Fall is a time for the nostalgia that so often grows out of our memories of school. It was in late October 1985, at Mitchell High School in Bakersville, North Carolina, that I decided to win.
Flurries swirled in the stadium lights. The temperature hovered around freezing, but I was not the least bit cold standing at the starting line in my white singlet and blue shorts with two good-luck wheat pennies rolled into the top of my left sock waiting for the gun to go off …