Fleet Feet

My girlfriend took me to a meeting at Fleet Feet for people interested in running for exercise. I was the only male in a surprisingly female bunch. We were probably the youngest people there by six years. The group's mission was to get people running with a group mentality.

"If you have to crawl, we'll make sure somebody crawls with you," the fitness guy said. He was a believer in inclusiveness. I am also a believer in inclusiveness but somehow felt like an outsider; dozens of women as inactive as myself pinned me against the sports bra rack.

I wonder what would happen if I put on one of these bras, I quietly thought. Would anyone notice? Would the women think I was one of them? How can I belong?

I did not answer any of these questions for myself before a bouncy woman delivered her 13-half-marathons-and-two-full testimony. She held back the tears. A man in his 40s lingered on the outside edge of the group, gave me a sad look and turned back toward the merchandise. He could not save me. I tucked the information sheet under my arm and stared at the back of my girlfriend's head. The fitness guy took over again and without giving me eye contact delivered the obvious knockout punch.

"We have a group for men too," he said.

Oh God, please stop.

"Some of the men run in groups with women, but we also have groups for men." He went on, but I could not tell you what else he said. My ears rang between the bras.

I tried to play it cool after the fitness guy broke the huddle. I looked at some running shirts with holes in them and wondered if they could work as pajamas. I smelled some shoes. A soccer mom nodded at me while she talked with a friend.

". . . and of course we always have a man or two come," she said. "It's so great." She pulled me in with one wrist flick. The two women chatted back and forth about something while my ears continued to ring. If I were half the man I wanted to be, I would have told her she was a loon to think I would come back to run with 55-year-old women searching for their physical prime. How could she not see that I was accompanying my girlfriend, who was shooting in the dark herself? My girlfriend browsed water bottles nearby while I pondered my escape line. But I could not think of anything to say.

"We need to leave," I told her, leading her by the elbow. I did not look back.

As we walked to the car, I felt defensive and proud of my inactive lifestyle that leans on a generous metabolism and acceptable male stereotypes. My doctor has never told me that my cholesterol was too high. My blood pressure is fine, and my red blood cell count is formidable. I drink socially and do not smoke. Sometimes I stretch my hamstrings at night for a minute or two. I like this healthy yet unfit profile. It carries with it a perfect balance of leisure and peace of mind. My body is the miracle pill.

But I am tired at the end of my workday. My glory days teammates probably play pick-up basketball between weight training sessions. Richard Simmons would tell me I would feel more energetic and spectacular if I ran for a couple miles each day, so I will. But I will have to do it by myself because I have an enormous ego and an 11-minute mile. I will start tomorrow.

Atlanta

The Carolina offense rushed for 17 yards behind Georgia Tech's 317 yesterday. It was a slower death than the numbers suggest. The loss came between two grueling six-hour car rides in flooding rain. Friday night we went out in a strange part of Atlanta and talked to several homeless people about whether we were Tar Heel fans or all wearing the same color. They felt sorry for us and for a small fee directed us to the nearest public house, which was not as public as we hoped. The blocks around campus seemed dead for a Friday night. We retired to our six-for-the-price-of-four club hotel room and struggled through a snorer. I did not learn to plug my ears with the pillow until 4 a.m.

Saturday morning was exciting. We saw plenty of Carolina fans walking among the Georgia Tech barbecues and fraternity houses. I saw the Georgia Tech xylophone choir play Radiohead's "Everything in Its Right Place." I ate some good pizza while talking to a Carolina senior who drove like we did to see the first big win. Then the game started.

No, it was not worse than Virginia. Yes, I still plan to go to Charlottesville in 2010 and come back with a win.

"You should not go on any more football road trips," nobody has yet had the gall to say.

I spent the weekend with a few of the best football fans I know. We are not going anywhere and will be around for Carolina's first perfect season. We flew our car flags in the rain on the way to Atlanta like Iwo Jima but lay them in the trunk for the ride home. Someday we will come home happy.

Number 22 and the boys in blue

In my first season of Carolina football, the great Charlie "Choo Choo" Justice passed. Justice defined an era of Tar Heel football that was long gone when I arrived in 2003; he was a two-time All-American in 1948 and 1949 and finished second in Heisman Trophy voting in both years. He gets the credit for taking us to the Sugar Bowl in 1947 and 1949. He remained humbly faithful to Carolina until his death in 2003.

Heavy hearts observed a moment for Justice on the saddest football Saturday in Carolina history. The athletic department painted his number 22 on the appropriate yard line, and the announcer barely finished his tribute to the man behind the elusive Carolina glory days.

I did not know who Charlie Justice was until I walked into the stadium that day, yet I felt the past swell around me in the hearts of alumni. I felt like a part of my new family. Years later I listened to a tape recording of Justice at the North Carolina Museum of History. He sounded like my own grandpa, affable and quiet.

