LL Cool J, “I Can’t Live Without my Radio,” Radio, 1985, Def Jam Records

I would work out every day if I could. I love it. Physical exercise excites me, clears my head, and helps me maintain my energy levels. But there are just days when I can’t find the time to work out, and it gnaws at me if it continues more than a couple of days. 

I wasn’t always this way. While I played a lot of sports growing up, I was never much of a runner. I ran when I had to, for practice or maybe a time or two before starting a sport season, but that was it. That changed once I got to college and played rugby. Our rugby coach at the time was a marathon runner and we ran all the time during practice. And suddenly, in my late teens, I found that I kind of liked running. 

In my late 20s, when I noticed that I was starting to put on a few pounds, I began taking running more seriously. By my mid-30s, I was doing triathlons which led to my first Ironman in 2014, at age 42. 

It was also around this time that I noticed that I didn’t seem to be aging at the same rate as many of my friends. I was still getting carded for alcohol past the age of 30, and I’ve always had a “baby” face, but by my mid-40s, old friends would routinely comment on how young I looked. I feel like a self-absorbed dick talking about myself this way, but I do have a point: strenuous exercise, for me anyway, has been the fountain of youth. And not just me. Endurance sport Coach Joe Friel, in his 2015 book Fast After 50, discusses what he calls the aging myth:

“In our society, even among athletes, there is a common belief that growing old is fraught with devastating and unavoidable changes that are out of our control. The best you can hope for is to keep them at bay as long as possible by taking a handful of pills every day. There is a parallel belief that you must not do anything vigorous. Protect your fragile bones. Stop strenuous exercising. Don’t get your heart rate too high. Slow down. Take up gardening or bird watching. Act your age.

I suspect you are not buying into all of this. You’ve undoubtedly learned that the best antidote for the ravages of age is exercise. If for no other reason, you can see this in the differences between you and your normal neighbors. While you may be about the same chronological age, you are physiologically much younger than they are. Exercise, especially vigorous exercise, is powerful medicine.”^[i] (emphasis added). 

I need to add a word of caution: I do not work out hard every time I do a workout, but I do try to workout at least five days a week. Coach Friel’s book also discusses the importance of what I call “recovery” workouts, where you do something easy, run, swim, whatever, at a relaxed pace. Friel acknowledges that we all get older, slower, and need more recovery time as we age. However, in order to keep fit late into life, Friel convincingly explains that we need to engage in some hard workouts, no matter how old we get. When I did my most recent Ironman, there was an 82-year-old woman who started the swim just as I did – the PA announcer called out her name and age. 

Although I have never met Coach Friel, he actually coached a college buddy of mine, a former Olympian. I was interested in the sport of triathlon going back to the 1980s, and then I became friends with Ryan Bolton from Gillette, WY. Bolton and I met when we were in undergrad at UW in the early 1990s. Bolton was an All-American cross country runner at UW was a member of the 2000 Olympic Men’s Triathlon team. 

I got to know Bolton on a few road trips across the southwest, including a 1993 Grateful Dead concert in Las Vegas that was sandwiched between camping out in Nevada and Utah. During those trips, Ryan would set off running in the mornings, about an hour before we’d fully break down camp and we’d pick him up miles down the road. I was always impressed by his dedication to training, no matter where we went. When I was in law school, I would see his name in triathlon magazines and when he made the 2000 Olympic Team, it was statewide news in Wyoming.

I hadn’t spoken to Bolton since college, so I reached out to him as part of writing this piece, to let him know he had inspired me to give the sport of triathlon a try nearly 20 years ago. That seed has led to a lifetime of fitness for me, and I’m grateful. Ryan was incredibly gracious and replied right away, excited to hear from me. What a guy. He is now a successful coach, founding Bolton Endurance Sports Training (BEST), The Harambee Project, and he is Director of High Performance for USA Triathlon. Ryan has coached a Boston Marathon winner, Olympians, in addition to athletes from all skill levels and backgrounds. Here’s Ryan’s website if you’d like to know more about his world class level of expertise and involvement in endurance sports:

https://boltonendurance.com/about-us/coaches/ryan-bolton/

Motivated by all of this, I also signed up for my first race of 2025, the Boulder Triathlon on June 7. I’m planning on doing the sprint distance race, and it will give me something to train for in the next few months. I’ll do a couple more races later in the summer but having that first one on the calendar will give me something to immediately target. And I spent the money to register, so in my mind, there’s no going back. I plan on doing another Ironman when I turn 60, 8 years from now. I did my first in 2014, finishing in 11 hours flat. Then at age 50, I clocked an 11:45 at the Arizona Ironman in 2022. My goal for my next Ironman is to break 11 hours. At age 60. 8 years from now. So I got time to train and grow old, if the universe is willing.  

