Right about this time last spring marks the one-year anniversary of when I pissed away a potential professional sports career. Literally.

Last year’s Kansas Relays was my first race back from a broken foot that I had suffered in an indoor track meet at Iowa State a couple months before. Feeling deprived and depraved from not running, I was pleased to learn I would get to race in the 1,500-meter run for the Thursday Distance Carnival at the Relays. I had only been running for a couple weeks and was pitifully out of shape. With the idea that expectations were low, I decided to have a bit of fun with the race and donned a pair of Spandex shorts for the race.

The Spandex was a departure from the Daisy Duke running shorts typically fashioned by distance runners. They reveal most of my legs, a little bit of my ass, a whole lot of my soul and rob me of all my dignity.

Kansas hasn’t embraced the sport of running like my native Colorado does, so wearing such shorts around town earn catcalls in the streets and much derision among my colleagues at The University Daily Kansan.

I toed the line of my heat at the Kansas Relays and was predictably the only runner wearing the tight, frontally-revealing Spandex shorts. The race started as ugly as I had expected. Early on, I was six or seven seconds behind everybody. Magically, I took the lead with half a lap remaining and miraculously won my heat of the race.

Most athletes in post-competition interviews will thank God, the Lord, Jesus, Allah or some higher being for their victory. I had my Spandex shorts to thank, believing they were the only reason I was able to cross the line first. I won my next race in Tulsa with the Spandex shorts as well.

It soon became apparent that I was unbeatable in the constricting shorts. I was undefeated in head-to-head competition in them. This was a good thing because the next race was the Big 12 Championships in Norman, Okla. I started my typical pre-race ritual that day. Seeing how it was a big race, I was a bit nervous. Combine that with the huge amounts of water and coffee I had drunk before the race, and nature was calling pretty hard.

I checked my watch and found that I had four minutes before I would have to report to the starting line. The Texas good ol’ boy who runs these bigger track meets doesn’t mess around and no race will start late on his watch. With this in mind, I figured I had three minutes to go to the bathroom because with this guy, you’re a minute early or you’re late.

I jogged to the bathroom and stepped up to the urinal in my Spandex shorts to relieve myself. When nothing happened, I chalked it up to a case of nervousness, which would have seemed unnecessary because I was undefeated that outdoor season in tight shorts.

But as soon as I pulled them up, I somehow “sprung a leak.” Humiliated, I glanced down to see a growing wet spot in my shorts. But that fleeting embarrassment would be nothing compared to the disgrace I would be met with if I went out to the track and raced in front of hundreds of people, a crowd that included one of my best friends from high school.

I figured I would have enough time to run a few strides and air dry it out, but it didn’t help at all. I saw that I only had one minute before I had to head out to the track. I made the hasty decision to change into my Daisy Dukes and got to the track just in time to hear the meet official scream at me, “Kansas! What the hell are ya doin’?” as he saw me bound to the track later than everyone else.

Because of the conversion of drawers, the race was a disaster. I was in last for most of it and managed to pass a couple runners from Texas and maybe one from Iowa State right near the end, sparing me from dead last, but interrupting what could otherwise have been an illustrious undefeated running career.

What had always been a modest career of running at the University of Kansas saw a brief glimmer of hope and stardom in the three-week span that I went unbeaten, but I was quickly watered down back to the mediocre runner I had always been.

Vockrodt is the Kansan opinion editor