This was 3 years ago today.
Below is the story of Charlie Lott as told by his coach. Read to the end:
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“Today, I saw the most incredible thing I have seen in my 15 years of coaching.
AHSAA State Championship, 4-5A, 1600m
With 250m to go, Trinity senior Charlie Lott took the lead, ahead of his PR pace, when he got shoved in the back and went down. Hard. Race is won in 4:26.94 by the time he gets up. We can’t get anything out of a protest unless he finishes, so he limp/jogs the lap and a quarter to the disappointing sound of sympathetic applause.
Luckily, it happened right in front of the race referee, but it is a complicated situation: obv the other kid gets DQd, but that doesn’t really help Charlie. The only solution isn’t a pretty one: the opportunity to re-race with another heat. That might be fine in a sprint, but it takes hours - days even - to recover from mile efforts at that level.
And so it came to pass that Charlie, 40 minutes after racing 80% of a mile - ahead of PR pace and bleeding from the shoulder, hip, and knee - toed the line with the best 7A runners in the state of Alabama.
The crowd - other schools and coaches - went nuts just from him stepping on the track; it legitimately brought tears to my eyes. After a great first 2 laps - actually faster than his first race - he started to fade, and by the time he reached the halfway mark, I had resigned myself to simply admiring the kid’s guts for giving it a shot.
And the he surged.
And for a lap and a half, he picked off 7A runners one at a time. And another. And another. And the crowd is losing their minds. And with 600 meters left, he... takes... the... lead. My hair is standing up on my arms just typing it.
At that point, the top 3 7A boys take off (and go on to set the best time in AL), but Charlie kept fighting until he crossed the line... in 4:26.74. Bloodied and exhausted, he had beaten the best time in 4-5A. He asked me if he’d made the podium; I told him NO, are you kidding me, you freaking WON! He didn’t believe me - I don’t know how he thought I might be joking; I was ugly crying and picking him up off the ground as I was screaming it to him. It wasn’t until his distance coach Josh told him - again - that it finally sunk in. Kids and coaches from other schools, coming up and bear-hugging this kid... I have never seen anything like it.
Now, there is a bittersweet ending to this: because of a technicality, the race would later be ruled invalid. And although we are disappointed with how the situation was handled, in the end, it doesn’t matter; if the ref hadn’t screwed up the application of the rule, the race with the 7A kids never happens. Besides, ten years from now, no one will remember a single gold medalist from this meet.
They will remember #thelegendofcharlielott.”
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No matter how many times you get knocked down, no matter how much pain you are in, no matter how much you think the circumstances are against you...don’t quit. Get up, brush yourself off, reset your perspective, and press on. There are people out there cheering for you every step of the way.
#wevegotyour6run #noonefightsalone #runtherace #dontquit
You can search for #thelegendofcharlielott on FB to see pictures; I'm not sure how the mods feel about direct links to other websites, so I am not including one. Gives me effing chill bumps.