- One time, at cross country camp, we got pulled over by the border patrol. It was our pre-season training camp last year. We stayed at Ft. Davis, TX, but drove out to Big Bend for one day to run up and down a mountain. When we were driving from Big Bend back to Ft. Davis, we get stopped. I think they stopped all the cars coming that direction. Anyway, the border patrol lady asks where we are heading and asks if we are all U.S. citizens. We didn't have to show ID or anything, but then one of our guys told her some of us were Kenyans. So she asks to see their visas. Since we were just going for the day, they had left them at camp back in Ft. Davis. My coach tells the lady this, but she gets upset and probably doesn't believe him. My coach got out of the van to talk to her and explain who we were, etc., but she wasn't going to let us leave. He was getting mad and the lady was like, "sir, you need to back off." Eventually, she realized that we weren't trying to smuggle Kenyans across the Texas/Mexico border and let us go.
- My freshman year of college, our team almost got shot by a crazy cowboy. We would often go to Ransom Canyon (outside of Lubbock) for long runs, tempos, hill work, etc. One time, after warming up down the road for about two miles, we stopped to stretch, pee, and drink water at an intersection. This was out in the middle of nowhere pretty much, but sure enough a rusty old pick-up comes barreling through the intersection at 70mph. Our coach's (not the current coach) immediate reaction was to flip him off. We did not expect what came next. The truck pulls over and a guy in a cowboy hat gets out and waves a shotgun at us. I was scared, but seriously, was he really going to shoot an entire cross country team?
- That reminds me of another time we almost got killed. Last year at our end-of-track-season party, someone decided it would be a fun idea for all of us to walk over to a local high school track and race a 200 at about 2 in the morning. The track was farther away than we thought, but after a 20-minute walk, we all made it to an intersection next to the track. As we are about to cross the street, there was a car at the stop sign. I don't remember exactly what happened, but the car almost ran some of the guys over. One of our guys yelled something at the car, so of course the car stopped. A big guy gets out and he and my teammate, who is a skinny runner, argue for a bit. Then the big guy opened his trunk, threatening that he had a gun in there. Lucky for us, a girl on the team was dating a javelin thrower and he scared the man away.