Random Thoughts from a Restless Mind

I just finished a killer of a Crossfit workout I didn’t really want to do. Have you had those days when you trudge into the gym, the Box, with little to no desire to be there? Beaten down and on the verge of defeat, you simply show up, punch in, go through the motions, punch out. Had some of those? Yah…me, too. It happens elsewhere in your life, too, in other places and at other times when you don’t really ‘have to’ be there, doesn’t it?

Well then, why did you show up?

There’s a continuum, I think, along a line that includes discipline, motivation, and habit. It might be a circle or a feedback loop–I’m not sure yet. The end result is something like consistency. Was it some sort of discipline that prompted you to go to the gym and do that workout when you didn’t really have any too much desire to be there? Some sort of force of will, a conscious imposition of rational to overpower emotion? Or were you simply motivated by some end-goal long before chosen, a milepost toward which you travel no matter what because the destination is so compelling? Subtle, I know, and I confess that the subtle difference between discipline and motivation escapes my vocabulary at this stage.

What I DO understand, though, is the concept of habit, and habit formation, and the consistency that arises from positive habits. You know, just like the Crossfit prescription of Form before Consistency before Intensity. Whether it’s the PULL of motivation to arrive at some wonderful destination, or the PUSH of discipline driving you there, it is the creation of habit, of consistency, that ultimately gets the job done.

Success is about building those habits, the ones that produce good outcomes. You went to the gym that day because going to the Box at that time is the habit you’ve developed; punching that clock on that day provides the consistency that will bring a giant forward leap on the next day when you show up with a spring in your step and fire in your belly. Any kind of habit that consistently moves you forward along a road to success is a habit worth creating. For example, I’m in the habit of assuming that every day in the office is gonna be a good day, unless it’s a great day, and I’ve noticed that this kind of habit is contagious.

Whether pushed by discipline or pulled by motivation, give yourself permission to create habits that move you.

Do you remember playing sports when you were a kid? If not, if you are old like me, how about do you remember the last time you drove by a bunch of kids playing some sport or other in the absence of any adults? What I remember about both of those experiences is the sound. It’s a beautiful sound, and it cascades over any and all who are within earshot. It’s the sound of children having FUN!

Somewhere, sometime, there was a very significant change in what it meant to play a sport when you were very young. It used to be, at least when I was a kid, that sports were really just games, and the responsibility for playing a game rested with the kids who are doing the playing.  I distinctly remember neighborhood versus neighborhood baseball games, true nine on nine games played with wooden bats and a hardball, not a batting helmet or adult insight. We could play pickup basketball for literally hours any place we could find a hoop. To find this kind of scene nowadays, at least with children over the age of 10, you have to visit the bleached sand fields of South Africa or the barrios of Rio de Janeiro and watch the bearfoot urchins play their games with whatever they can find that will roll.

Here in America, though, it seems you can’t find any kind of game being played by kids of any age without uniforms, lined fields, and of course, adults. Think about it. When is the last time you drove by an open field and saw 10 kids chasing a soccer ball all by themselves? It couple of kids on a local tennis court whacking a ball back and forth? Or how about this one, a bunch of boys all dirty and muddy playing football without pads? Admit it… you can’t remember EVER seeing that, can you?

As long as we adults are going to be present there is one final role that we must play in youth sports: we must ensure that our children are having FUN! The younger the children involved, the higher priority this becomes. As offensive as it is to hear a parent screaming at his or her child during a high school soccer game, it’s borderline repulsive to hear the same kind of language directed at an eight-year-old.  It’s a game for heaven sakes! These kids are playing! Let’s have a little fun.

I know, I know, this is just one more example of some mamby–pamby,  soft in the middle American parent who doesn’t have the guts to push his kids to excel, right? The only problem with this, of course, is that this description couldn’t be further from the truth. I LOVE to win! I LOVED coaching when I had permission to try to win. Loved it. The whole “everyone plays the same number of minutes”, feel good, raise the self–esteem thing was really hard for me. I certainly got it, and certainly was on board when the children were really young, elementary school or junior high school, but I’m also of the mindset that it’s perfectly okay to try to win once you reach a certain age, probably high school.

But even there these are still kids, and they should still be having fun.

Let me indulge myself (as if this whole blog thing wasn’t self–indulgent enough) and share a couple of memories. There are all kinds of basketball games I remember from when I was a kid, but the one memory that came to me first while thinking about this was one of the very first practices after I made the JV basketball team in high school. We played “dribble tag”, with a towel tucked in our shorts and each of us dribbling a basketball. The object of the game was to pull your teammates towell, knocking him out of the game. Man, I just don’t remember laughing so much, or having so much fun on a basketball court before or since.

