56 Freakin’ Pirates gathered in the fast-brightening Gloom outside Gate 5, now known as Coop’s Stronghold, at Dowdy-Ficklen Stadium. I was in town to visit Papa Smurf, so I pulled a little Home Office Prerogative and told Bono I wanted to run the stadium. He made some calls, wired some stuff up with our man Pied Piper and conjured up a Convergence that was deeply appreciated by YHC (he also put me up at Casa Bono as well, and his wife and daughters were very kind hostesses). Just so y’all know, Bono must be saying his prayers each night and living right — a lucky man.

When I visited with Papa and Mary Ann on Wednesday afternoon he made some — *ahem* — amendments to my plan, so if there was anything you didn’t like about this morning’s workout you can take it up with your local holder of the Order of the Long Leaf Pine.

The Thang:

_ Enter at Gate 5 and Storm the Stadium. Moving clockwise around the stadium, go up each aisle, do 5 burpees at the top, then down the next aisle; up the next aisle and repeat-o. After the first group finished, we worked back toward to 6, grabbed everyone and headed out at concourse level.

_ Once out of the stadium, we circled up at the concrete bench circle and did some impromptu Mary: a plank-o-rama, plus some Makhtar N’diaye, then some flutters, dollies, etc.

_ For the finale, my co-Q requested some raccoon crawls atop the concrete benches. Cold Cut obliged with a demonstration for the out-of-towner and we closed with that.

Spreadsheets from the Gloom:

_ Awesome to see three FNGs out for this. Welcome to Short Sale (an ex-Pirate o-lineman turned real estate agent), Rundown (a member of the ECU baseball coaching staff) and Crankshaft (whose particulars I didn’t catch — Cobains for that, brother, but welcome).

_ Ever since we did GrowRuck 02 last month, Goose has been on a tear about helping Cadre Danny with his Million Burpee Challenge for the year. At 16 ascents times 56 men times 5 burpees each ascent, that’s 4,480 burpees for Danny and Operation Enduring Warrior.

_ Loved seeing the extra credit crew arrive in their rucks and storm the stadium with us.

_ At the center of the stone benches where we gathered for the final bit of work and the COT is a monument commemorating ECU’s entrance into Conference USA. Which is nice and all and everyone loves a good Thursday Night ESPN2 game from Greenville, except I’m not even sure C-USA still exists. I’m told they’re raising money for a new monument to the current conference, which is the American Athletic. Hopefully they can knock that out before the next round of realignment?

_ Thank you to Bono for a moving closing Shout Out.

_ So why did I drive over to Greenville to lead this workout? I’ll tell everyone reading this what I told the pax this morning, which was that I wanted to come while I was sure I would still have a chance to communicate with Papa Smurf so that I could hug him and tell him that I love him and that I am grateful to him for being That Someone in ENC.

I loved that Closed Hand with able to join this morning, because I remember meeting him in the summer of ’13 when he came to visit his brother Nancy Drew in Charlotte and he told me and Dredd he was going to plant a workout in Greenville and we told him, “blessings be upon you, brother — and good luck with that.”

And for a couple of years there, Closed Hand was That Someone for Greenville — That Someone who sparks a fire and then works his a– off just to keep it going, feeding it little bits of tinder and kindling, just keeping that flame alive. It’s happened that way in a lot of places in F3. Just ask Madonna in San Antonio or Fonzie up in NW Indiana, men who have just kept that fire going long enough. Until another That Someone comes along.

Call the next That Someone the First Follower or the Dancing Idiot or whatever you like. He’s the one who, for whatever reason, sees what it can be or runs with the right crowd of guys or whatever. And he’s the lighter fluid on the fire. In ENC, that was Papa. I came to thank Papa for being that man in Greenville, and it was a double blessing this morning that I got to say that same thank you to Closed Hand. Because none of it happens without both those men.

And of course, God in his unknowable wisdom then called Papa Smurf to be another That Someone. We sometimes talk about how F3 can help a man change from a Mascot into a High Impact Man, and that’s a beautiful thing to watch. In this case, though, God sidelined Papa and gave him a new role of Mascot — a man who I’m sure had never in his life been a Mascot. And Papa has been That Someone again by living into that ultimate human virtue of Grace Under Pressure. Mary Ann as well, for that matter.

So my challenge to all of us, myself included, was simply to look at our own lives and ask ourselves, “In what way am I called to be That Someone?” In family, in brotherhood, in work, in our faith community, in F3, in the world — be That Someone.

Yours,

OBT