Once upon a time when I was a cocky, conceited, and overconfident athlete in high school, I learned a valuable lesson that would last me a lifetime.  
It was the year of 1969 and I was a junior in high school, a Gordon Trojan, who specialized and majored in football and minored in basketball.  Back in those days, we did not have a track and field team.  
This would be the first year that track and field would be introduced to our school by our coach, Willie Fred Daniels.  Coach Dan (as we called him back then) was able to talk a few of the football players into participating in our first track and field encounter with another school.  
I really was not a part of the track and field team that journeyed to Chesterfield on this particular afternoon.  
I just decided to tag along for the ride and experience seeing my first track and field contest.  
When we arrived, we were missing quite a few contestants to participate in the various events.  
One of the events where we had no participants was in the one-mile marathon.  
Coach Dan looked and pleaded for someone to step forward and represent Gordon High School.  
After no one volunteered, I stepped forward and said that I would do it.  
I believe it was my brother, Randy, who cautioned me that this was a tough and tiring event, and I had better know what I was getting myself into.  
Being the tough football player that I thought I was, I was confident that I could compete and even perhaps win.  
Little did I know at the time that I had bitten off more than I could chew.  
To add to stupidity and ignorance, I had eaten a honey bun and washed it down with some chocolate milk.  
To further complicate my situation and to put me at a bigger disadvantage, I had to run in the pants and shoes I wore and not a runner’s outfit with proper footgear.  
We lined up to start the race, and I stood out like a jackass in the Kentucky Derby.  
Once the signal was given to go, I dashed out of the starting block like a cheetah to its prey.  
I left everyone far behind and thought to myself, “I am going to win this thing!”  
When I turned to make my first of four laps around the track, I felt myself running out of gas and noticed the others catching up.  
I saw and heard Coach Daniels and some others from our team shouting, “Slow down, slow down,” but I was too intoxicated by pride, ego, and the delusion that I somehow could still win this race.  However, reality was quickly setting in as I began to breathe harder and to move at a much slower pace than the others who zoomed pass.  
The hare had become the tortoise as I watched those disciplined runners put a great distance between them and me.  
The thought of winning this marathon had suddenly dissolved and was replaced by the agonizing and embarrassing thought of how can I finish this race.  
When the other runners lapsed me before I had finished my second lap, I knew it was all over.  It did not matter anymore.  
My pride, ego, and cockiness had given place to extreme exhaustion, hard breathing, and vomiting.  The honey bun and chocolate milk had finally run its course, and I dropped out of the race.  
A few could not help but laugh at my foolishness; however, it did not matter.  I was so glad that this horrible experience was over, the nightmare had ended, and I had awakened much wiser than before it happened.
I learned some valuable lessons on that ill-fated day that I carry with me until this day.  
First, I learned to never allow your pride and ego to override your common sense.  I should have never volunteered for an event that I had neither training nor experience to compete in.  
Secondly, I learned that drinking chocolate milk and eating honey buns right before competing in a high intensity sporting even is a no-no.  
Finally, I learned that I was not a super jock and that running in a marathon was not for me.  We all have our special abilities and gifts, as well as our handicaps and limitations.  
The moral of the story is stick to what you do best and strive to be the best that your ability and opportunity will enable you.  
Do not worry about how good and talented another person might be.  It is enough to concentrate and to develop your own skills without getting an ulcer over someone else’s.