As often is the case, my path to having coffee with Walt has taken a long, circuitous path, much like many of the endeavors I seem to get myself into these days. I suppose cross country and running serve as a good metaphor as well, with lots of starts and stops along the way before really finding your way. I knew of Walt long before I got to know Walt, often spoken about as some kind of mythical being, having been everywhere and knowing everyone, yet I had yet the pleasure to meet him.
What I did know is he was the de facto historia of everything running in NH, some of it big time having worked in the early days of the Nike workshop in Exeter, making the early prototype shoes that Nike was about to be famous for. I also knew he was still spreading his knowledge about running through collegiate coaching as a volunteer assistant with a whole lot more knowledge than most volunteer assistants generally have. I knew he was good friends with one of my good friends and we eventually met in the most fitting way I can imagine, both trackside, leaning against the chain link fence, talking track. Scott introduced us, with both Walt and I leaning in to shake hands and mentioned we had heard a lot about each other. Within the first few comments back and forth, we knew we had become friends and enjoyed being around each other.
After that we’d run into each other intermittently, always remembering something I had heard and wanted to check on or a story about someone back in the day that I knew he would know something about. He might ask me about my current crop of runners, or someone specific he had heard about in the high school scene he knew I would know something about. And while we’d only see each other a couple times a year, we would fall into conversations easily as if we had seen each other last week.
These kinds of friendships are uncommon in the sense that true friendships generally take more nurture and care, time spent developing the relationship to feel truly comfortable in a disconnected situation. We didn’t and don’t know much about each others life outside the running community, and even then I learn more and unique things about Walt every time we get together in conversation. Like how he and Joanie Benoit (Samuelson) are good friends to this day, and he helped design shoes she once raced in. Or that he was at the ‘84 Olympics as a Nike liaison, there to discuss shoe design and athlete desires with the Olympic participants that Nike sponsored. All very cool stuff.
But it’s a bit odd but neat to have not seen each other for a while, and end up in these cool conversations without missing a beat. I enjoy friends that I can do this with while I lament that we don’t seem to see each other as much as one would like, distance and opportunity getting in the way.
However now each of us has gone through some life changes, he moving from Enfield to Keene and stepping back from collegiate coaching. And me, no longer working at the school and have given up coaching at the high school level as well. Other than the odd chance we might both be at a cross country or track meet as spectators, our lives are no longer traveling parallel paths, headed in the same direction, but diverging paths, less likely to criss-cross. Our not often meetings likely fading to no meetings.
So starts coffee with Walt. I tried to hook up with Walt while on an errand I had to run in Keene but he was unavailable. Not wanting to chance when our next unplanned meeting might happen he asked if I wanted to meet for coffee sometime. I queried about a few days later and the date was set.
We met at a coffee place halfway between the both of us. It just so happens that a bunch of my former athletes have worked there in the past, with one of them having pursued college and running where Walt had assistant coached. We talked about that athlete, how they were doing, what they were up to, and how great a person they are. We talked about the upcoming high school season, and while I’m not coaching this season I still have eyes on what’s going on and plan to monitor and commentate throughout the season.
Walt regaled me with stories from the past, his time at Exeter, working with the Concord High and Bishop Brady teams. He talked about old school Nike, back before Air Jordans and the marketing machine Nike has become. We talked the 1984 Olympics in LA, who he met and who he knew. We talked about the high school scene, then and now, and how fortunate we’ve both felt to work helping develop youth within the sport we both love. We talked a lot.
When two hours had passed I had to go. I had a zoom meeting on the schedule and needed to get home to take it. It was hard to make a clean break, each of us thinking of something else we had wanted to say. We headed to our cars, both thankful for the two hours we had just had, and looking forward to when we could get together again. We’ve got plans to cross paths at the Keene State meet in October but I’m hoping it might be before then. I’m going to look to my schedule and see if coffee fits well somewhere in there.
If you happen to see Walt out and about, say hi. Not only is he a wealth of running knowledge, NH and beyond, he’s just a really great guy that loves the sport, loves what it can do for a young person looking to find themselves, looking to prove to themselves the stuff they’re made of.
And let’s face it, that is the greatest gift this sport can teach. We often forget this in pursuit of winning, thinking our athletes are better simply by running faster. And while that’s certainly part of it, we shouldn’t overlook the mere gratification that comes from developing young men and women into gritty life competitors. Walt’s seen it from so many different angles and levels, it’s gratifying to pull up a section of fence, shoot the breeze, and know you’re in the company of someone that truly enjoys what the sport can do.
I’m looking forward to it. See you out there.
Walt Chadwick
