One Memory to Rule Them All

“I had a lot of dates, but I decided to stay home and dye my eyebrows.” – Andy Warhol

The memory has not faded with time – I sit alone in the empty weight room of the Summit Area YMCA, the hum of a pedestal fan providing the musical accompaniment to the clanking of metal weights.  It is seven o’clock on a Friday night the summer before my senior year of high school.

The life lessons – “preparation precedes success” and “success requires sacrifice” – are what keep this memory alive.  Forged in the fire of training, they were tested and re-learned months later in the competition pool.  When I lost sight of these lessons my senior year of college, I came to understand what President John F. Kennedy meant when he said, “Victory has a thousand fathers, but defeat is an orphan.”  It is with this in mind that I protect my memory of that night, remembering how the gym towel felt coarse against my skin and how the plastic chair flexed under my weight.  The emptiness of that room still speaks volumes about work ethic and sacrifice.  Nothing has changed except the venue.  Success still requires sacrifice.

I recently heard powerlifter Brandon Lilly, a world-class athlete, say, “If I could tell you how much I have missed and how much I have sacrificed, I would probably feel a whole lot more guilty about it than I really do now . . . [but] it is what it takes.  We all make sacrifices in this life . . . and to answer that question honestly that is what you are going to have to do.”  Profound indeed.  Do I have memories of cruising around town, drinking beers and taking girls out on dates?  A few.  But none are as vivid as my memory of the Summit AREA YMCA that hot summer night.