When I was in high school, I wanted to be Mac Wilkins. He had just won the gold medal in the discus at the Montreal games, he threw with a unique blend\u00a0of grace and savagery, he came across as sharply funny and intelligent\u00a0during interviews, and he had an amazing beard.<\/p>\n
So, I went out and bought a pair of throwing shoes and a warmup suit just like the ones Mac used. I tried to mimic his technique. Though never interviewed, I did my best to make sardonic comments each day in the lunch room. I stopped shaving. I brought home two puppies without getting permission from my parents, and I named them Mac Wilkins and Al Feuerbach. When my parents made me give\u00a0back one of the puppies, I gave back Al Feuerbach.<\/p>\n
Unfortunately, the results were not exactly what I expected. I could reproduce Mac’s barbaric passion in the ring, but not his grace and athleticism, unless you call falling down while firing the disc 80 feet out of bounds graceful and athletic. The guys at my lunch table did not appreciate my biting wit. No one noticed that I had stopped shaving.<\/p>\n
The one positive result of my “be like Mac” campaign was that puppy Mac grew into my mom’s all time favorite dog. She treasures his memory to this day.<\/p>\n
Needless to say, then, that when my friend Jim Aikens told me he’d gotten human Mac to appear at this year’s Illinois Coaches Association Clinic, I was stoked.<\/p>\n
And I am even more stoked now, after meeting him. Our clinic was last weekend, and Mac, in spite of spending much of the day at the airport due to mechanical problems,\u00a0graciously agreed to\u00a0attend the coaches social held the night before the clinic where he told some hilarious stories about Bill Bowerman including one involving elephant dung. I’m not making that up.<\/p>\n
He remained completely friendly and gracious while I asked him approximately 90 million questions about his career.\u00a0\u00a0Here is a link to\u00a0his response\u00a0when I asked\u00a0him about the NCAA decision to award the outdoor championships to Oregon for the forseeable future.\u00a0 Sorry about the background noise!<\/p>\n