The Origin of Finish Strong

On March 29th, 2019, eight weeks after my heart attack, I began Cardiac Rehab.  I met with my new nurse Mark in a conference room and we reviewed notes from the cardiologist and he explained what happened that fateful night.  He said that shoveling snow in my driveway likely caused a piece of plaque to break off, blocking the right coronary artery 100%.  He explained that they would start me off slow because my heart had damage from the heart attack.  There was likely some permanent damage and there was also damage that could be temporary.  However, if I pushed too hard, that temporary damage could become permanent.  This stuck in my head as I began because I have a tendency to push way too hard when I am just starting back up in the gym.

I have to admit that I was anxious heading into rehab.  In the weeks leading up to rehab, I walked the hills in my neighborhood.  Those walks helped build some confidence.  I was no longer short of breath as I had been prior my heart attack.  I just kept telling myself that I would be wearing a heart monitor and I had experts watching me closely. After the consultation was over, Mark took me to the treadmill.  He told me to go 3 mph for 15 minutes with no incline.  It seemed very slow to me but I did what Mark told me to do.  It helped that he could see how fast I was going on the monitor he watched.  I knew he would come over and tell me to slow it down if I went faster than told.  I finished up my time on the treadmill with no issues and it seemed very easy.  Mark then took me to the Nustep machine.  I was very familiar with this machine because I loved using it when I went to an 8 week chronic pain rehab program in 2007.  Most gyms do not have this machine and I hadn’t used it in 12 years.  He put the machine on level 4 (out of 10) and told me to do 15 minutes.  I had no issues.  Again, it seemed easy.  However, with two minutes left, the phrase “Finish Strong” popped in my head.  I hadn't thought of it for years.  So where did this phrase come from?  I can vividly remember the moment it entered my life 29 years earlier on a football field.  My mind immediately took me back to the summer of 1990. 

My Cardiac Rehab facility at Shadyside Hospital

I always wanted to play football growing up.  My dad played football in high school and college and he also coached football at my high school in the 1970’s.  I have had a love for the game since I was a little boy.  When I was in elementary school, many of my friends played for the “Little Eagles” pee-wee football team and I wanted to be a “Little Eagle” badly.  My friends on the team walked around in their blue “Little Eagles” jackets and I really wanted one to wear one of them.  I would beg my dad to play.  He would always reply, “a boy’s body isn’t ready for contact football until they are in junior high.”  He never budged from that stance. So I had to set my sights on starting my football career in 7th grade at Turner Junior High.  The problem, when that time came, was that I was about 4’6. I joined the team but I was just too small to get much playing time.  Our team dominated week in and week out leading to a 7-0 record and I would run onto the field to play left guard during the last few minutes of each game.  Discouraged about my size and seeing that my playing time wouldn’t change until I grew, I stopped playing after that season.  I didn’t get my big growth spurt until the summer before 11th grade.  However, by the time I grew, it was too late to play my junior year. 

My parents and me on the field of Mollenkopf Stadium before one my dad’s games.  

 

Warren, Ohio was a football town and we had two large public high schools in the city.  Both played Division I football, which is for the biggest schools in the state.  Both high schools in the city had won state championships in football.  The Warren City School system was millions of dollars in debt and they decided during my junior year (1989-1990) that they would consolidate the two schools starting my senior year (1990-1991).  The football coach from the other high school, Warren Western Reserve, was named the head coach for consolidated school.  Coach Phil Annarella came over to my high school, Warren G. Harding, one December afternoon.  An announcement came over the PA system that any boy interested in playing football the following school year could miss 8th period to attend the informational meeting.  I was all about getting out of class so I headed down to the meeting.  As I sat in the auditorium and listened to Coach Annarella talk about playing for him, my attitude changed from “I am sitting here to get out of class” to “I would run through a wall for this man.”  He was not a "rah rah" coach but I could tell that he was genuine, cared about his players, was full of class and that he was a winner.  I decided that afternoon that I was playing football my senior year. 

Coach Annarella holding the State Championship Trophy at our parade in downtown Warren.  Sadly, Coach passed away suddenly last summer.  He will always have my admiration. 

My parents had reserved a condo down at North Myrtle Beach for a week during the summer of 1990 before I made this decision to play.  Well, it just so happened that the first week of summer conditioning was the week we were scheduled to go to South Carolina.  I attended after school conditioning from January through May so I knew the coaches pretty well at this point.  I talked to a few of them and told them my dilemma.  Do I stay home and miss out on vacation for football or do I go to the beach and miss the first week of summer conditioning?  They told me to go to the beach and to not neglect my conditioning while I was there.  So I went to the beach and spent time running and doing other exercises.  I worked out in the weight room at the condo complex and made up some drills that I did in the ocean when the undertow was strong.  We came home from the beach on a Saturday night and my first practice was on Monday evening. I had missed four nights of practice. 

