Friday, October 26, 2007

... running tomorrow to make this fit ..!

… metaphor mixing …

Spring is still missing from my step … yesterday was a long run day, and long runs are classified because I run a long way ..! No, whenever I stretch out to five or more miles, I think I can call it a long run. At that point, it really goes into weight loss, and that is where your sports drink comes in. The hunger and thirst is usually due to the fluid loss and subsequent imbalance. Though sports drinks do have their benefits, even when I was trying to be ‘champion of the universe’, I didn’t use anything other than good ol’ H2O … and the occasional Coca Cola..!

The other benefit of long runs is that I get to be out with prolly my favourite person --ME..! I do like me some Mark, but it isn’t to the level of conceit. If anything, it is a clear sign of being a full person. I can’t accept a person hangin’ around me with questionable self-esteem … see, if you think YOU are a loser, and then I must be a loser by association. And you see, I am not a loser! Don’t get me wrong, my ex wife would be more than happy to tell you what it is that I AM, but a loser isn’t among them. So why would I want to hang out with someone who thought that of themselves? Riiigggghhhttt … I WOULDN’T …

…so I don’t. Sure, there may be enough to work with, and that is why saying where someone is in the ‘NFL Draft’ works for me. A lot goes into where you a chosen in the NFL, from the pay to the expectations placed upon you. There is a lot of bluffing and faking on draft day, because so much is said by who you picked and when you picked them. Just to get drafted ultimately is a lottery ticket that was unexpected for some, as it signals the opportunity to continue a dream. Some are chastened, because all the magazines, bloggers, and scouts had them going in the top half of the 1st round, and here they are, chosen in the third round, not only having lost millions of dollars, but chosen by a bad team whose few talented players happen to play your position ..!

Then there are the teams. You have some that run like well-oiled machines. In this week Sports Illustrated there is an article about the New England Patriots and how it isn’t just a collection of good football players, but it is an ORGANIZATION that creates the environment based on winning football. And then you have teams like the Detroit Lions, who can’t get out of their own way. So not only is it a worry about where someone is drafted, but bywhom … I mean, getting picked in the 2nd round by Detroit is cool, but is it really cooler than getting picked in the 6th round by New England?

I bet you are wonder where you would go in the ‘draft’. I will get to that, but there is a lot to consider. What is your football background? Where did you play in college, how did your college career progress, and finally, what was your senior year like? Never mind that, are there any flags in your personal file? What kind of football character do you have … what kind of CHARACTER do you have..? There is more to it than what you can bench and what is your 40-yard dash time is … but since THAT is very important as a leading indicator and one of the first truths that are accepted in evaluation of a player … what IS your bench stats and how fast DID you run the 40..?

Yup, a LOT of work goes into evaluation of a football player before they are drafted by a team. Not to mention, a little bit of the esoteric called ‘a hunch’. One of my favourite hunch stories and what makes a successful organization successful is this story about London Fletcher, who has had a very good career and is still playing at a high level.

London went to a small, small college. Not only that, he had his size working against him. He is VERY small for his position. But he wanted to be in the NFL … and for his college level, he was more than just excellent. So he made a tape of his highlights and sent them all to NFL general managers, which isn’t that out of the ordinary, for sure things as well as long shots are reviewed by tape. Well, the St Louis Rams, who had been dragging around at the bottom of the league, just had some new, smart and innovative people take over in the football positions, and when his tape came in, one of them contacted London, and told him NOT to send anymore tapes to anyone … that St Louis would draft him … and though it was late, it would be better than NOT getting chosen at all or coming in off the street as a rouge free agent … getting picked meant there was some thought behind what you could do for the football team … so he agreed …

…. And the Rams shortly won a Super Bowl … and over the next few years, with that particular staff running the show, they were at or near the top of the NFL … but you wouldn’t need to wonder about getting chosen … just where in the 1st round would you go … and since the NFL salaries are determined by ‘slotting’ for rookies, you can expect to get a big signing bonus, because you are definitely a can’t miss kind of prospect, and will get chosen in the top half of the first round, quite probably a top ten choice ..?

