Billy Cyr's Induction Speech 5-27-2018

First, I want to thank you for all those kind words. I also want to congratulate all the other inductees for their achievements. It's an honor to be here with you. My father passed away three years ago. I wish he could have been here, but he's not for the obvious reason. Well, he would have loved to have him here to celebrate his son's accomplishments. After all, he is the father who would leave a dental patient stranded in the dental chair so they could walk down Fireline Road to watch me finish a race. That's not the reason his presence is missed. The real reason I wish he was here is because if my dad was here, he'd be sitting back with all the other Palmerton people telling very funny stories about my many misdeeds and failures, keeping my tendons from getting too big. For example, ten years ago, a Times News reporter said to my dad, 'You must be so proud of Billy for all he's achieved.' My dad responded, 'No, I am NOT proud of him. I'm proud of his mother. He was a very difficult child to raise and a rather amazing one.' My dad always seemed to know what was required in times of victory to keep my head screwed on straight, and in times of disappointment, how to get me back on track. And it was not just my dad, it was one of my coaches. I've been blessed to have some really good coaches over the years, and that is who I would like to acknowledge today. I had three primary coaches during my high school career and one in my college career. My high school coaches, Chance Asik, Arch George, and Bill Piper, are legends in Palmerton cross-country history and are already in the Carbon County Sports Hall of Fame. My college coach, Larry Ellis, is also a legend who was named the head coach of the US track and field team for the 1984 Olympics and later was president of USA Track & Field, the national governing body of track and field in the United States. Each of these men built successful individual athletes and successful teams, a difficult balancing act. My career is often described as an accidental one. I always wanted to play football, so much so that a Morning Call profiled me in my senior year, titled 'He Wanted Football.' But my lifelong friend Frankie Hannes, sitting back there, broke my arm twice. The second time, in seventh grade, doctors concluded that I needed to have a bone graft, which in those days was done with tools that looked like he bought them at Shay's Hardware: drills, saws, chisels. And they told me that I could no longer play contact sports. Thus, my career as a football player ended, and my career as a runner was born. Bill Piper was my first cross-country coach. I would like to tell you that he inherited a model athlete, but instead he got a hard-charging, determined runner who was so cocky that the upperclassmen on the team initiated the event record eight times. That means I was chased, tackled, wrestled to the ground, and dragged through a mud puddle or an ice-cold stream on the cross-country course. In today's politically correct climate, I suspect just one of those initiations would turn into a major public relations scandal with severe consequences for all. But I can tell you that I truly deserved them and learned a good lesson from them. Bill Piper inspired runners in an unusual way. Each one, he wanted us to try to outrun him. When we did, we felt like we'd beat him, but in reality we ran more miles and trained harder than we otherwise would. He inspired me to become a runner. Coach Sausage brought an intellectual bookishness to a sport that I thought was defined simply by the miles you ran and the minutes of toughness. Coach Sausage saw me as a crash test dummy for every new training idea he read about. Most of them worked, but not all. Clearly, though, Coach Sausage's tactics worked often enough because he coached numerous championship teams and runners over the years, and I was probably the biggest beneficiary of his time and energy and learned how to be a much smarter athlete. Coach George taught me the importance of teamwork in a largely individual sport. Coach George entered me in four distance races in every meet and made it clear that my role was to score the much-needed team points. Thus, my career became defined not by the big races I won, but rather by the number of races I was entered in and won. By the end of each season, when others were peaking for the big meets, my legs would be dead. But I look back at those teams and that experience with a big smile on my face. Winning as a team is far better than winning as an individual. That is a lesson I carry in business every day. In college, I got to train with current and future Olympians and got to watch a world-famous coach balance the needs of the winners with those of us in the supporting cast. I had nowhere near the ability of my Olympic-bound teammates, so I had to learn to work hard and compete just for the love of it, not because I thought I might win. That is a difficult transition for any successful athlete to make. I went from being the champion to being an inconsequential member of a team. But I was on teams that were in the top 20 in the country and loved every minute of it. And Coach Ellis made sure I became the best runner I could be. In conclusion, all of us here were blessed to have great coaches along the way. Without them, we would not have achieved what we are being honored for today. So I take this opportunity to say thanks to each of my coaches for all you have done. And I wish my dad would be sitting back at the table ready with a witty line to put me in my place when I sit down. But I'm sure that my siblings and friends who are here will be glad to fill in for him. And the only question is which of those sweet people will strike first. Thank you.