We hear the question in press boxes, on sidelines, in classrooms and in casual conversations at the grocery store, when we weren’t savvy enough to put on a disguise before leaving the house.

“So, what’s your favorite sport to cover?”

I give the copout answer most of the time. “Whatever’s in season.”

It’s a legitimate answer. I mean it. There’s nothing better than a soccer game while standing in short sleeves under blinding sunlight in September. Or a frosty Friday night in October watching age-old rivals duel on the football field.

Basketball in February. Hockey in March. Lacrosse in April. Baseball whenever. Auto racing on summer weekends. I got into this business because watching and writing about all of those things beat working.

The longer I stick around and avoid chasing an honest living, one sport continues to ascend that list. It might surprise you.

I wouldn’t say it’s my favorite to cover, because it makes for some interminable, 12-hour Saturdays while normal people are golfing or at the beach. But it’s among the most fun to write about, simply due to the quality of the young athletes involved. And there is no sport, game, activity, whatever, that I respect more.

Track and field.

It’s not an endeavor that occupies much of our calendar, really. I covered the Mountain Valley Conference championship meet this past Thursday and the Kennebec Valley Athletic Conference on Saturday. Next weekend I’ll draw one of the three state championship meets, and it’ll be over. Much too quickly, I must say.

Perhaps this increasing appreciation as I get older, if not wiser, is based on the greater separation between the precious present and my own, ahem, glory days as an “athlete.”

There was a time when I was the fat kid who could hit the ball a Franklin County mile in my grandparents’ pasture, or throw as many innings in a week as Little League would allow without even breaking out an ice pack.

Basketball? I was a playground and driveway wannabe, at best, but I could stick the occasional uncontested 3-pointer or use my 6-foot-3 frame and Kevin McHale arms to block a shot now and then. It wasn’t the impossible dream.

Most of us have tackled a sibling or tried to pin his shoulders to the basement floor, all in fun or otherwise. We’ve driven a golf ball 220 yards, never mind the accuracy. We still play shinny at the rink or touch football at the park.

Track is the sport I could not do, then or now.

I don’t run. I physically cannot run without looking like I’m trying to find the nearest porto-john. Walking is my sport, and I mean leisurely after-dinner walking with ear buds drowning out the sound of my footsteps, not that insane race walking stuff.

The thought of me jumping is comedy gold. I’m not coordinated enough that anyone should trust me to throw an object larger or heavier than a Nerf ball.

So I bow at the $300 sneakers of anyone who can pursue any of these activities reasonably well in front of people. But another of track’s most endearing qualities is that any kid who is my younger clone can try it, if he wants.

It’s a no-cut sport. It’s a sport where people who fancy themselves non-athletes, even some with daunting physical and mental handicaps, can find their niche. With persistence and coaching, they get good at it, and the personal growth and self-confidence manifested by it is invaluable.

Here in geographically and economically isolated Maine, it’s also a sport in which the higher-level athletes may shoot for the moon and feel that they have a level playing field. Heck, we might even have some advantages. If you’re a runner, is there any better place to practice than hilly, scenic, four-seasons Maine?

It’s also one that doesn’t require much overhead and can be played from now until you’re 99. Get a pair of shoes and go. I think of this every time I hear about the thousands of dollars the parents of kids who play other sports are paying for equipment, camps, AAU tournaments and more, even when the odds of that investment leading to a Division I scholarship are infinitesimal.

Yet here, in our little tri-county area, in the past week I have watched one athlete (Josef Andrews of Telstar) who is getting a ride to a major D1 school and another (Isaiah Harris of Lewiston) who assuredly will when he graduates in a year.

Whatever it cost to get those two gentlemen into the sport was a pretty solid investment. Not to get too political (you have to follow me on Facebook or Twitter for that), but I hope the good folks of Lisbon think that over when they are faced with the choice to invest in a new, all-weather track for their high school a week from Tuesday.

If you build it, the athletes will come. So will the reporter who now considers the track one of his favorite places to hang out.

Walking. Slowly. With only a pen and a tape recorder in his hand.

Kalle Oakes is a staff columnist. His email is koakes@sunjournal.com. Follow him on Twitter @Oaksie72.

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