Coming into the MIS era girls XC draft I knew that I had no hope of winning, or even taking 2nd for that matter. I barely scraped by in the guys draft, a topic I’m much more knowledgeable about. It’s not even that I don’t know much about girls athletics, I’m just not as studied on the greats of the past beyond the few names everyone knows. Trying to take on the man who *literally* wrote the book on the subject (Jeff Hollobaugh) and an extremely accomplished coach who’s coached athletes to the grass of MIS every single year since the Michigan State Meet has been held there (Coach Sal) would have definitely been a losing endeavor. With the addition of Sal, we felt it only fair to be consistent and draft 3 teams of 7, 21 total girls as we did 21 guys, and I, Benny the Jet, was given a choice:
Team up with my brother Noah and lose together (yuck!) OR take the MC duties and try to keep the pod moving while giving my 2 cents.
It didn’t really take much thought before I knew what I was going to do.
The first thing that I have to say about my experience as the MC of the draft was how awesome of a learning experience it was. I knew that Michigan has historically had a lot of solid distance runners on the girls’ side, but DAMN. I had no clue how remarkably deep our girls have been since the 90’s. Some of the names that went in the last round, or undrafted even, are INCREDIBLE talents. I know we say this on the podcast, but I can’t stress enough how great so many girls from Michigan were and are at distance running and while the draft showcases the best of the best, we don’t want to take anything away from anybody.
The other thing that stuck out to me was how Jeff was totally and completely unaware that it was his turn again, every time it was his turn. Luckily he was well prepared and regrouped quickly, but apparently being in the middle was quite a shock for Mr. Hollobaugh, which I’m glad about because hearing that man exclaim “It’s my turn again ALREADY?!” never got old.
Frankly, this draft was one of the most fun podcasts I’ve ever been a part of, and I couldn’t be happier to have had Coach Sal come on board to show off some knowledge and bring some great energy. One of my favorite moments of the whole recording session was toward the end of the pod when Noah took a moment to give a heartfelt message to Sal and the coaches of the world, words that I wholeheartedly agree with and truly aren’t said enough.
Admittedly, I take the podcasts pretty seriously and I always feel like the sound quality could be better, my choice of words and tone of voice can use some work, and my editing skills need improving, but the actual content of this one was good and the recording was so fun, no matter how good we get at this Scrambled Legs thing, this one will always have a special place in my heart.
If you haven’t yet, give it a listen. Once you’ve listened, get ready to vote for who you thought had the best team on the Twitter poll when it goes up in a few days. Keep on running, keep on listening, and thanks for reading!
Benny the Jet over and out.
Fatstacks 
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