Longing for the long run

Cross-country running in high school proved to be a most rewarding experience. My first season got me acquainted with the burly captain of the wrestling team who took running as seriously as he did studying. One of those self-proclaimed “seniors-who-just-don’t-care,” he taught me an invaluable lesson of high school (and formal education)’s true value and purpose.

Before our first race, this fellow hoped to get a head start on his latest English assignment: reading the first act of Shakespeare’s “Hamlet.” In Act I, Sc. 1, the Danish courtier Bernardo calls out the first line of the play: “Who’s there?”

When our coach snapped the order to get warmed up, stretched and mentally attuned for the grueling task ahead, my friend tossed the book aside and sprang to his feet. As we jogged alongside each other through the lush September breeze, I listened keenly to what the burly wrestling captain had to say about the most famous play in Western literature.

“The first line goes, ‘who’s there?,’ … and then I had to stop.” After pausing to catch his breath, he unleashed his full train of thought: “I wonder who, or what, there is.” I giggled and guffawed along with my teammates, as much to soothe pre-race nerves as to avoid displeasing this formidable jock of jocks.

But apart from the mock-curiosity and scholarliness he displayed, what etched this moment into my memory was the self-deprecating tone he used to suggest: “I may be bigger and badder than you ever will; but when it comes to Shakespeare, I can’t read two lines in one sitting.”

Whether I’m putting words in his mouth, or projecting my own self-aggrandizing opinion onto someone else’s, is irrelevant. Nor is it of any worth to assume that because this fellow didn’t read and didn’t study much, his intellect and study skills were below average. He is, in fact, now a senior at Bucknell.

18th-century English writer and statesman Joseph Addison said: “Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body.”

I still run these days, albeit on my own time, and with far less frequency than I read. Yet Addison’s words, in conjunction with the wrestling captain’s self-jabs, prove the absurdity of the idea that a social divide could exist today between those with a zest for sport and those with an enthusiasm for the written word (which admittedly includes more than Bill Shakespeare).

Yet it’s surprising how inclined we still are to make that overtly simplistic distinction—between the physically gifted and adroit and the supposedly more sedate, “learned” members of society.

Far gone, however, are the days of those sharp social contrasts and stereotypes that pervaded the worlds of academic and athletic competition before college. Although I harbor no delusions as to my future as a student (and my lack thereof as an athlete), the wrestling captain’s lesson remains clear: that for all those wannabe jocks of posterity, the line cannot only be blurred, but erased.