Athlete Tosses Aside Scot-Free Past
For once in his life, Craig Murray felt small. The men around him tossed tree trunks and weights the size of boulders. They downed pints of Guinness stout in mythical gulps.
Craig had stumbled into the land of giants and discovered family.
“These people think like I do, act like I do. Their interests are the same,” he says.
“I swear this is the best thing I’ve ever done for myself.”
The men Craig found are Scottish Highland athletes. They throw 56-pound, coffee-can shaped weights over high bars and fling 22-pound, cane-handled hammers toward the horizon. They wear their clan kilts proudly and compete honorably. Craig, 32, wanted to belong.
He’d wandered aimlessly since his days on the Post Falls High football team in the mid-1980s. He tried rodeo.
“All I ended up doing was breaking bones,” he says.
He tried the U.S. Navy, which landed him in California.
Nothing satisfied him until the many culture-proud people he met in his new California home shamed him into researching his family’s history.
He talked to relatives he’d never met and traced his family to 16th-century Ireland, only to learn that his people had originated in Scotland. The more he learned, the more pride in his heritage grew.
At his first Celtic fair a year ago, the dull thuds of weights hitting the ground led Craig to the Highland athletes. He was fascinated, but the athletes were skeptical of his interest.
“I pulled green chain for a year at Idaho Veneer,” Craig says. “I know what it is to hurt.”
He bugged the big men until they gave him a chance.
“At my first practice, I only threw about 15 feet,” Craig says. “I waited for them to laugh, but they poured me a beer and said, ‘Welcome to the Highlanders.’ “I felt like I had completed my life’s journey.”
Practice paid off. At the Scottish games in Mesa, Ariz., last month - Craig’s third competition - he won three gold medals and was the overall champion in his class.
He threw the 56-pound weight-for-distance 24 feet and weight-for-height just shy of 13 feet. For eight hours, he tossed telephone polelike cabers, hurled weights and paraded in his custom-made, green and blue Murray kilt.
As he stood on the winner’s podium, 100 bagpipers played “Amazing Grace” and Craig knew he’d found direction at last.
“I’m going as far as I can with this,” he says. “I don’t have that empty, who-am-I feeling anymore.”
On safari to stay
If you haven’t had a chance to see Tina Friedman’s month-long African exhibit at Sandpoint’s Bonner Mall, Friday is a good time to stop in. The slide show starts at 7 p.m. and Tina isn’t the type to bore you with vacation pictures.
Later in the month, Tina will feature an African percussion group and Spokane’s Bethel AME Gospel Choir. If you can’t make the performances, just stop by 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesdays, Fridays and Saturdays to see her African photos, art, artifacts and clothing.
Dance the night away
Graduation night parties have brought out the best fund-raising efforts - concerts, auctions, raffles and now a dance with Coeur d’Alene’s own Renovators.
The popular band that features several Coeur d’Alene teachers will swing from 9 p.m. until people drop on Friday at City Slickers, 215 Coeur d’Alene Ave., to help Lake City High’s senior class.
Senior parents determined to show their kids a good time have pulled together an auction, hors d’oeuvres, door prizes and everything a great party needs. Tickets are $20 per person. Call 666-1126 or 664-1266 for details.
How did North Idaho’s senior classes from past decades - way past - celebrate graduation night? Be honest for Cynthia Taggart, “Close to Home,” 608 Northwest Blvd., Suite 200, Coeur d’Alene, ID 83814; send a fax to 765-7149; call 765-7128; or e-mail to cynthiat@spokesman.com.
, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color photo