CityView Magazine

12 | January/February 2015 BY BILL MCFADYEN McFadyen's Musings D ad and Mom were fairly certain that my getting cut from the Markham Drugs Little League team ruled out any hope of a baseball scholarship. ree years later, all hope died when my fi rst warm-up pitch against Douglas Byrd Junior High hit about eight feet up the backstop. Coach Bob Norton cut me from the Horace Sisk football team a er my one- on-one blocking drill against Iveydale Virgil. Terry Sanford's Coach Len Ma- ness labored to convince Coach Fred McDaniel that there was hope for me in JV football, but between spraining my ankle while returning to the huddle and dropping Bobby Spicer's pass in the end zone, those scholarship dreams melted away too. I never even heard of a college basketball scout so much as attending a Church League game. And I don't think soccer had been invented in the southern U.S. yet. Acceptance into college was therefore wholly dependent on aca- demics. Once enrolled, though, I was faced with a PE requirement. I did not have adequate fi nger dexterity for basket weaving, so I took archery. Pass/fail was judged by whether or not anyone got hurt, thus by simply squelching my urge to scream when the bowstring would twang my le forearm, I was able to advance. In 1983, my New Jersey college pals produced that hereto- fore-unfamiliar soccer ball. I tasted my fi rst swallow of ath- letic prowess while jogging the streets of Cornelius, NC foot- dribbling the ball down the sidewalk in front of me. I could almost feel muscle tissue awakening around my skeleton. My confi dence rose steadily until the day I was kicking it with that same band of Yankee housemates. I again snapped the football-ankle tripping over a ciga- rette butt, I think. e event was recorded in caricature for all time by one uncompas- sionate attendee. My fi rst true athletic training came in my 23rd year as a result of my being paid to do so and otherwise quite by acci- dent. Ned Garber and I ran away to Maui Many times people have said, "Just get out there and walk!" Man, that sounds so much better than, "Get out there and run!" Or, "Get out there and do Pilates!" It has been a real reward in my fi fties to be a poster child of fi tness in the eyes of so many just by walking. IT OFF walk

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