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This is an unusual set of blog posts for us – trainer and coach Marcus Santi shares in two posts his memories of the effervescent Eliza Fletcher. Eliza, 34, was running near the University of Memphis campus around 4:30 a.m. on Sept. 2 when she was abducted and killed, allegedly at the hands of a stranger. At her memorial service, Tennessee teacher and mother Eliza Fletcher, was honored for "bringing light to this day and the world." Hundreds, if not thousands of people gathered in the pre-dawn hours of Friday, Sept. 9 to finish Fletcher’s run after it was tragically cut short. 

America, you are getting to see behind the curtain of what a special light Eliza Wellford Fletcher was.  

There is a reason why we have come to love the smile. You have felt the innocence and joy this person possessed. You have felt the atrocity this violation of humanity was. This has reminded us there is such a thing as good and evil in this world. 

Sometimes, it feels like society is in a David vs Goliath type of battle. 

Those who saw the battle of David and Goliath said of Goliath “he is massive, he cannot be defeated.” They laid in fear as the mighty Goliath was taunting his dominating size to his opposition. 

A little man of stature with a bright light inside of him became angry at this man’s taunts and arrogance. Determined, David stepped forward to face the mighty Goliath. He had enough, answered the call, and was willing to invest his very life to do something about it. 

Have you ever had the courage to step into an arena with a Goliath? 

Most of us who have never really intended to seek out Goliath, somehow, we just happened into the situation, as if the situation found us. Now we are faced with a choice – run and hide or stay and invest. The only thing we can do is “give it our best shot”.

By now, if you read my last post, you have figured out Liza was an athlete, not an ordinary athlete, potentially Olympic caliber type of athlete. 

Spring 2003 and Liza has found herself in a David vs. Goliath scenario. 

Regional Track and Field Championships:

We had won the 300 hurdles, as an 8th grader, the year before. Set the regional record and almost came within a tenth of a second of winning the State Title, at the Varsity high school level. Ironically, Liza lost to Ann Santi…which was my mother’s married name to my father that abruptly came to halt shortly after their vows. Needless to say, I felt like I was in the Twilight Zone. “My prodigy is going against… my mother. Yup, that sums up the course of my life.” Who was a “Goliath” to deal with, both the athlete and my mother. 

Going into the season we were set up to dominate this Region and take another shot at the State Championship this year. 

As always, a Goliath came about….

There was an opponent from our region who decided to go after the 300 hurdle State Championship just like us. This competitor won the 400m State Title the previous season.  

She was 6 feet tall, fast, long legs, and had already received a “full ride” track scholarship to a Division 1 school. She literally was Goliath. 

Potentially Liza could hear the doubts from the “fans in the stands” and this could become a mental/belief “hurdle” we will have to overcome if we are going to ACCOMPLISH our goal of WINNING a state championship. I didn’t want to lose time dealing with that stereotype of thinking. Keeping her focused was my goal. 

Early in the season Liza faced off with this Goliath and we lost. This loss ate me up, put a little fear/doubt into her...for a day. 

I thought, in the back of my mind, this is a good thing. It gives a false confidence to the athlete and her coach. I planned on using this against them when it counted. 

This defeat also banished any false confidence we could gain early in the season. We now had a real opponent which only made Liza better and made me better as a coach. Every workout was designed with even more regimented purpose. More acute calculations and teaching points of what and how to execute an elite 300 hurdle race. There was a really big fish out there to fry. 

My most important job was to keep Liza’s confidence on track with the plan: giving her the best chance to win and perform her best during Championship season. (Regional and State track meets).

Liza is still a little girl, sort of. She is just hitting puberty. Which really took me aback. I got so use to “Little Liza” that when her body started to change, I wanted to yell at her “WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU ARE DOING?! STOP THIS IMMEDIATELY!!!!” But such is life; we can’t stay kids forever. 

She was a little girl/young teenager, but her mentality was not. She was college level maturity when it came to preparing for races and racing. She was a ball of nerves and part of my job, and the rest of the team, was to keep her from completely flipping out. (Thank you Mussell, Ivy, Elizabeth, Whitney).  

Those balls of nerves are one of the reasons why her magical performances could happen. As the starter's pistol fired so did Liza and her bundle of nerves which got pointed in one direction with a lot of speed. Those who have learned to master their emotions have their nerves go away as the energy comes through your body and into the ground as you explode from one step to the next

Great competitors can be hard to be around on “game day”. We are caged tigers ready to be released. I knew when she was ready to run something special because of the fire in her eyes. I almost felt sorry for her competitors.

We had 4 weeks of preparation before we would see Goliath again. 

Regional Championships Qualifying rounds, the day has come. 

Twenty-four hours prior to this race we walked the track, side by side, breaking down what and how we will execute, not the 300m race, but hurdle to hurdle race. She had the maturity to understand and execute into micro-units. Not the whole race, but the pieces that will build into a whole race. 

