How a surrogate 'Dad' taught me to run, and lifted us all in the inner city.

I went to Middle School and part of High School in Seattle's south side, bussed into the inner city. In eighth grade I ran cross country, pounding the pavements and parks of south Seattle as our legs ate up the miles in fall conditioning. In ninth grade I ran track, and received the great gift of a coach I will never forget.

Rocky Adams stood about six-foot-two, with a big belly and grizzled silver and black hair. In his sixties, he’d been through segregation in Alabama where he’d been made to use ‘colored only’ washrooms. He’d run track in the Olympics on the same team as Jesse Owens, and talked about Jesse like he was just around the corner, or a phone call away.

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I don’t think there was a single girl on our team who had a father living at home, including me. Somehow, they’d divorced or died or drifted away. So Rocky became OUR father, the father of every girl on that team.

I remember how we’d drift out onto that red cinder track after school, and gather in a little cluster around Rocky. Every girl gave him a hug. It wasn’t like Rocky asked for hugs. We just went up to him and put our arms around his big belly and we hugged him for all the father we could get.

Some girls would hang on him, and he’d have to peel them off and before sending us all around the track. “I have a headache Rocky,” we’d complain, buying time, or “I’ve got pains,” and he’d get stern: "Your head hurts, your belly hurts, next thing your hair is goin’ to hurt! When I was guardin' them women in Korea, suddenly they’d go off in them bushes, and come back with a baby half an hour later! And you tell me you can’t get round that track?!”

Rocky worked at a sports store, and he never let a girl or boy go without the spiked shoes we needed to run our races. He made it clear, if you didn’t have the money for a bag, or Bengay, or a new set of spikes, he’d get them for you.

Years later I wondered how much of his own money he’d spent on those shoes. At the time I thought they were magical, free, but now I understand he must have sacrificed for us, like a good father would. He lectured us tactfully on athletic wear, that a good bra would improve our performance – go buy one. He drew the line at supplying those.

With his stories of Jesse Owens, with his chiding, he encouraged the girls to stay in school and the boys to give their best. Don’t get pregnant, he told the girls, but he didn’t shame or shun when one girl did and had to leave the team.

As a fatherless girl, I counted on my hugs from Rocky. He gave me unconditional love and support for all the years I ran track with him, at school and during club in the summers when I’d take the bus across town to practice, even though I never came in first, not once. I am grateful to have lived in a window of time when he could hug us like a father, and we could respond like daughters.

When I look at Barak Obama, I hear in my mind some of Rocky’s stories about growing up in the south, and I definitely hear how proud he would be, just like he was so proud of Jesse Owens. Rocky’s stories of Jesse lifted up those inner city girls and boys, gave them a shot at a new horizon.

What if people who are weakened by despair and limited options suddenly find strength through Obama’s leadership? Won’t it be a wonderful thing for our nation if everyone became stronger? That everyone feels they have a chance? What if the despair of the inner cities is suddenly lifted by hope, and the talent and beauty and life there has reinforcement for creating positive patterns?