From: Jason LaValley

In High School I ran against Travis and thought, wow, this kid is the fastest in the state and I wanna run like him. His ability to run inspired me to race like him. Balls to the wall from start to finish. I was a mediocre runner, PRs of 2:14 800 and 439 in the mile, 55.4 quarter, nothing spectacular. I wanted to run fast like him. After HS, I still had a year left in HS and he was off at UCONN and I never heard about his running. One because I stopped running completely my senior year in high school and two, because I was not very interested in the sport anymore. Three years passed and I was back racing at the college level, first time since HS and was getting back into the track scene. I saw Travis at a BU meet running the mile, 97 st. valentines meet I believe and I told my team mates, wow, he's still running?? They told me yea and how he was still really fast. Now most of my teammates were middle distance guys, mainly 800. Talking about 800 guys running fast was not unusual But one of my teammates told me Travis had run on the UCONN 4x800 team the year before. I said to myself, Travis doesnt run the 800, he's a distance guy. He had run franklin park 8k in 23:40s earlier that year so I couldnt imagine this guy running a fast 800. At any rate, Travis ran the first leg in a shabby 1:56 only to run the 4th leg in some 3mins and 45 seconds later in 1:59. I was in awe. I was running the open 800 later and going in with a PR of 158, I wanted to at least equal Travis's 1:56. Well I ended up running 1:56 and it reminded me of how much Travis inspired me to run in HS. I had that mentality again. Now as an 800 man, a PR of 152 and running for Reebok Boston under Sev, I take this day and everyday to run like Travis and to be reminded life is too precious and short. This is why I run. Thanks TRAVIS. gone but not forgotten.