Wasn't the coldest weather I've ever been in. That coldest was the time in my college town of Cortland, N.Y., that the temp dropped to 35 below, with a 55-below wind chill. We went out, by the way, piled into Bob Dixon's busted-up '72 Toyota and visited some co-eds who had an apartment with better heat. We froze our asses so bad in the car that we almost turned back. But the coldest I ever was happened while I was playing lacrosse for Cortland. It was a pre-season game played on the artificial (rock-like) turf at Cornell, and it had to be 10 below. Back then, some of us would cut the palms out of our bulky lacrosse gloves to get a better feel of the stick, and I forgot to bring gloves to wear under my gloves. I wore a pair of long-johns under my sweatpants, when I needed two pairs of long-johns under three pairs of sweats. I wore two pairs of socks under my size-10 cleats, when I needed 10 pairs of socks under size-15 cleats. By midway through the first quarter I was paralyzed by the cold. This was not the kind of cold you could outrun — y'know, sprint around real fast so that you get warmed up. This was intractable, unrelenting, incurable cold. I stood like a frozen statue for most of the game. I was on the field, but I didn't play, not really. As I remember, very few of my teammates did either. After the game ended, the coaches got together and talked about playing another quarter, seeing as it was basically a scrimmage. A collective moan arose from the players, and the coaches said they were only kidding around. A cruel, cruel joke.
This article appears in May 10-16, 2006.