February 2026 Alumni Update

Bison,

I found myself in two places at once in January. I was at Bucknell, then and now, invited by Head Coach Kevin Donner to spend several days with his team members. I spoke with them for a few hours one morning in the Forum of what we called the University Center, what's now called the Elaine Langone Center, looking out from the podium at a hundred or so jumpers, vaulters, throwers, and runners, seated where I sat half a century ago, when I listened to one speaker or another visiting campus. I went to Kevin's team meeting after my talk, where he rallied his athletes for the Nittany Lion Challenge at Penn State the following day, as Head Coach Art Gulden did when we were those jumpers, vaulters, throwers, and runners, bound for a meet.

I went to practice in Gerhard Fieldhouse following the meeting, watching those jumpers, vaulters, throwers, and runners go through their final rituals the day before competing, as we did. I went to Penn State the next day with them, rode on the team bus with them, was there all day into the evening with them, on the track and in the throwing venues with them, watching them battle for every second in every race, every inch in every jump, vault, and throw, as we did. And most memorably, I spoke with many of these athletes throughout my days there, listening to their thoughts on being students and athletes at Bucknell, listening to their thoughts on being young and earnest and driven and hopeful in this world, trying my best to offer meaningful responses to their questions, those I asked when I stood where they stood.

My talk in the Forum was about translation and transition, about translating the values required as an athlete at Bucknell into the values required in life after Bucknell, one of many ways to ease the transition from life at Bucknell to life after Bucknell. The better the translation, the better the transition. No one knows why four years go by like four days, I told them. Suddenly you're a freshman, suddenly you're a sophomore, suddenly you're a junior, suddenly you're a senior, and suddenly you're walking up to a stage in the quad, some dean is handing you a diploma, and you want to know what...just...happened. The better able you are to make the translation, the better able you'll be to make the transition. The values of discipline, commitment, courage, passion, and heart needed to excel as a jumper, vaulter, thrower, and runner at Bucknell are the very same values of discipline, commitment, courage, passion, and heart needed to excel in any and all ways after Bucknell. Make the translation, to make the transition, taking Bucknell with you, understanding you're not a member of the Bucknell cross country and track & field team for four years. You're a member of the Bucknell cross country and track & field team for life.

I spoke of how I'd already seen such values impressively in this team, most recently at the Patriot League outdoor championships last May, where Wade Shomper '26 won the shot, Evie Bliss '27 won the javelin, Brian Scotto '26 won the 110 hurdles, and Alexandra Lea ' 28 won the 400 and 200. I spoke of how these values were also evident in performances that weren't victorious, as when Kerry O'Day '28 fell in the steeple yet fought back to finish 7th, Henry Didden '26 held on for as long as he could with Navy to finish 6th in the 5,000, and Margaret McLaughlin '26 took the lead at the start of the 10,000 and held it through 5,000 meters, knowing the risks, but wanting the race to be honest. I spoke of how these values were even evident in their disappointment, which some of them felt over performances short of their expectations, the disappointment indicative of taking the sport seriously, and as impressive as any medal won. At the meet, I said, I saw a team that came to compete, to excel, to fight. I saw us in them, the team I ran for half a century ago, in the team I watched half a century later.

I spoke of distance runner Caroline McCaffrey '28, who'd already made the translation as part of her transition, even though she's yet to graduate, suffering a ruptured brain aneurysm last June and, with remarkable conviction, poise, and maturity beyond her years, compelling herself back to health. She's returned to Bucknell this semester. "When your life is unwillingly turned upside down, you have no choice but to be strong," she said in a speech at The Barnes Museum in Philadelphia last November, at an event celebrating her achievement, a comment I read to the team. The value of strength is needed to run a fast 5,000. But she wasn't referring to the 5,000. She was referring to the translated value of strength, learned from the 5,000, needed to battle for your life. I told them for us, half a century ago, cross country and track & field wasn't a sport. It was a way of life, as Gulden professed, oriented about these values, which we learned as jumpers, vaulters, throwers, and runners, and which we've brought to bear in our lives over the half century since.

After returning from Penn State with the team on Saturday night, and having dinner at what we called Dunk's, what's now called The Bull Run Inn, I went for a walk on Market Street. It had begun to snow, flakes falling like stars, gently from the sky. As I made my way to the bridge, I passed the Christmas displays in the shop windows, the Christmas decorations on the street lamps, the Christmas lights in the trees. It was late, past midnight, and it was cold. And so the street was empty. In the stillness, I was reminded of a walk I once took with a friend on this street half a century ago, on a snowy winter night like this one. We were seniors, graduation in sight. She and I said little, breathing in Christmas, quiet so pure it seemed like a sound itself. The memory was distant, and fleeting, an impression more than a recollection, a whisper in the darkness. But it was clear, as clear as the stillness itself. I was at Bucknell, then and now.

--Bob