Working out also helps my creativity. The quote I opened with from LL Cool J is about Rick Rubin, legendary producer and author. Another good friend of mine, Jonathan Howdeshell, turned me on to Rubin’s 2023 book The Creative Act: A Way of Being. In the book, Rubin shares his philosophy on staying creative in both life and art, and he mentions high intensity exercise as a way to keep a fresh perspective on artistic projects:

“Meditation is a valuable tool for hitting the reset button. You may also try vigorous exercise, a scenic adventure or immersing yourself in an unrelated creative endeavor.”^[ii] (emphasis added).

At the moment, I’m trying to finish off my first book, revise a law review article, write a blog post, and keep up with my teaching and advising duties. I also have a couple other projects that I want to start. I’ve been working on my book for a few years, and the law review article for about a year. There are times when I need a break from those projects, a “reset” as Rubin says. Working out, writing about working out – those activities all give me a reset on my criminal justice projects, which can be vastly different and sometimes depressing. 

I’ll close with a few more thoughts on aging: I don’t want to give you the impression that I’ve somehow really found the key to living forever. “No one here gets out alive,” as The Doors would say. As much as I’d like to be Connor MacLeod from Highlander, I’m not. My hair is starting to get a little gray, there are wrinkles coming in all over the place, and if I bend over too long to pick up something, like weeds, I get stiff. Almost locked into place. Other days I feel like I’m still 18, bullet proof, and can run all day long.  

But I know one thing: I’m not stopping my lifestyle. I’ll keep working out, five days a week at least, and some days, I’m going hard. I’m going to push it. I might get hit by a truck while biking or struck by lightning. Maybe a shark will eat me while swimming in the ocean, or I’ll be attacked by a mountain lion while trail running. Or I could die while sitting on my ass on a couch. Personally, I’d rather take on the mountain lion but that’s just me. 

Anyone can do this. It’s one day at a time, and some days, you may not find the time to work out. But on the average, I’ll keep exercising every day until I die, whenever that is, today or 50 years from now. Like the Grateful Dead sang: “Just Keep Truckin’ On.” Rinse and repeat. 

A final big shout out to Ryan Bolton for all that he’s doing to represent UW, Wyoming, and Gillette as an internationally recognized coach. He will forever be an all-time great Cowboy and Olympian. 

So until my next post, Power River and Peace. 

^[i] Joe Friel, “Fast After 50: How to Race Strong For the Rest of Your Life,” pp. 38-39, Velo Press, Boulder, CO (2015)

^[ii] Rick Rubin, with Neil Strauss, “The Creative Act: A Way of Being,” p. 337, Penguin Press, New York, NY (2023)

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I feel like 2025 is going to be my year; my year to get some projects done and out there, things I’ve been working on for months, and in some cases, years. My book is done and during the fall semester I received what I hope is my last round of peer review edits before I revise and resubmit the manuscript to my publisher, the University of Colorado Press/University of Wyoming Press. I also have a law review article I’m revising and shopping around and a few other smaller writing projects. And I have some ideas that I don’t even want to talk about yet, projects still in the garage. For the first time in a few months, I feel like I can pursue it all. 

Last semester I took on a couple of extra courses along with a busy travel schedule. I love teaching, and it’s something I don’t ever want to give up. This spring semester I will have a reduced course load, so that’s part of my optimism and why I feel ready to produce, but I don’t want to lose track of my students, and I have many that I stay in touch with long after graduation. Some of my former students are now attorneys, police officers, highway patrolmen, college professors, professional basketball players, federal agents – and I’m proud of them all. I also have many student athletes in classes, which brings me to the topic I want to write about: the college transfer portal. 

While discussing the college transfer portal may not be related to my chosen blog themes of criminal justice reform and endurance sports, I will discuss it in the context of two of my former criminal justice students. Both were defensive lineman on the University of Wyoming (UW) football team – Jaylen Pate and Gavin Meyer. Before I get into my thoughts on the portal, I should make it clear that both Jaylen and Gavin were excellent students, and they both graduated from UW before transferring. Their reasons for transferring may be different, but they both worked their asses off while they were here, and they embraced UW and the community. Jaylen transferred to Northwestern, and Gavin picked the University of Southern California (USC) – two of the top academic universities in America, both with rich football traditions, particularly USC. 

