One interesting-to-me aspect of preparing remarks about my old college running coach was the challenge of trying to remember my undergraduate days. Those were from 1991 to 1995 — more than half of my lifetime ago — so it was hard for me to dredge up much in the way of factual detail. However, my emotional memory seemed relatively good. With a bit of effort, I could conjure up some of the sensations of being an energetic but insecure young adult. After my dad and my teammate Jeremy advised me to keep the focus on my coach, I cut some of the “I was an energetic but insecure young adult…” stuff, but I could still feel it.
I had a similar experience three years earlier when writing up a little reflection (below) for my 25th reunion. Most of the relevant facts were hazy at best, but I could still feel some of the feelings.
For example, when I thought of Matt Murrell (a casual acquaintance at the time with a small part in the essay below), I felt flush with shame.
You see, at our oral presentations of our senior theses in May of 1995, I asked Matt a question, and he gave what I’m sure was a perfectly good answer, followed by a modest coda of, “I’m not sure if that answers your question…”
“Well,” I responded, “It’s a start.”
As soon as these words were out of my mouth, I knew they had come out wrong. Rather than playing myself, a fellow undergrad, I was pretending to be a professor — and an arrogant one at that.
I wound up cutting that scene, too.
* * * * * * * * *
As I sit here this morning, thinking about my years at Williams, the first thing that comes to mind is … the phrase “the unlikely foot of Matt Murrell ’95.”
I didn’t know Matt well, but he was a fellow biology major who (unlike me) was also on the soccer team. If memory serves, he played fullback (a defensive position) and got limited playing time during his first couple of years on the team. And so, reporting on a fall-1992(?) match, the Williams Record noted with surprise that a key goal had come from “the unlikely foot of Matt Murrell ’95.”
Why in the world should I remember this particular mildly zany sentence fragment? Well, despite my congenital inability to tell a proper joke, humor has always been important to me. And so a lot of my Williams memories center around punchlines or wry observations or comically weird turns of phrase. Combo Za’s John Fagan, portraying the world’s worst architect: “Hey, wait a sec, this isn’t the floor plan — this is my kid’s D&D map!” Computer guru Max Nanao, on accidentally shutting down the Amherst and Williams networks simultaneously: “I don’t think it’s a FEDERAL offense…” Chemistry professor J. Hodge Markgraf ’52, describing the analytical technique of gas chromatography: “It’s like a pig going through a python.” And on and on, occasional Record excerpts included.
The above examples notwithstanding, the humor could get abrasive and insensitive at times. In one of my worst offenses, while filming a cross-country race, I once mocked a teammate’s slow pace on-camera. Why, Greg, why? In retrospect, I wish I had been more reflective about what I found funny. Beyond that, I wish that my brain had devoted less space to cataloguing the latest sarcasm, and more to appreciating those who aimed for kindness rather than for laughs.
I’m not referring to my closest friends — people like Grant Harbison and Ethan Lewis and Jeremy Fox — to whom I think I was reasonably devoted. I mean the people who were NOT my closest friends, but who took care of me anyway. People like Becky Mallory, who stuck up for me in Williams E, where I did not fit into the hard-partying atmosphere. (Our end-of-year t-shirt read, “If only our parents knew…. If only we could remember.”) And Priscilla Carr and Maren Reichert, my senior-year neighbors in West, who indulged my late-night opinions. And Heather Champagne, who once held my hand for a full minute — not to flirt (she was already dating Ian Penner), but to teach me to relax when making (consensual) physical contact with women. And Alison Criss, whose helpfulness complemented that of Professor Lynch as we toiled away on our sphingolipid biochemistry research.
There were many others.
Thanks to all of you. I am grateful for your unlikely feet, your cunning minds, your receptive ears, and, above all, your kind hearts.
My Track Record 
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