Embodying a willingness to rise to the occasion, three simple words — improvise, adapt and overcome — have been adopted as the unofficial mantra of the United States Marine Corps.
To elaborate: Life rarely goes as planned.
Luck favors the prepared, but existence has a habit of heaving a monkey wrench into the best laid plans of mice and men.
But that’s the nature of the beast: hope for the best, but prepare for the worst.
Redshirt freshman Mac Macoy has had the distinction of being on both sides of the line.
Growing up in Vestavia Hills, Alabama, Macoy bloomed into an elite cross country recruit despite the fact the sport wasn’t even his first choice.
"As a kid," Macoy recounts, "I played basketball, I got into golf. When I was in middle school, I was never really super athletic, and I actually didn’t make the golf team, and so I had to do something. ... Both my parents ran, and then it kind of took off from there."
"Took off" is arguably an understatement.
"He ran 9:07 for two miles as a junior in high school," coach Paul Spangler said. "9:07 for two miles. He’s one of the top juniors in the country."
Couple that with a blistering 4:15.98 split in the mile, and it becomes apparent that Mac was a veritable talent, flying on the terrain as if he had donned Hermes’ mythical talaria.
However, it was only a matter of time before it’d all crash back down to earth.
McCoy said the pain started in October 2013.
"I had a similar injury that I think was, looking back, caused by my back. It was just a lot of weakness in my hips and lower back, and so I was injured pretty much all of my senior year," he said.
A comeback attempt resulted in a stress fracture in his foot, sidelining the promising athlete for a four month chunk from March to July.
Finally healthy, he began training once again, only to fall victim to a back injury that was soon classified as "recurring."
"It was sort of actually hurting a lot more than it did in high school. And so, you know, I had to go to the doctor, and they found out that it was a stress fracture."
His options? As Spangler put it: "They put him in a back brace and said ‘well if this doesn’t work, your options are to fuse the vertebrae together, and you never run again, or you never run and you be in pain’."
Faced with a fork in the road, McCoy opted for an arduous circuit of physical therapy in an effort to banish his injury demons for good.
"He was in a back brace for about six months…the guy just, I mean, worked his butt off to get healthy, was in the training room every day doing the exercises," Spangler said.
"Two different back braces. My hat goes off to that kid. Most runners, they would’ve quit the sport, to go through what he’s gone through."
His dedication is apparent, gutting it out through the dark days of rehab.
"I would say that there were, there were points where I was very skeptical that I would ever compete at the NCAA level again. You know, I was hoping that I would just even be able to run, like, recreationally again, just because I love running."
As Macoy himself described it, "Yeah, there was definitely sometimes where I was really discouraged."
But that’s the special thing about Mac — he stuck with it.
He improvised.
He adapted.
He overcame adversity.
And, with his name scribbled into the Gators’ Southeastern Conference roster, Macoy serves as living testimony to the fact that hard work triumphs over all.
"I’m a strong believer in God, you know," Macoy said. "I believe that He put this injury in my life for a reason, and I don’t regret any of the hard work that I’ve had to do to get back to where I am."
"He’s only been training for, like, five weeks," Spangler noted.
"Shows you how talented he is."
Follow Alejandro Lopez on Twitter @ajlb95
Courtesy of Gatorzone
