Hey, that quiet guy can lift

You see all kinds of characters at the gym. Some make a lot of noise. Others strut around. A few admire themselves in the mirror while they lift what they can, which more often than not, isn’t much.

Then there’s this one guy who’s there just about every day but he doesn’t say much. He never makes a noise. He never wears a jersey that proclaims he’s associated with anything beyond the ordinary.

He has a bit of grace that most people don’t, and when he lifts a weight, the action is a bit smoother than most people, but nothing you’d look at twice. Then one day you learn his name. The name rings a bell and it turns out he is one of the greatest college hockey players of all time, Lane MacDonald.

According to Ivy50.com,

“MacDonald had a story-book career at Harvard, graduating with four school scoring records (including career goals), and ranking in the top five in 11 different statistical categories. He was twice named a first-team All-American, played on the 1988 U.S. Olympic team, and in his senior year in 1989, won collegiate hockey's highest individual accolade, the Hobey Baker Memorial Trophy (he remains the most recent Ivy Leaguer winner). The Baker award capped a spectacular season in which MacDonald captained the Crimson skaters to Harvard's first national championship in any team sport.”

The web site goes on to say, “He is now a General Partner with Alta Communications, a private equity firm that deals primarily with investing in media companies. He and his wife Wendy, a Cornell alumna, have three children and live in the Greater Boston area.”

Oh, yeah. Lane MacDonald is also a regular guy who works out every day, never once hinting to all of the middle-age, mediocre athletes around him that they are in the presence of someone who has breathed that rarest of air, true athletic excellence.