Welcome to the first edition of Hero Highlight! This is a place where I would like to take the time to recognize some personal heroes and some heroes of others. On the first of each month I will release the hero of that month. I think it is so important to recognize the people that have played key roles in your life and would like to use this space to do just that.

Today, I recognize one of the most influential people in mine. His name is Brandon Welti. For anyone that knows him, they probably didn’t even know his name was Brandon because everyone, including his own mother, calls him Welti (sorry that I let the cat out of the bag). He was my middle school history teacher, my high school economics teacher, and most recognizably, my high school cross country and track and field coach.

No one would argue against the fact that Welti is a great running coach. He was a very successful runner himself and has genuine love and passion for the sport, his athletes, and competition. However, he is not a hero because he coached me through one of the toughest sports there is (don’t even try to argue with me on that). Welti is a hero because he coached me through some of the toughest times of my life.

In high school, I had a genuine passion for running, but time and time again I was plagued with stress fractures, injuries, and a couple of high school career ending ACL tears. People write about heartbreak caused by significant others, family situations, or the loss of someone, but no one taught me how much heartbreak sports could cause. In running, I had tasted success, won medals, had a dozen patches on my letter jacket, stood on podiums, and had accumulated more ribbons than I could count. I loved to compete and I was good at it. I knew what victory tasted like and I yearned for more. But God had a different plan for me. Because of injuries, surgeries, and more injuries, I was sidelined my entire senior year.

I spent my meets, taking stats, writing times, and cheering on my teammates. I was providing no points, was not contributing to any trophies, and was not adding to any team stat. Where most coaches would have moved on to their next successful runner and not looked back, Welti persisted to invest in me. He was not just invested in my physical rehab in hopes that I could make it back for track season. He was invested in my headspace, my spiritual well-being, and how I was recovering from the toll of the heartbreak.

The week that I tore my ACL for the second time, I was in a pit. I was sad, frustrated, angry, and disappointed. That week Welti and his wife brought my family a dinner and brought me a few ironic gifts to help me get through this time of grief. One was the movie Les Miserables, one was a book by Max Lucado titled “You’ll get through this,” and another was a book by Dr. Seuss titled “Did anyone ever tell you how lucky you are?” These are perfect representations of Welti’s humor. The pasta dinner was delicious, the gifts brightened my spirits, but what was most important came after. Welti sat down, opened his bible, and led us through a small sermon he put together, himself. He assured me and my parents that blessings would come from this, and that God had a good plan.

Sure, Welti cared about how my physical rehab was going, but what was really important to him was where my spiritual health was. Being sidelined was hard. A part of me hated watching others do what I loved and take it for granted, but I knew it was more important to put those feelings of resentment behind me and cheer my teammates on in their success. I will say that the one perk of being sidelined was that I got to spend a lot of time with Welti. He was mentoring me in so much more than running. He was mentoring me in grace, in adaptability, in how to control your perspective, and most importantly, how to put God first.

Welti is a great running coach. He knows what he’s talking about, he invests in his athletes, and under his sarcastic exterior has a caring, positive, genuine spirit. However, what truly makes Welti exceptional is not his running expertise, it is his will to coach his athletes through life as well. Welti is a big believer in logging miles. However, he believed in more than just logging the number you ran that day. He believed in documenting, how you felt, who you were with, what the weather was like, and where the conversations went. I never cared much to document that stuff until Welti made me do it in high school. Today I look back at my running logs and reminisce on what a great time in my life that was. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to get rid of them because in those binders are so much more than miles and paces. There are memories, stories, amazing moments.

Despite the odds, I was still able to compete at the collegiate level. At my graduation open house, Welti brought me a couple of gifts to take with me to college. One was a gift to nurture my love for running; a nice running notebook to log all my new memories. The second was a Bible, to nurture my spirit. Welti didn’t know that I had been pricing new Bibles, as mine was 10 years old. The timing of this gift was nothing short of perfect.

Welti is a hero. He offered me guidance through one of the toughest seasons of my life. I know that if I didn’t have him coaching me through the pits, I would have come out a much different person that I am today. Welti taught me what it takes to be a successful runner, but more importantly he taught me what it takes to be successful in life.

So, there it is. The first Hero Highlight of 2021; Brandon Welti.