’t there to save all those men, because you weren’t there to save Harry.”
And that’s when it hits you. The actions of one man, George Bailey, changed the lives not just of those he touched, but also of so many others. All the men on that ship, and their children and their children’s children, were alive because of George Bailey. The town of Bedford Falls had thrived because of the kindness of George Bailey, and the people he befriended lived full and happy lives—because of George Bailey.
One hundred yards. Ten. Nine. Eight. Seven. Six.
“Push it! Push it!” I screamed out loud.
Everything I had, I gave.
The crowd was on its feet—the yelling inaudible but loud, driving me harder.
I leaned forward, pumping my arms and willing my legs to move faster and faster and faster.
Five. Four. Three.
Fifty yards. Just a few seconds. I had to hold on. Just a few more seconds.
Two. Two. Two.
Stumbling, reaching, sprawling, I fell across the finish line and tumbled onto the hard cinder track, rolling onto the infield to avoid being trampled. I couldn’t breathe. The sound of my heart pounding in my ears blocked out all noise. Mike Morris was standing in front of me. I couldn’t make out what he was saying, but I could see the look on his face. He handed me the stopwatch.
4:31.40.
A new school record.
Later that evening my mother would hug me. My father would tell me how proud he was, and the following week I would get a few congratulations. The record was shattered the next year by a better runner. But it didn’t matter. That race would forever change my life. Knowing I could set a goal, work hard, suffer through pain and adversity, and achieve something worthwhile made me realize that I could accomplish anything I put my mind to. It made me realize that I could be a Navy SEAL. Over forty years later, I know that my life and the lives of the thousands of men and women I commanded were changed by a phone call. One act of kindness.
If we are lucky, somewhere in our lives there is a George Bailey—a person who helped us along the way. A man or woman, who, probably without even knowing it, changed everything about our own future, and in doing so, changed the lives of so many others.
Jerry Turnbow was my George Bailey, and I will be forever grateful that he took the time to call.
Thanks, Coach!