My sons each have a memory from junior high school football–the same one, actually just separated by three or four years. We live in Cleveland; in the fall it rains in Cleveland. Every year there is an opportunity for a mud practice, a session where pretty much no useful coaching is possible because it’s raining too hard and the field is too muddy. Cancel practice? Heck no! This is when the boys get to perfect their mudslides, mud dives, and mud flops. At the end of this particular session, and it happens just this way every single year, the young defensive coordinator brings the boys over to the garage and literally hoses them down with the church garden hose. He then piles them into the back of his pickup truck, refusing to allow the parents to befoul their cars with these muddy, wet, sloppy boys, and drives the kids home. The fun of this pracitce is what both of my sons remembered first.

Even playing sports in college it can be fun. I was a cornerback at Williams College. I’ve written before that I was good, but probably not nearly as good as I could have been or should have been because I didn’t work hard enough at the game. I was probably a “middle of the bell curve” defensive back for my day. When I was a junior the other starting cornerback was REALLY good. Despite that, the two of us had a rather poor week of practice one time, and the defensive coordinator, Coach Farley, gleefully pointed this out. “Ack… Look at my cornerbacks. One’s bad and the others worse!” Well, the next day every single defensive back rolled into practice with some sort of denigrating label on his helmet. Stu was “Bad”, I was “Worse”, and we were joined by our teammates “Terrible”, “Awful”, “Putrid”, etc. We got ahold of Coach Farley’s coat and taped “Tremendous” on the back. THAT was fun!

These are games, these sports. Always have been, and it’s really our responsibility to make sure that they always will be. We adults who are involved in youth sports need to make sure that our children are safe, and that they ( and we) take advantage of the life lessons that can be learned while playing sports. We must also accept the responsibility to make playing sports  fun. (If you want a great example of how to make fitness fun take a walk over to thebrandXmethod.com sometime. These folks make WORKING OUT again, fun.)

I think there’s a role for adults in youth sports, I really do. I’m convinced that the role has expanded too much, and the fact that most of us have never seen children playing sports without uniforms, or officials, or coaches is the most damning testimony to this fact. If we are going to be involved it is our responsibility to fully accept our three roles. Keep our children safe. Teach them through the vehicle of sports.

Help them have fun!

At the news conference following a heartbreaking overtime loss, the head coach of Boise State had this to say: “one player can’t lose a football game all by himself. A player can WIN the game, but no one can lose it by themselves.” How good is that?! Seriously, after losing the opportunity to represent every underdog in the history of forever, in a football championship game for the ages, what does the coach do? He sees the situation for what it is, what it always is when you are an adult involved in youth sports; he sees this as just another “teachable moment.”

It’s gone so far beyond the cliché that they are life lessons to be learned by children playing sports that many of the adults who are involved in youth sports seem to have taken this for granted and just assumed that it will happen automatically. BZZZZZZT. Sorry. It doesn’t work like that. Never did. The second most important role that adults play in youth sports is to foster and facilitate learning among the children playing sports.

It’s pretty easy in the beginning. Heck, if you are coaching very little kids you actually have to teach them the rules of the game! I once tried to teach a bunch of kids in England to play baseball. Piece of cake, you say. They play a game called “rounders” which is very similar to baseball, with a little bit of  Cricket mixed in.  Rounders doesn’t have foul lines, though, and English kids have no concept of what a foul ball is. I spent pretty much the entire game trying to explain why a perfectly good hit just to the right of first base didn’t count. In the beginning being an adult in youth sports is ALL about learning, ALL about teaching.

There’s a really cool phase in youth sports, whether you are a coach, booster, or simply an interested spectator, when the kids get the rules, they know how to keep score, and you are simultaneously teaching them technique and nuance while at the same time trying to win. Junior high school, Junior varsity in high school, times like this. This can be the most satisfying time to be an adult involved in sports. Somewhere in high school the “win mode” kicks in so strongly that teaching and learning can go by the boards, all teaching and learning geared toward just one measure, the one lighting up the scoreboard.

It’s not just about the game though of course. This would be a pretty trivial post if it was, eh? No, playing sports, especially team sports, leaves open all kinds of possibilities for learning. Even if you are the absolute star of a football team or basketball team or any other type of team, being part of the team means learning how to depend on your teammates. It means learning how to have other people depend on you. You have certain responsibilities, and the success of the team depends on you and everyone else doing exactly what they’ve been taught to do at exactly the right time. I’m going to my office in a very short time where I will be a member of yet another team. All of the lessons I’ve learned from all of my teams over the years come into play every time I go to the office. Same thing in the operating room this morning. Good outcomes depend on impeccable teamwork, with each team member doing exactly what he or she should be doing. Some may get more credit than others, at least publicly, but playing team sports should teach each athlete that he or she succeeds only if the team succeeds. The adults who are involved in youth sports have an obligation to teach this lesson to both the stars and the grunts.

