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Luke Graham

Luke Graham's column appears Mondays in the Steamboat Today. Contact him at 970-871-4229 or e-mail lgraham@SteamboatToday.com.

Steamboat Springs — Cody, Matt and Alex know a long day.

With the baseball and track fields only 30 yards apart in Gypsum on Saturday, it made it easy to see both parcels of action. It was easy to see Soroco's Sarajane Rossi win the 800-meter run on the track or Aaron Hornstein roll a three-run triple on the diamond.

On some occasions, however, it was easy to see both.

See, three Soroco/Steamboat athletes Saturday conjured up images of an icon in my - and millions of others' - childhood. I had his poster on my bedroom wall. He was in my favorite Nike commercial of all time, pound for pound may have been one of the best athletes we've ever seen and was easily the single greatest player to ever control in a video game.

The poster featured all 6 feet 1 inch and 250 pounds of Bo Jackson in his shoulder pads and a baseball bat. The commercial, if you recall, has Bo doing a little bit of everything with famous athletes then saying, "Bo knows baseball," or "Bo knows football." Jackson then plays basketball, tennis and ice hockey and goes running, with Michael Jordan, John McEnroe and Mary Decker vouching for Jackson's knowledge of their sports. And in Nintendo's Tecmo Super Bowl Bo Jackson was the truth.

Why thoughts of Bo? Jackson was the first athlete to play professional baseball and football in the same season.

Cody Miles, Alex Estes and Matt Watwood - Soroco athletes who run track for the Rams and play baseball for the Sailors - competed in two sports in a 10-hour period.

They all completed what can only be seen as part crazy, definite passion for the game and wholly a work of endurance.

All three spent Saturday, switching from the track to the baseball field numerous times (Broadway-style uniform switches included).

All three arrived early with the track team at 7:45 a.m., switched track cleats for baseball cleats (sometimes several times) and not only competed but competed well in two sports.

Watwood threw the discus (he finished sixth), hopped the fence, threw on his baseball uniform and made the opening pitch of the first game against Eagle Valley.

Estes ran the 100-meter dash, did the high jump and long jump, while battling sickness, then threw on his "S" baseball cap and tossed four innings of work on the mound in the second game.

And in what might be one of the most enduring images of the day, Miles went back and forth so many times he looked like a human paint shaker.

He ran in the morning, made the first pitch of the first game, left halfway through to run again, made it back for the end of game one, ran again, came in for game two, ran again and then finished off game two.

I'm tired just reading that sentence.

Oh, let's not forget, all three had to make it back to the Steamboat Grand for the Soroco High School prom.

"Luckily the fields were in the same spot," Miles said. "But I am exhausted."

And rightfully so.

It wasn't just a day for these three. It was chaotic, long and crazy.

Let's all just hope, Cody, Matt and Alex know some rest.