Both men took advantage of the controversial transfer portal, which opened in October of 2018, allowing college student athletes to transfer schools without having to sit out a year. Not everyone likes it. “College football is rapidly changing and maybe not for the better,” Dirk Koetter said after announcing his retirement on Facebook following Boise State’s elimination from the College Football Playoffs (CFP). Koetter, a long-time coach and offensive coordinator at Boise State said, “We are behind right now in the NIL game. Our best players are being offered between 2 and 10 times what we can offer.”

The rules around Name Image and Likeness (NIL) have permitted college players to be paid since 2021. Looking elsewhere, the NIL money situation and transfer portal seems to be working beautifully for Notre Dame at the moment. The headline I read following the Fighting Irish’s recent CFP win proclaimed: “Notre Dame, buoyed by transfers, knocks Georgia out of CFP.”^[1] Without question, the new landscape in college football is benefitting some teams at the expense of others. But is that inherently wrong? Is it really any different than the way things have always been?

Why would a college athlete ever come to UW in the first place? With Gavin, it was the allure of the Wild West. “I fell in love with the wilderness and I will surely miss the outdoors and mountains that you do not get many other places.” He would like to work as a game warden or perhaps private security along with possibly coaching someday. Gavin credited UW with preparing him “exceptionally well” for both grad school and football. He was “developed inside and outside the classroom by so many dedicated and impactful people.” Meyer won Academic All-Mountain West honors in 2021 and 2022, majoring in Criminal Justice with a minor in Sociology. Gavin is currently obtaining a certificate in Gerontology from USC. 

Meyer is also declaring for the NFL draft and beyond football, he wants to travel and, “see new places I haven’t been able to go while playing college football.” This past season, Gavin had a successful year for the Trojans, starting for them at defensive tackle and in this article, earning high praise for leading the USC D tackles in snaps and QB pressures:

https://usc.rivals.com/news/dt-gavin-meyer-s-warrior-mentality-is-legacy-he-is-proud-to-leave-at-usc

Like Meyer, Pate is “full speed ahead with preparing for pro day in March. I’ve put together solid film over the last few years.” This past season, Jaylen also had a fruitful year, including a game against Purdue where he had 3 tackles for a loss. This is a nice piece about Pate in the Daily Northwestern:

https://dailynorthwestern.com/2024/10/01/sports/football-northwesterns-jaylen-pate-finds-fuel-in-his-process-strives-for-consistency/

Citing long term health concerns, Pate was quick to note that, “quite frankly playing football for long professionally has never been in my plans. In the immediate, I’ll have to figure out whether I still plan to attend law school or not.” 

Pate fondly remembers the “simplicity and peacefulness” of Wyoming. “It was easy to get away from a lot of things and I really just learned how to enjoy my own time, thoughts, and peace.” Jaylen also found both the academic and athletic transition to Northwestern easier than he expected. “At first coming to Northwestern, I felt as if someone like me didn’t have the ability to attend and do well. Until I finally got here and realized that it’s the exact same work that everybody else is doing, it’s just that at ‘elite schools,’ they do a better job of collecting the most driven individuals and the top talent.” 

In Jaylen’s case, he had been accepted to the University of Illinois (Urbana-Champaign) law school, but they did not offer him a football scholarship. Northwestern on the other hand, offered Pate a football scholarship but their law school waitlisted him. So, Jaylen went to Northwestern on a football scholarship and was accepted to the Northwestern Master’s of Public Policy and Administration program.

As prison education is near and dear to me, it was heartwarming to see that Pate also became involved in the Northwestern Prison Education Program, serving as the reentry chair. My colleague at UW, Tiger Robison, visited the prison ed. program at Northwestern with me, which is housed in their law school and pictured at the top. Pate still wants to work with an innocence project or equal justice initiative at some point. 

Chicago is also where Jaylen grew up, so the opportunity to return there to play in front of his friends and family was a significant factor in his decision to transfer to Northwestern. In both cases, Gavin and Jaylen transferred after they graduated from UW. 

I had the extreme good fortune of talking with both of these men during their processes of transferring. Full disclosure for those who don’t know me, but I grew up in Wyoming and have been a lifelong Wyoming football fan. My grandfather on my mother’s side was a professor here. My parents basically met on the UW campus, and I went to undergrad here. I love this place, but when I was 21 and looking at law schools, I wanted to get out of Wyoming. In hindsight, I probably should have stayed here in Laramie for law school. It’s a great school and it produces fantastic lawyers, which I can also attest to – since my entire legal career has been here. 

But when I was 21, I didn’t care about that. When Gavin and I talked about the process, he mentioned Cal Berkeley had contacted him. That was my dream for law school, although my LSAT was nowhere near high enough to get me in at Cal. But I went and toured the campus anyway, back in 1993 and it was stunning, completely awe-inspiring. Again, don’t get me wrong: our campus here at UW is beautiful in its own right. However, Cal Berkeley was something altogether different. So I tried to put myself in his shoes, especially knowing that he had graduated already and had given this university everything he had. It’s a big world out there, and I told him he’d be crazy not to transfer. 

