I was the happiest guy to ever finish seventh place.

Fifty yards ahead of me, with about 100 yards to go, was Mike Devlin, the fastest guy on the 1983 Howell Township Cross-Country team. My fiery coach at Point Boro High, his face beet-red and his soiled eyes leering at me, pointed at Mike's backside and fired off an order.

"Go get him!" he yelled. "Beat him, and we get the shut-out."

I did.

When Mr. Seyfried barked, you bowed. When he wanted speed, you spun.

Soon, the distance was 40 yards. Then 20, and 10. With just 20 feet to go, I lunged past Mike, head and all, and stretched out a split-second advantage for myself. I probably saw too many of those photos of Jesse Owens from the 1936 Olympics, thinking I could lunge, run and win, just like Jesse. It worked.

I was always hoping I could win something. Anything. Before then, I didn't win much. I didn't get the girls. I got picked last in kickball. I got cut from the baseball team. I got cut from the basketball team.

That day, on Oct. 18, 1983, in Howell, I did. Yeah, it was seventh place. Yeah, I didn't really win. But it was a triumph, and it was my first real one. Whenever I'm tested, I think back to that day, at Howell Township High School, when a little extra effort went so far.

Whenever I'm behind, I think of Devlin's backside, and I remember how I caught up, and passed him at the end. I think of that extra "oomph" I had in my steps—the extra juice of adrenaline that made me catch up, and launch into a fully loaded sprint.

I didn't win, but I did preserve Point Boro's shutout, a 15-50 clobbering of Howell where the top seven runners were all from the same team. That team was ours, and I was seventh.

Whenever I hear of sports, and how people want to cut them, or reduce the funding so the sport is reduced to something meaningless, I wonder: If they could only feel what it's like to be 50 yards behind somebody, feeling helpless, only to conjure enough spirit in the last seconds to triumph.

When I did it, it became something so memorable, even 27 years later, with my best running days behind me.

I always wanted some taste of victory, the kind of success that others enjoyed.  I was always hoping I would be faster. Sure, I did well in school. But sports were the social barometer. The better I did, the better things were.

It had little to do with making friends. It had nothing to do with school spirit. It was all about the spirit of the self. It was about finding the ability to achieve.

That spirit carried over into my journalism career. I never had the greatest connections. I didn't have the money to go to the best schools, the ones that pushed people through the doors of Columbia and into the hands of a big-time newspaper.

In my career, everything always seemed to be running behind. Despite the many successes I've had, the newspaper industry has suffered for much of the past 20 years. Many solid reporters have left. News holes have shrunk considerably.

Here, at the Howell Patch, where I'm helping to manage Howell news, I feel like I'm catching up again. With Patch demonstrating the foresight to capitalize in the market of digital journalism, I feel like I'm running ahead again.

Until that Howell meet, at age 16, I had no idea how to summon that spirit. I didn't understand the idea of coming from behind, and succeeding. I watched athletes do it and thought it was something magical. After Howell, I learned something quite different.