We wrapped up my first practice and one of the coaches came up to me and said, “Jenkins, you owe me 32 gassers for missing last week!”  I replied, “Um, what is a gasser?”  Some of my teammates, who were close by, just chuckled and muttered, “oh man, this is going to suck for you.”  So what is a gasser?  You stand on one sideline of the practice field.  The coach blows the whistle and you run across the field (53 yards) to the other sideline, run back to where you started and then do it again.  Four trips across the field for a total of 212 yards equals one gasser.  You had to complete each gasser in 45 seconds.  Now factor in the heat and humidity of an early July day while wearing a black football helmet along with your practice jersey and shoulder pads.  Anybody who was thinking straight knew it was not going to be easy.  However, my thinking was, "OK, no problem."  It is funny how you think you are invincible when you are 16 years old.  Once all my teammates went into the varsity house, the coach told me, “I’ll tell you what. Give me 8 gassers tonight and then 8 gassers on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday and we will be square.”  I looked him in the eye and said, “Coach, if its OK with you, I want to run all 32 tonight.”  I will never forget the look on his face.  He gave this half grin, kind of rolled his eyes and shrugged his shoulders and said, “OK, if that’s what you want…”  He put his whistle in his mouth, turned around, and shook his head in disbelief.

So why in the world did I tell him that I wanted to run all 32 gassers that night?  One reason was ego.  I had the attitude of "I am going to show these guys that I am a tough guy."  Another reason was that I wanted to impress them.  I was going to be in a dogfight for playing time.  After all, I was essentially a rookie as a senior in high school.  My dad, a former football coach at this point, warned me that I would have to really stand out to have a shot.  We just combined two football powerhouses into one team.  I had to grab the attention of my coaches in any way I could.   I was hoping this would do the trick. 

Coach lines me up on the sideline and blows his whistle.  I take off.  I am mapping out a strategy in my head as I run. “I can average 11 seconds with every trip across this field.  I have to pace myself since I just committed to running across this field 128 times.  Wait, did I just say 128 TIMES?!?  I cannot burn myself out quickly.”  The coach is shouting out when I hit 20 seconds and then 40 seconds.  If I am cutting it close, he counts down from 5 to 1 after he yells 40.  “40 seconds, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1”.  I finish the first 3 gassers and I am thinking to myself “This isn’t too bad. I’ve got this. No problem.”  Around gasser number 8, my legs are getting a little heavy and I am having some pain in my ribs.  About 12 gassers in, I start having my doubts. The voice in my head says, "Wow, I may have made a mistake. This is getting tough."  About 18 gassers in, I am yelling at myself in my head.  “You idiot! Your big mouth just wrote a check that your legs and lungs aren’t going to be able to cash.”  At this point, I am slowing down. I would yell, “time coach?”  and he would tell me how many seconds I had when I asked.  He quit announcing the time when I was 20 and 40 seconds in around gasser 10.  I hit the 24th gasser and I know that there is no way I am finishing them in 45 seconds.  On my last time across the field for that gasser, I yelled “Time coach?” He chuckled and said, “Man, I quit looking at the stopwatch a couple of gassers ago.  I am just impressed that you are still upright!”  By this time, I am really feeling it.  My legs feel like concrete.  Let me remind you that I had just finished a 3 hour practice and ran the most grueling running drill we did as a team called “4 Corners” at the end of our practice.  It was after all of this that I committed to 32 gassers.  Yes, I realize I made a completely moronic decision.  Around gasser 26, I just feel like quitting.  My brain, legs and lungs are screaming at me to just stop and tell the coach that I would do the rest of them tomorrow night.  But my pride wouldn’t let me.  This is when that phrase first came into my head.  FINISH STRONG.  It became my mantra.  I kept just telling myself over and over in my head, “FINISH STRONG, FINISH STRONG, FINISH STRONG!”  I was struggling to breathe and that pain in my ribs was really intense at this point.  My legs felt like stone pillars.  I was a sweaty mess.  I was fantasizing about drinking some cold water as soon as I got into the varsity house and then drinking about two gallons of ice-cold grape Kool Aid when I got home.  The thoughts of keeping my time were completely gone.  My only focus at this point was just completing the task at hand.  However, on my last gasser, I made the decision that I was going to go as hard as I possibly could.  It probably did not look very fast but I dug deep and ran as fast and as hard as I possibly could.  