My feelings about the transfer portal are complicated. Everything in life changes so quickly. I know that I have a different perspective as a college professor than I would have ten years ago, before I started teaching at UW. I am more sympathetic to the student athletes, at least the ones that I’ve worked with. I also know Gavin and Jaylen are both fine young men who gave UW everything they had while they were here, both on and off the field. The portal worked out beautifully for them and they earned it. They were great football players, great students, and excellent humans and – they will always be Wyoming Cowboys. Powder River and peace.   

^[1] https://www.espn.com/college-football/story/_/id/43266364/notre-dame-buoyed-transfers-knocks-georgia-cfp

The post Falling into the Portal – 2025 appeared first on Dan Fetsco.

Beardsley rose to running prominence in the early 1980s, winning several notable races, including the London Marathon. Without question, Dick’s best known race was his battle with the great Alberto Salazar in the 1982 Boston Marathon. Beardsley would finish 2 seconds behind the Olympian Salazar in a race that is famously known as “The Duel in the Sun.” Salazar would win his 3^rd consecutive Boston Marathon that day, but it was Beardsley who is remembered for his gutty performance, leading the race for most of miles 17 through 25, when he and Salazar broke away from the pack. The local press had given him little chance in the race, dubbing him a “bumpkin” from Minnesota.

The lead pack ran the initial mile in 4:33, which would set the blistering pace for that day. Salazar was the heavy favorite, and in ultimately winning, he clocked a new course record of 2:08:52, with Beardsley finishing second at 2:08:54. After 26.2 miles of endurance chess, the margin of difference was razor thin at the finish. 

“I remember crossing the finish line, and the clock is reading 2:08-something. There were only like one or two other people who had broken 2:09, and I’m thinking, ‘Wait a minute, I just ran a 2:08, and I finished second!’”^[1]

Beardsley would later say, “As I was finishing that race, I told myself, ‘I’ll never face anything so difficult as this again.’ But I was so wrong,”^[2] 

Following his performance in Boston, many sportswriters picked Dick as a favorite to make the 1984 Olympic team. Unfortunately, like so many great athletes, injuries would derail Beardsley’s career, forcing him into retirement by the late 1980s. By his own admission, Dick’s life would later become “pure hell.” Beardsley would endure multiple freak accidents post-retirement. Two of the injuries included a truck striking him while running in Fargo, North Dakota, and most significantly, his entire body, left leg in particular, was torn apart by a tractor accident in his native Minnesota.

Through those crippling mishaps, Beardsley became addicted to pain killers by the early 1990s, at times taking as many as 80 pills a day. It provided him with a front row view of the current opioid epidemic plaguing America, and also got him caught up in the criminal justice system. While Dick did not speak much at all about his felony drug conviction during his talk at the University of Wyoming (UW), he didn’t need to. It’s in the past and clearly not a measure of this remarkable man. He did say that it was the best thing that ever happened to him, and he described his faith and personal recovery process, including the excruciating withdrawal from methadone that he suffered through.

Dick Beardsley took the time to meet with me and discuss this blog post and my work in trying to reform the criminal justice system, and for that I am grateful. He’s funny, self-deprecating, and he truly cares about people. It was a joy and pleasure meeting him. He is a living example of the power of human resilience and redemption, and his presentation to the campus was life changing for me and so many of the students and other audience members. The picture of the audience that I took shows a crowded house, and there was a balcony above with bunches of students not in the picture. I laughed and cried, although it was mainly laughs. 

Beardsley is also a best-selling author and has written or co-written several books, including Duel in the Sun and Staying the Course: A Runner’s Toughest Race. If you’re interested in learning more, here’s his website:

https://www.dickbeardsley.com

One thing Dick said about that accident with his tractor was that immediately before he went to use the machine, he hesitated and almost headed inside the farm house to tell his family he loved them. Instead, he continued on with his chores and was nearly mangled to death by the tractor. His message was simple: never pass up an opportunity to tell someone you love them.

Classes start Monday, so I will hopefully be posting some future articles about upcoming events here at UW. Maybe nothing quite as motivational as Dick Beardsley’s talk, but I’ll see what I can come up with. Until then, peace. 

^[1] https://lakesarearadio.net/2022/04/19/dick-beardsley-alberto-salazar-boston-marathon/

^[2] https://apnews.com/631df27631724f71ba7edf5c9dcc4d41

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