Carolina has a basketball history as well. Friday night's pro alumni game marked the beginning of a year-long celebration of 100 years of Carolina basketball. Most of this history also escapes me, but I feel the tradition every time I walk the floor of the Dean Dome or listen to my friends talk about the Jerry Stackhouse dunk at Duke. The reunion game connected faces to the names I hear on the lips of reminiscent fans.

"Remember that game where so-and-so blocked so-and-so for the double overtime win?" my friend might ask.

I will shake my head or shrug my shoulders. I do know the national championship basics to stay afloat. We beat Wilt Chamberlain's heavily favored Kansas team in the 1957 NCAA championship under New Yorker Frank McGuire. In 1982 Michael Jordan hit the shot before Hoya Fred Brown accidentally passed the ball to James Worthy. In 1993 officials charged Michigan with a technical foul for calling an unavailable timeout. I saw 2005 and 2009, so the recent success helps me a bit.

But really one name made it all possible. A friend at Saturday's football tailgate told me a story about a sad soul he encountered who did not know Dean Smith, a leading integrator of college basketball and probably the best coach of all time.

"What was he the dean of?" she asked.

"Basketball," my friend said.

Enjoy the video. This is the best I have seen from the athletic department.

What I love about writing

Why do I like to write? Is it so I can ask two stupid questions at the beginning of a lead without consequence? No. Let me tell you the two things I love about writing.

Writing is communication that begins as private and becomes public at the writer's discretion. I delete nearly as many posts as I publish, and everything I write changes before I decide I want someone else to read it. This seems obvious, but many of you who have heard me speak can appreciate how one person can seem presentable as a writer while making little sense as a talking person. When I get hungry, take cover. I talk fast and don't like doing it. Sometimes I substitute body language and grunts for words. Ask my girlfriend.

Writing allows me to put my best foot forward and then change its shoe three or four times. Writing allows me to be the version of myself that I like the best. That best version beats up the lesser versions to keep them honest. But who keeps the best version in check? Is it me? That seems unfair. I need more comments.

Writing also allows me to communicate with people when I do not try to. Written words extend the self with a life of their own. I am writing this post now to show my world of five later, but I also worked on this post awhile ago since you are reading it now. I might be sitting in a public restroom this very second without any toilet paper. That is magical to me.

But in the words of my carpool buddy, let's be honest. I also like to write because some people tell me I am good at it. I can indulge in myself with the best and worst of them. A couple weeks ago a few of my clients and their families told me I was doing a good job. Suddenly I started to like what I did. I know I am 25 years old. I should be old enough to positively reinforce my own actions but sadly need more than that. I doubt I am alone.

What do you do when the toilet paper is gone?

Two headlights in the dark

My dad flew in for the weekend to see Carolina's pro alumni basketball game and the football season opener against The Citadel. Dad put together the best Carolina tailgate these eyes have seen for 25 of my friends and friends of friends.

Tar Heels old and new came together for a brief celebration of being young and carefree. We had nearly the entire audiology class of 2013, a medical student, a couple teachers and several graduate students. I stepped back and looked a few times at the incredible assortment of people. I am proud of my friends. I learned something about organizing a tailgate; it sort of takes your mind off football.

But the football team complied with my jovial mood and put the expected beating on The Citadel before claiming a 40-6 victory in the evening heat.

My parents would rather talk about Friday night's alumni game, which was also truly special. Vince Carter, Antawn Jamison, Raymond Felton, Danny Green and the rest shared the same court for us for the first time in history. The 2009 national champs were on hand for the unfurling of our new championship banner. And Michael Jordan - have you heard of him - received a thunderous applause for finally achieving Naismith status. Of course Roy and Dean were there for a Carolina family photograph, probably the last of its kind.

Today I woke up with the expected emotional hangover that such a weekend can produce. I rose after 11 and feebly ate a bowl of cereal. I had a golf date with an old high school friend so delayed showering off Saturday's football sweat until 6:30 p.m. I know, gross. But I'm clean now and feel a bit better.

My parents and I went to Maple View Farm after sundown for ice cream. The place has a nice porch with rocking chairs for countryside gazing, but the moonlight could only outline the trees bordering the farm. I stared into darkness. Solitary headlights crawled on a narrow side road between farm fields.

"Where does that road lead to?" my dad asked.

"I don't know," I said. I never thought about what exists beyond this beautiful countryside that sits 15 minutes outside of Chapel Hill. I have gone there often to sit, eat and watch the cows graze. But something is there that draws people besides the ice cream and view. Material surroundings cannot explain the farm's apparent peace.

I wondered if the motorists driving into the unknown dark knew how uplifting a silent pair of headlights in the night can be. If we get to choose how we enter the afterlife, I want to go in a car at night on Dairyland Road with bluegrass music in my ears.

'Maybe that road goes to heaven,' I thought to myself. One's perception is one's reality, and my perception was perfect for a moment. I came home and started to write.