“You’re on the outside lane, Goliath is going to see you the whole time, when you get 20 meters out from hurdle #5, I want you to accelerate here (pointing to a specific mark on the track) as you slice this hurdle from the outside of the lane, which leaves you on the inside part of the lane as you cross the hurdle. Now you’ll get the slingshot effect and down the straight away with momentum. Goliath will see this, and she will try to go with you.” 

And this was the trap we laid for our overconfident competitors. They didn’t know it was a trap. The coach, I knew him personally, he was smart and crafty. He thought he had a winner just on sheer size alone. I knew something from all my years of being a hurdler: speed doesn’t always and really never wins hurdle races. Rhythm in between hurdles wins races. 

Of course, you have to have a certain amount of speed to be in contention for a victory at this level of competition, and Liza had plenty of speed. But what her maturity, as an athlete, allowed her to do was use her rhythm to run even faster times. 

The opposing coach did not know this, how to use rhythm in between hurdles nor did his athlete understand. There are 3 constants in the race: distance between the hurdles, height of the hurdle, and distance run. 

As Liza accelerated 20m out from hurdle 5 and her opponent, all the sudden, tried to accelerate and sprint with her…it completely blew up her rhythm in between the hurdles. Her stride got too long and she ran to close to the 5th hurdle which then only had a domino effect as she was putting on the brakes into every hurdle so her left lead leg would go over the hurdle first. She continually kept diminishing all her speed into every hurdle thereafter. 

Liza sling shots off the curve which is creating more speed for her between the hurdles. Goliath is trying harder and harder, she couldn’t re-establish her rhythm. She was chasing Liza, not racing, and chasing never closes the gap. 

She didn’t understand rhythm. Liza’s pulling away more and more as she goes on to win the qualifying round and yet again take 2 more seconds off the Regional 300m hurdle record. (45 seconds)

We have a day off before the Regional finals. We walked the track one more time:

“Marcus, do you think I can beat her?”

“If I was given the choice as to what athlete I’d want to coach, I’d pick you. I’d pick you every time. No question. She doesn’t have what you have. She doesn’t have your HEART.”

That’s all she needed to know and I could only say this because in my HEART I believed 100% in what I said. 

We have bested her in the qualifying round, what about the finals? Do we play the same strategy? 

Do we lay a trap for her yet again? 

NO!

I knew my athlete and what this athlete was capable of, or so I thought. I only say this because she was constantly teaching me, there are some people who just don’t know limits. She was breaking records every time she ran the “big” races. 

“Liza there are no tricks. No traps. We don’t need them. You are just flat out faster. You take it to her. Drop the hammer and don’t let up.” 

As the race approached, there was electricity in the air that was rare. The hair on your arms could stand up. Are we watching David vs Goliath? Can it happen? Did it happen?

Gun goes off and Liza comes through the 200m mark, she is leading. You could feel her power, her intensity, as she ran by. She was a lioness on the hunt…as she goes by and onto the home straightaway…her lead only got bigger and bigger. She did exactly what she was told to do “put the hammer down and don't let up.” The little blonde hair, 9th grade, mouth full of braces, 5 foot 3 inches put her giant HEART on the line and she placed, with precision, a rock between the eyes of Goliath. 

All of the crowd was on their feet, arms in the air as she came down the straightaway. People lost themselves overcome with emotion that great races, great competitors like these can produce.

She did it!!!!!

She lived it.

Set, yet another, regional record and won by 2 seconds.

The opposing athlete, as she was walking back to her coach, I heard her say: “That little white girl is just fast.” 

Right then and there, we took her mind/her mentality. There would not be enough time for her coach to reconstruct her mentality before the State Championships. I knew we had her beat for the upcoming State Championships. We put it in her head that she cannot win unless there was an act of God. 

I hope by now you are understanding how the “I’s” are “we’s”. WE, the team of athletes needed one another. A season of training and competing can be tough. WE made it fun. WE supported one another. WE laughed together. WE cried together. This team was mischievous, and most often I was the butt of their jokes or pranks, which I secretly loved. I love a mischievous team. They were always up to something. 

That team by night's end at the Regional meet, we not only won the 4x100m, 4x200m, 4x400m, 300m hurdles, 800m, and 200m–we set the school records and regional record in all those races. (Liza was part of 4x100 and 4x400 relays)

T.E.A.M. Together Everyone Achieves More.

Liza was the first Champion off that team. (Her performance the year befor.e) Because of that 8th grader winning a championship this team could now accept and prepare for many champions to come the following season.

Liza helped lay out the red carpet for us to break any stereotype we may face.

She will be remembered for the champion and inspiration she was.    

Marcus Santi  

author of Journey of the Son, available at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Abebooks and Books–A-Million