Quin and Jack go for a run

Throughout the book Jack plays the role of calling Quin back to life...


As they walked across campus, Quin looked around at the students flopped out on the grass pretending to study, and he realized that it truly was a beautiful day, and that he was glad to be out of his office.
“You know a couple of my boys are in your classes.”
“Is that right, you could tell me their names, but that would not help me, because I don’t know who anyone is yet.”
“I was talking with one of them this, morning. He told me you gave quite a lecture on the first day of class. He said that he thought it was about the best speech he’d ever heard, outside of church. I think his dad is a priest or something.”
“Well, I’m happy to hear that you have at least one player with a degree of wisdom, Jack.” Quin replied, but inside he thought, “Oh no please don’t let them buy that rubbish.”
Preston found Quin some old St. Christopher sweats, and he raided the track stores until he found a pair of running shoes that would fit. They jogged at a very relaxed clip looping around the campus. Quin was relieved that most of the course twisted through the small woods that were owned by the college, because he did not want any of his students to see him gasping for air. Jack had assured him that they would take it really easy and only do a couple of miles. Quin had tried very hard at first to lope along easily without breathing too hard, but after only about five minutes he was panting heavily, and his legs felt leaden. During the first couple of minutes, Jack had chattered away conversationally, but he soon noticed that Quin was not responding with anything beyond grunts. So, he kept his comments to a minimum and only spoke intermittently to assure Quin that they did not have much farther to go.
Quin had a hard time believing that he really was in that bad of shape, and he was embarrassed, by what a struggle it was for him to keep going, even at such a relaxed pace. He wanted desperately to stop and just walk and to attempt to catch his breath, but he was determined now that he had foolishly begun to not stop until Preston said that they were done.
They had been running for about fifteen minutes, and it seemed to Quin that most of the time they had been running away from, or parallel to the campus. Now it seemed that they were finally shifting and turning back towards the direction of the main part of campus. They turned out of the woods and Quin understood what the run was about. They were outside the chain link fence of the outfield of the college baseball diamond.
Stretched across the third base line were two rows of very young men who Quin surmised cared infinitely more about playing this game then they did about the education of their minds.
They were obviously in the first stages of warming up, tossing the ball back and forth. They were also obviously enjoying themselves. He thought back to when he played and remembered fondly how the relaxed time before the arrival of the coaches had always been one of his favorite parts of the game. There was no posturing, or trying to impress the coach. You were just there because you liked playing and you liked the guys you were with on the team.
Quin stopped running.  They had come out of the woods in such a way that the players had not yet noticed that their coach was present. Jack who had been consistently two to three steps ahead of his out of shape friend had now stopped also and walked back to Quin. Jack stood beside him looking through the fence at the kids on the field.
“Well, it ain’t Stanford, Professor, but it has its own kind of beauty.”
Quin said nothing, but just kept staring at the field. He was soaked through with sweat, breathing heavily, and acutely aware that it had been years since he had participated in any serious exercise. As he watched the players warm up, he was seized by the sweet nostalgic melancholy that grips all men in their late thirties, when they watch boys who are not quite, but almost men.