… uh, since I don’t even consider MYSELF a No. 1 pick … it would be kind of hard to call anyone else one … so sorry about that..!

In using this as a template for my social contacts and interactions, I think it works pretty well. And if it isn’t broke … ah, you know the rest..!

SPORTS … As LIFE …

There is a lot of room in having this outlook … and it is sufficiently intellectual a challenge to where it is something I enjoy doing. Sometimes I slip between sports … football references split time with basketball and some hockey and baseball thrown in just for good measure. As a participant, I have had a very good career, not quite hall of fame numbers, but just under them. Yet even with having a good career, there are large holes that leave that portion of you life a little incomplete. I think I told you about that before in a recent email. Maybe you ‘got it’ or maybe you didn’t. Anyway, moving right along …

One of the reasons that sports have grown to its present outsized proportion is that what you see in the competitors, is what you wish was in YOU. The triumph in sports is the distilled essence of the triumph in life. Even though it the connections are difficult to see at first glance, the stuff that makes you ‘right’ in athletics makes you ‘right’ in life. The question is, how do you apply yourself and those lessons?

From seeing focus and drive rewarded, to being able to share and grow in a group with mutual benefit to many, sports allow one to look and see with their own eyes how they could make a life that fits their individual desires. Something about the way I interpreted McMcathorn (as well as the coolest name ever ..!) spoke to me … just as I am sure that when I was trying to be ‘champion of all the known galaxies and federations’ that I caught someone’s eye and sparked a little something in them. Rather than trying to diminish the importance of sports, I think not enough is given to what significance sports play in the human psyche, particularly the western mind.

… maybe that is just me spoutin’ off with some psuedo intellectualism … but honestly, I think not …

… and then he shrugged …

… when we first moved to the house that my siblings would grow up and out of, there were a bunch of books left, some song books, cause I guess someone was an aspiring musician, paperbacks, and some textbooks … mainly college level books. I was a voracious reader then, so I would pick up a book and just read it for the pleasure of reading … didn’t matter that most of it flew over my head … in a habit that I have maintained to this day, when I come across a word that I don’t know or am unsure of, I will write it down and define it. Then I will try to use it in my everyday conversation … if you can put it where it fits more than three times, it becomes YOUR word …

So big books never bothered me. But ‘Atlas Shrugged’ is HUGE. Not only that, it seems like it was written in the smallest font that can be read! I just kept it along, always thinking I would read it, but somehow never getting around to it. I found it when I was prolly 11 or 12 … didn’t actually try to read it until I was 24! But when I did, I found it enlightening. Afterwards, ‘objectivism’ became a part of my personal philosophy. One of the things that make me a little frustrated is that I rarely meet anyone who has read it, to help me understand it, to discuss it. This happens a lot to me.

Movies. Music. Appreciation for sports. A lot of what I look at, I see a little left of the center, just a little bit askew from the everyday. And here is where Bill Russell’s words come in.

To do what I can do, that is easy. For instance, being in love with someone. I am good at relationships, because I can make someone feel what I feel for them. I never set out to be a ‘Jody’, but it is what I do. But in being ‘Jody’, it comes with my own distinctive twist, the same way that Michael Jordan is a great basketball player; so is Magic Johnson. Now really, is one better than the other..? And even if one is, is being the other THAT much of a drop off..?

But there are other things, other than the dunks and fancy passes that go into being great at playing winning basketball. There is defense, rebounding, and realizing that the other players need to make some plays too. Some people can’t do it. It is difficult for them. For whatever reason, it seems to wear upon them … and if that leaves you weary, then the things that you do well, you start doing a little less well.

My days being a ‘franchise player’ are pretty much done … this isn’t to say that I won’t contribute at a very high level, maybe even at an top 5 consideration … for my position, not as an all-star. So I will do well where I fit and can do what it is that I do. But if I have to do a lot of what I don’t do well, play out of position, then when it comes time for me to run a play that I was brought in to run, it starts wearing me down.

Now, I need to play less minutes, have fewer responsibilities, so that when it comes playoff time, I will have some ‘gas in the tank’. Otherwise, when we get to the playoffs, and advance, by the time we get to near the top …

… my gauge will be running on fumes …

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