As is my tradition I made my way to the airport less than 48 hours after finishing my last race of the season. No Kenya this time (that would be Sarah Groff), and no Japan either. Nope, no major intercontinental journeys for me this year; just a short trip to New York City for the New York Athletic Club’s annual All-Sports Banquet. Each year the NYAC honors its athletes that won national or world championship titles, or represented the United States as part of their sport’s world championship team (that’s me!).
After the short flight and a couple of hours of me trying to figure out the New York City subway system (I’m admittedly not a skilled big city person) I finally made it to the club on Central Park South. The NYAC supports a bunch of Olympic sports including wrestling, track & field, soccer, rowing, fencing, modern pentathlon, water polo, judo, swimming, table tennis, as well as its newest sport, triathlon!
The dinner was a lot of fun with the guest of honor being Bill Walton of basketball fame. For those who don’t know, Bill was a standout at UCLA during John Wooden’s tenure as head coach. He was later drafted by the Portland Trailblazers where he won an NBA championship, and finished his career as a Celtic where he won another championship. He’s one of the best basketball players of all time and, as it turns out, a great speaker as well! It was a great night and lots of fun – as Sarah Groff recently wrote in her blog, us athletes are truly fortunate to have such great opportunities and great supporters like the NYAC.
Leave it to Jarrod and me to being new levels of maturity wherever we go.