Dave Casler
PO Box 98
Ridgway, Colorado 81432
Young Adult Novels by Dave Casler...
I've been told by publisher after publisher that there's no market for Young Adult novels. I think they're wrong! So I'm putting my novels on-line for you. Forget the publisher! Read to your heart's content--it's free! And, I'd like to hear from you, too! Contact Page.
You're reading About Phillip. Be sure to check out About Dan here.
Phillip is a computer nerd who suddenly discovers a liking for track. Everything would be fine except for his father.
About Series Home
About the About Series
Index to All Chapters
Here are all the chapters, disguised as asterisks. Hover your mouse over an asterisk to see the title of the chapter. Click on the asterisk to go straight to that chapter.
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(About Phillip Home) (Last) (Next)
Weird Website Stats
"So, anyhow, the stats on the website are weird. I thought people would find the track pictures interesting, but it’s the short page I put in on being a Mormon that’s getting all the hits. I mean, all I’ve got is a little paragraph and a bunch of links to the official church sites. I don’t get it. Why does anyone care?"
Phillip and Grant were standing among the tens of dozens of track and field athletes warming up and milling around on the field. They were waiting for the start of the All County meet that brought together all the Boulder County high schools. Phillip had already completed his warm-ups. Now he just needed to keep on the move enough to avoid muscle cramps.
Boulder High, Fairview High and Park High all claim "home" status for Recht Field. The large stadium sits next to Boulder Creek, just north of the CU campus; a pedestrian bridge over the creek connects Recht Field to Boulder High’s main campus. Trees and parks surround the area. On this Friday afternoon in late April, the trees still had no leaves. It was cloudy and chilly.
Grant snuggled in his jacket and shrugged his shoulders. "I dunno. Maybe if everyone’s so interested, you ought to put more info on the site."
Phillip kept scanning the stands, looking for Melanie. It was too early, he told himself.
The sheer number of athletes involved in a full-blown track meet is impressive. There’s the 100- yard dash, the 220, the 440, the 800, the 1600 and the 3200-meter run—the latter being Phillip’s event—pole vaulting, hurdles, and so on. Each team was fielding anywhere from one to three athletes for each event, so over 250 students were in various stages of preparation. The different school jerseys made for a rainbow: Park’s crimson, Boulder’s purple, Fairview’s red and black, Monarch’s black and gold, and so on. Most of the athletes were jumping about to stay warm, many were talking and laughing in little knots. The knots were mostly composed of students wearing the same colors, but here and there were multi-hued knots. Several of the knots contained non-athlete students, most in jackets against the chill. Phillip and Grant formed their own little knot of two. Phillip had steered Grant into the middle of the mass to stay relatively sheltered from the gentle breeze.
"I might put more up, but the church doesn’t want people putting their own…"
The closest knot exploded in laughter. A Parkie jumped back and bumped into Phillip hard enough to knock him over. He landed at Grant’s feet.
The offending Parkie was number 11. He turned and helped Phillip up, brushing grass off and apologizing. It was Luke.