Like most people with large noses and gaps in between their front teeth, I've had plenty of bad pictures taken of me. There is one in particular, however, which stands in a class by itself.

It's one of those clever little magnets photographers sell to high school parents for around $200 apiece. In it, I'm posing in my cross country jersey during my freshman year. I only ran cross country for one season, and with good reason, but I'll get to that in a moment.

My mother insists on keeping this thing stuck to the front of her fridge. At first glance, it's hard to even tell what you're looking at it. Most first-time visitors to my mother's kitchen

go through the following series of reactions when they see

the picture:

1. A sudden, involuntary jerking of the body followed by a widening of the eyes.

2. A suppression of the words "Great thunder of heaven, what IS that monstrosity!?" or some such phrase.

3. A gag reflex disguised as a cough.

4. The exclamation of an excuse, any excuse, to leave the kitchen and not ever come back.

What could be so horrible about this photograph, you ask? Here's a mental image: a 6'3", 150-pound boy with hairy legs wearing size triple-extra small running shorts.

Braces protrude from my mouth like the grill of a 1955 Chevy Bel-Aire. Pale, gangly, limp-spaghetti-noodle arms dangle from my jersey.

It would not be at all inappropriate to place a label under this photograph that reads: "Human being: late larval stage."

True story: When I was thirteen, during an argument of forgotten origin with my mother, I threatened to strip naked and run around the neighborhood if she didn't stop bugging me. Her response? "The neighbors will think we adopted a starving refugee."

Ouch, ma.

I don't like looking at this picture, and my mother won't take it down. She claims I look handsome in it.

The picture not only reminds me how bad I looked way back then. It also reminds me of how bad I was at cross country. I mean, I was truly, genuinely bad. I still try to remember why I went out for the team. I believe my line of reasoning was something along the lines of "How hard can cross country be? All you have to do is run for a long time. Just keep running until they tell you stop."

Oh yes, it's coming back to me now. I wanted a letterman's jacket, and you can't have one of those unless you have a letter to put on it. (Well, you can, but then you'd better prepare for the long succession of wedgies coming your way.)

So I joined the cross country team. It didn't take me long to realize that there is absolutely nothing enjoyable about running long distances. You can't talk to anyone while you do it because you're too busy gasping for air and moaning like a beached walrus. Plus, if you're like me, you're so slow there isn't any one around to listen if you do want to talk. They're all several miles ahead of you.

I finished last in almost every single race I ran. The one ribbon I won was for placing fifth in a junior varsity race with six contestants. I think the guy I beat got lost and ended up taking a bus home.

We've all seen those parents who get so vicariously wrapped up in their kids' athletic performances, they actually begin to believe that little Johnny or Susie is a professional athlete. They scream from the sidelines, they chew out the referees, they make themselves purple in the face as they push for perfection in their future hall-of-famer.

I suppose my parents could have yelled at me, but they would have had to wait an awful long time for me cross the finish line in order to do it. Instead, they let me figure things out for myself. They didn't force me to run on the weekends or watch videos of my old races in order to improve my performance. They just smiled and said, "Good job, son, you tried your best."

Man, how old-fashioned were they?

Look what it did to me. Instead of making millions on shoe endorsements and soft drink commercials, I'm writing for a living.

It's probably best that we've done away with the whole "it's okay to lose" philosophy. The world only needs so many reject-athlete-turned-smart-alec writers. Of course, we may be close to our limit of self-obsessed professional athletes as well, but that's another story.