Skyline head coach Tom Porter and his family had a brush with uncertainty recently.
Driving home from a visit of his son in college, the family's car rolled on the road after Porter swerved to avoid a southbound car. Both his wife and three children were wearing seatbelts, he told the Desert News in Salt Lake City, and everyone was OK.
But it was in that moment, he later recounted to his hometown newspaper, that it him struck how important life is at any given moment.
Fast forward to Wednesday at the Utah Cross Country Championships in Salt Lake City.
"We went up to Park City a few weeks ago, and we just blew up," Porter told the Desert News, recalling the team's second-place performance at the Park City XC Invitational. "We had the worst race, and it was probably the best thing that could happen to our team because it woke them all up. It wasn't that they ran horrible, it was that they didn't compete. They didn't get in there and fight. And that was the first time, all year, I didn't see them fight."
Right before the Class 5A race, Porter told his team the story about his family's car. He showed them a picture of the accident.
He told them not to waste a moment, not on this day.
The team went on to win the Class 5A championship, their first, scoring a narrow 76-80 win over Maple Mountain.
Read the full story by the Desert News here.
