The Skinny Fourth Grader and Coach Bobby

Physical Education (PE) class in grammar school was often the scene for a great deal of my anxiety and the reality of how different cystic fibrosis made me feel growing up. I was skinny, had a terrible cough and was lapped by many of my peers when we had to run laps.

Those memories don’t haunt me today solely because of one person.

My Uncle Bobby Davis who ran the Peachtree Road Race for nearly four full decades, was asked by my parents and my Aunt Susie to coach me. This wasn’t a stretch for my uncle who coached football and had that coach’s mentality that “limitations” were not reasons to quit but rather incentive to find a way to cross the proverbial finish line.

My uncle saw me less as the skinny kid with a deep, wet cough that could silence a room instantaneously and more as someone whose greatest disability was not understanding the power of motivation.

Bobby and I ran nearly every day sometimes as far as 5 miles. Weeks earlier, I couldn’t even run 5 laps around a small grammar school gym. He taught me the skills I needed so that I was no longer being lapped by my peers at PE. Now I was lapping many of them which would eventually earn me Most Improved Athlete at an awards ceremony at the end of my fourth grade year.

Bobby not only taught me how to run; he taught me so much more. He showed me that no hill is too high, no distance is too long and that no matter how tired I am or how much I want to use my disease as a crutch, crossing the “finish line” is a sure fire remedy to feeling better.

My uncle has continued that stubborn mentality he taught me as he fights his own battle today with Parkinson’s disease.

My 27th Peachtree Road Race was dedicated to him.

Uncle Bobby, we lapped a lot of people today.

Love,
The Skinny Fourth Grader
Andy Lipman