My football picture taken a few weeks after summer conditioning started.

I managed to finish them.  It had to be around 9pm and it was almost dark at that point.  I can still visualize the pink sky on the horizon as I finished.  The two coaches, who were lying on tackling dummies while I was running, made a big deal about me finishing.  Both of them chatted most of the time I was running and I wasn’t even sure they were paying attention during the second half of my self-imposed ordeal.  But they were recalling specific times when they thought I was going to quit.  They could tell I was struggling and they were shocked that I pulled it off.  What I set out to accomplish happened.  Several other coaches pulled me aside the next night to compliment me for gutting it out and running all 32 gassers.  The defensive coordinator said it made a real statement to them.  I guess the coaches who supervised my running went into the coaches room afterward to tell them that this nutcase named Jenkins ran 32 gassers at one time.  I think they knew that I was serious about making an impact on this team.  

So now, 29 years later, I sit on the Nustep machine surrounded by senior citizens after suffering a very significant heart attack.  I was determined to finish strong.  I am not just talking about these 15 minutes on the Nustep on the first day of rehab but in my recovery in general.  I knew I was going to have some down days in my recovery.  Would I get myself off of the mat and dust myself off to fight another day or would I just take the easy way out and quit?  As I was preparing to start rehab, I read a statistic that only 1 out of 5 people who suffer a heart attack will complete cardiac rehab.  Most will not even go.  Some will go but will not finish.  But I also read in the same article that if you finish cardiac rehab, your chances of having another heart attack go down significantly.  It was going to be a big commitment.  I had to drive 45 minutes just to get to the hospital down in Pittsburgh.  Traffic is terrible in this city.  My ride home was over an hour with people coming home from work.  But I was committed to completing cardiac rehab just like I was committed to running those 32 gassers after saying that I would.

I completed the program on June 28th, 2019.  As Mark was going through my discharge papers with me, he said, “because of your hard work, commitment and dedication, we want to offer you to continue coming as part of the maintenance program for free.”  I was prepared to say goodbye that day and I was sad about it.  I love the nurses there and got to know many of the participants.  I even had an opportunity to minister to some of them.  We knew that they had the maintenance program for $40 a month but we could not afford it on top of the cost of gas and parking.  My wife Lisa came with me on my last day and I went over told her that I could keep coming to rehab for free and she started crying.  We were extremely grateful for the opportunity to continue.  I am still going to the maintenance program.  Sure, I have had a few hiccups.  I suffered a significant concussion last summer and missed a few weeks to recover.  My heart was going out of rhythm in October and I was hospitalized for 8 days.   After being discharged, I had to put the heart monitor back on and cut back on my exercise routine.  Before my concussion, I was working out almost three hours per session.  I am still not back to going hard for three hours.  In November, I got bronchitis which lasted for 9 weeks.  But when I got to the point where I could breathe again, I resumed.  Now rehab is temporarily closed due to COVID-19.  But I am working out nearly every day at home by walking around the neighborhood and using bands for strength training.  I can’t quit working out as my life is riding on this.

Posing with the shirt they gave me upon completion of Cardiac Rehab

I encourage you to finish strong in whatever you do.  If you are battling a physical issue, finish strong.  You can’t go back and change what has happened in the past but you can make changes today and commit to finishing strong.  If you battle mental illness, commit to getting help.  Finish strong.  It applies to our faith as well.  We got wrist bands made that say, “FINISH STRONG” on them.  On the back of the band, I decided to put “2 Timothy 4:7” on it.  The Bible verse reads, “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race and I have remained faithful.”  The author, the Apostle Paul, was sitting in a jail cell waiting to be executed when he wrote this letter to his protege Timothy.  Timothy was a young pastor who was dealing with difficult circumstances in his church.  Even when Paul was in jail, he was ministering to others.  Paul was telling Timothy that the end of his life was near, that he had fought the good fight, he had finished the race and that he remained faithful.  He was encouraging Timothy to do the same.  My relationship with Christ is the most important thing to me.  Those who follow Christ are engaged in a spiritual battle and that battle can get us down.  Life is not easy.  I am determined to fight the good fight and to finish the race strong; physically, mentally and spiritually.  I am committed to remaining faithful.  Fight the good fight.  Finish the race.  Remain faithful.  We only get one life.  Commit to finishing it strong.