Tylko dla zwyciezcow

[wojtek]

Wlasnie natknalem sie na wywiad z czlowiekiem , ktory bardzo ulatwil mi start na emigracji .
Mysle , ze fragment zainspiruje Was :

...There's another story about one of his mentors that says a lot about Cliff Clark. "He was one of these guys who saw these things in people no one else saw," Cliff Clark said of his coach at Harding College, Dr. Clark. Cliff had turned to running when he lost a spot on the Harding basketball team in tryouts -- and his pitching arm, which had attracted a New York Giants scout to Shelter Island, had given up the ghost for reasons unknown. He turned to track after having won two important races for Shelter Island without any background in the sport. It became his passion. "I loved to run," he said. "I love the competition, to get set on that line and know eight or 10 guys, the best runners around, have one goal in mind: to get there ahead of me. I love to go face to face."

Late one evening during practice in Arkansas, Dr. Clark "had me doing extra workouts," Cliff recalled. "He had me doing 16 400-meter runs. The rest of the team had to do 12 -- the normal number. You had to run them in exactly 62 seconds; it was to teach you to control your pace. I messed up a few and ran 21 of them before I got 16 right. Meanwhile, the rest of the team is gone and Dr. Clark has turned up the lights in the stadium. At number 19 or so, I got three-quarters of the way through and stopped on the track.

"'What's wrong?' he said," Mr. Clark recalled.

"I said 'I can't do this. It's cold. I'm going to miss dinner.' He told me I had to get 16 right and I had to do a five-mile cool-down.

"'What is this?' I asked him. 'It gets lonely out here.'"

"Of course, there was Dr. Clark, alone too, working with me late into the evening. This was a selfish kid talking. He had a 1956 Chevy pick-up. There was an old tool kit in the truck covered with dirt. He lived out in the country; he was a farm-boy scientist who taught biology. He said, 'Wait here.' He came back with the tool kit and pulled out a tape measure. He had me walk with him to the awards stand in the stadium. He had me measure the top level of the awards stand" -- a platform not unlike the one used at the Olympics for first-, second- and third-place winners. He asked young Mr. Clark how big it was.

"'Twelve by 16 or so inches,' Mr. Clark recalled answering.

"How many people could fit on that?" Dr. Clark asked him.

"One," Cliff answered.

And that was the point. "It's going to be lonely at the top," Dr. Clark told him.

Clifford Clark today smiles. "That's all he had to say."

"Here's this man. A giant at five feet, six inches. He made so much sense, he had so much vision. Dad had the same manner. These were people who forgave, who did not prejudge."

In 1966, Cliff Clark won the national collegiate championship in the 3000-meter steeplechase. Dr. Clark was waiting for him a few yards from the finish line. "I gave him a hug," Cliff recalled. "I said it was unbelievable. He said he'd seen it coming. I said I could never repay him. He said, 'It's not about payback. It's like a relay. I handed the baton to you. Now you hand it off to somebody else.'"Three weeks later Dr. Clark died at the age of 47.

"Like Dr. Clark said," Cliff said the other day, "it's a relay. You pass things on."

Jestem jednym z tych , ktoremu Cliff przekazal paleczke ...