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At the end of a Buttface weekend, consumed with these and other thoughts, I’d drive back to Portland in a trance. Halfway there I’d come out of the trance and start thinking about Penny and the boys. The Buttfaces were like family, but every minute I spent with them was at the cost of my other family, my real family. The guilt was palpable. Often I’d walk into my house and Matthew and Travis would meet me at the door. “Where have you been?” they’d ask. “Daddy was with his friends,” I’d say, picking them up. They’d stare, confused. “But Mommy told us you were working.”
Time and again I’d vow to change. Time and again I’d tell myself: I will spend more time with the boys. Time and again I’d keep that promise—for a while. Then I’d fall back to my former routine, the only way I knew. Not hands-off. But not hands-on.
His ad showed a single runner on a lonely country road, surrounded by tall Douglas firs. Oregon, clearly. The copy read: “Beating the competition is relatively easy. Beating yourself is a never-ending commitment.”
Some inside Nike worried about Werschkul’s seriousness, fearing it bordered on obsession. Fine by me, I thought. Obsessives were the only ones for the job. The only ones for me. Some questioned his stability. But when it came to stability, I asked, who among us will throw the first stone?
The cowards never started and the weak died along the way. That leaves us, ladies and gentlemen. Us.
I think of the countless Nike offices around the world. At each one, no matter the country, the phone number ends in 6453, which spells out Nike on the keypad. But, by pure chance, from right to left it also spells out Pre’s best time in the mile, to the tenth of a second: 3:54.6.
I thought of that phrase, “It’s just business.” It’s never just business. It never will be. If it ever does become just business, that will mean that business is very bad.
Have faith in yourself, but also have faith in faith. Not faith as others define it. Faith as you define it. Faith as faith defines itself in your heart.
