The Fruitful Gift

In much the same way a boat pushes waves onto a distant shore before it arrives at a dock, significant future events can send subtle signals into the present. People sometimes receive these signals and adjust their actions in anticipation of what's to come. Athletes and anglers do so by opening what some have called the doors of perception, allowing themselves to perceive the reality of an impending moment with crystal clarity.

Certainly, Jack Nicklaus opened the eyes of his mind while he played the final round of the 1986 Masters. Coming into the week, pundits gave the aging veteran little or no chance to win. Halfway through Sunday's round, he trailed by several strokes. But the old pro began to get on a roll on the back nine, and started to feel the effects of something imminent and special.

When he stood atop the hill on the par-5 15^th, gazing across the pond at the pin tucked into the right side of the green, he said to Jack Jr., his caddy that week, “How far do you think a three would go here?”

“I think it's a four,” the son said.

“No, I mean an eagle,” Jack corrected him. Then the Golden Bear drilled a four iron onto the green and sank the putt, continuing his comeback, helping all in the audience begin to believe we were seeing what we wanted to see.

After the father hit his tee shot on the par-3 16^th, he took his gaze off the ball mid-flight, turning to look at his progeny, who followed the shot intently. “Be right!” Junior yelled.

Softly, in a matter of fact tone, Papa Bear said, “It is.” He already knew the truth. The ball spun within a few feet of the flag, setting up another birdie. By the time the game's greatest champion watched his putt on the 17^th curl into the cup and raised his putter in defiance of Father Time, we all knew what was happening. A while later, in Butler Cabin, they took the Golden Bear's green jacket out of his locker and slipped it over his shoulders for a sixth and final time, in what not only felt like a fitting finish, but also an inevitable one.

Similarly poignant events unfolded near the end of the 1998 college football season, when the Texas Longhorns faced their rivals, the Aggies of Texas A&M. Going into the game, Longhorn tailback Ricky Williams needed 63 yards to pass Tony Dorsett and become the game's all-time leader in yards gained rushing. Near the end of the first quarter, Ricky had closed the gap to just 11 yards.

“I knew I was getting close,” number 34 would later say. “And I wanted to break the record with a long run.”

When the moment presented itself, Ricky was ready. Once he had his hands on the pigskin, a crease developed in the left side of the line, and the burly ball carrier flicked one Aggie aside with a stiff arm and broke into the clear, racing away from his chasers. After he had secured the record, the young man clearly wanted more. When he bulled his way into the end zone, the capacity crowd in Austin roared like a stampeding herd. Like Jack in '86, Ricky had opened the valve in his mind, freeing his body to fulfill its own prophecy.

Famous writer and psychiatrist M. Scott Peck defines grace as the ability to perceive ripe opportunity and seize upon it consciously. Surely, Jack and Ricky displayed the gift of grace when they made history on those days. One moment stands above all others in my own angling career, as bearing resemblance to their achievements.

The first Troutmasters Classic took place on the weekend of Halloween, in 1998. I chose to fish in San Antonio Bay during the event, mostly in what I and my friends call “Twin Lake on the right.” Heading into the tournament, a seemingly Biblical flood rendered most of that body of water fresh like Lake Conroe, forcing what little saltwater remained in the bay into its southern extremes, also concentrating many of its trout and redfish in small spaces.

In those days, between about April and November, I started almost every day of fishing by throwing a small topwater. If I could prove the fish would blow up using what I perceived as my “fish finder,” I'd often replace the little plug with something larger, hoping to urge strikes from bigger fish. The plan paid off for me handsomely back then.

I caught two or three trout quickly on the first morning of the event, using one of my favorite Spit'n Images. Then, fully confident in the efficacy of a floating plug, I pulled out my wading box, looking for the perfect one. The night before, tournament organizers had given each contestant a bag full of lures and other swag. I'd placed one of the plugs, a bone Ghost, adorned with an Early Times Whiskey logo, into my wading box.

The lure lay beside others bearing teeth marks which proved I'd caught many fish on them. But my gaze fell directly on the shiny new one. I remember thinking, perhaps even saying out loud, “How could this not be the lucky one?”

While I tied the new Ghost onto the end of my line, I began smiling, not at someone else, since I was alone, but at what I suddenly knew was coming. Standing in the back right corner of the lake, I cast the cigar-shaped plug as far as I could downwind, toward the point of grass extending off the shoreline in front of me. Using my favorite retrieve for breezy conditions, I began to execute a presentation I call the “skim and pause.”

First walking the dog with a few sharp twitches of the rod tip, then pausing, then turning the reel handle fast for several revolutions, I caused the lure to jump off the top of a wave, into the air between two crests. And then it happened. The wide-open mouth and broad dappled side of my trout emerged from the brine as she snatched the flying Ghost and caused a white ball of suds to erupt around the end of my line.

Time seemed to slow to a crawl while it all played out. I remember feeling as if I were watching myself from above, like a spectator in my own show. The fight didn't last long; I won. When I had the fish securely attached to my stringer, I paused to consider what I'd done. I can't say I knew the fish would win the big trout prize in the tournament, but it did. I can say I realized I'd become aware of the event before it happened, as if I had allowed it to happen, by getting out of my own way.

That fish caused my name to begin to percolate in the trout fishing community. More than any other, it spawned my life as a fishing guide. People don't generally catch such big trout in San Antonio Bay, neither today, nor over two decades ago, when I did. Luck surely smiled on me that Halloween. But I take credit for feeling what I felt and doing what I knew was right to give life to the event urging itself into existence.

In a way, my actions remind me of a more significant sporting event, one which played out on the track at Belmont Park in New York, on June 9, 1973. Heading into the race, Secretariat had won the Kentucky Derby and the Preakness, both in record times. He stood on the cusp of immortality; if he could win the Belmont Stakes, he'd win the Triple Crown, American horse racing's most treasured prize.

Observers on the scene say Big Red looked like he knew what was about to happen, that he carried himself with purposeful dignity. But let's keep it real. Secretariat was a horse, not a human being. I seriously doubt he actually knew what he was doing. He simply wanted to run, because he loved to run.

His owner, Penny Chenery, did know exactly what she was doing. The lady had forced the handlers of the most famous horse in racing history to hold him back a bit in the previous two events. But on that June day in New York, with history on the line, she said, “Let him run.” And run he did. Big Red won the '73 Belmont Stakes by 31 lengths, setting a record for 1-½ miles that stands to this day.

He crossed the finish line without another horse sharing his space on the TV screen, truly separating himself from the field. In doing so, he not only won the Triple Crown, he executed what I'd argue is the single most dominant performance in sports history. Credit must be given to the stallion's owner, and to jockey Ron Turcotte, who rode Secretariat into the hallowed halls of fame.

“I whispered 'easy boy' into his ear to keep him going. When I saw we were going to win, I chirped, so he'd know not to let up. He found another gear,” Turcotte later said.

They got out of Big Red's way, let him run his race. After many years performing stud services in safe pastures, Secretariat passed away; when veterinarians performed an autopsy on him, they discovered the great champion had a heart twice the normal size.

Very few of us have the freakish physical traits and skills of Big Red, the Golden Bear or Ricky the running back. Most of us won't win a green jacket, nor find a pathway to sporting immortality. But we can use the fruitful gift of grace to listen and react when a ghost drops a hint to reveal a sweet truth about the future.