Winning and losing are important measures, but it really DOES matter how you play the game. Did you play within the rules, even when no one could see whether or not you did? Did you cheat, break a rule that gave you or your team and advantage? Some of the individual sports are the best opportunities to learn these lessons. Have you seen those PGA commercials about the First Tee program for youngsters playing golf? Integrity and fidelity to the rules are mentioned by everyone. Adults should not only teach this but should also model these behaviors and attributes. What is your athlete learning if you use the “foot wedge” in the rough?

It’s possible to learn some very valuable lessons about how one might meet adversity in life simply by playing youth sports. How do you handle winning? Success that just can’t be hidden? Conversely, how do you handle it when life throws you an enormous curveball, and you look terrible on a swing and a miss? Humility in victory, and grace in defeat are lessons that are there to be learned by our children playing sports. Sometimes all it takes is a gentle reminder, maybe even just setting a quiet example. There are other times when the designated adult must demonstrate a firm hand in teaching the lesson. I have visions of golf clubs helicoptering across fairways, tennis rackets splintering during fits of rage, trash talking and posturing under the basket or in the end zone. Failing to intervene and teach the PROPER lesson is inexcusable if you are the adult present at those times.

It doesn’t sound easy, does it? I mean, that’s a lot of responsibility. It kind of sounds like… WORK! And it is, if you get right down to it. The adults who are involved in youth sports have great responsibilities, and they really have no right to expect a pass when it comes to fulfilling these responsibilities. This goes for coaches on the sidelines, officials on the field, parents in the stands, and boosters and administrators behind the scene. The opportunity to teach our children about fair play, following the rules, and being a good teammate are there for the taking. Even when it becomes time to win, as we saw in the example above when Boise State was on the verge of making history, there but for a missed 26 yard field goal, the imperative to teach our children, to foster their learning through sports, is one that we simply must seize as the adults involved in youth sports. Just like that head coach at Boise State.

They may not know it now, but every one of those Boise State football players walked off that field with a win because their coach played his role.

A new Crossfit “Hero” workout or WOD was posted today. Here are my thoughts on what these workouts mean.

“Whitten”, and heroes before and to come…

We are all part of a rather unique and special community, whether here in the cyber-gym or members of a Crossfit Affiliate gym. There are many reasons for this to be sure, but one in particular stands out today as it does each time we are introduced to a new “Hero”. We acknowledge those who have made the ultimate sacrifice on our Nations’s behalf, not as a political statement or with an underlying agenda as is the case with many of those newspaper lists, but with a true thankfulness bordering on reverence.

This, after all, is how it SHOULD be. It is how it was in the wars and conflicts of our forefathers. Neighborhoods, towns, entire states would reach out in solidarity and support for the families of the fallen. As a nation we seem to have forgotten how to do this, lost as it were in the debates about the propriety and righteousness of whatever conflict might be at hand, as the historically quiet discomfort with such things has been replaced by the braying of the disenchanted here in the present.

You may think the quiet discomfort felt in the privacy of the homes left behind by those serving is the ideal. You may be convinced that the “means justifies the ends” approach of more contemporary protesters represents a high watermark in a maturing nation. Frankly, I don’t care, and how I feel is irrelevant in this discussion.

But what you mayn’t do is forget. It is not permissible to forget that there are people who serve, some in far-enough away places that it might be EASY to forget. While we as a nation of people have not really been asked to share in any hardship through open sacrifices like rationing or the like, we must STILL openly and consciously acknowledge these men (and women) who make the ultimate sacrifice on our collective behalf.

How? How might we do this? Well, I’ve talked a little about this in the past, but there are a lot of new “faces” here chez Crossfit, so it probably bears another telling. The introduction of a new “Hero”, indeed the posting of any “Hero” WOD, is not only an invitation to remember that this particular Hero gave his life in the line of duty, but because we choose to willing accept the suffering induced by the WOD it is an invitation to remember that there are LIVING heroes and heroines on the line right now. They leave behind families who live each day a little more fearful of what might come than, say, the family of an ophthalmologist.

How do we express our support for those on the line, outside the wire? Easy. We circle the wagons a little bit around those families they left behind when they boarded the transport, or stepped into the cruiser, or hopped on the back of Engine 44. Grand gestures are not really necessary; small kindnesses are enough. It’s now winter above the Mason-Dixon line. Maybe you go a little further with the snowblower and “forget” to stop until you’ve done the walk in front of that Marine’s house. It’s the Holiday season in much of the world–it’s just too easy to bake and deliver an extra dozen cookies to the cop on the corner. You travel a bit for business, and the bill for that burger is magically paid for that private in the airport who looks like he’s 14, hungry as he starts or finishes his journey.

It’s little stuff, I know, but not trivial stuff. These are gracious people; they will understand. They chose their paths and they do not NEED these gestures to validate their choice, but the subtle “thank you” still feels good. The knowledge that the sidewalk is clear of snow brings a small but real comfort.

So today, or whenever you get to it, as you suffer through “Whitten”, think not only of this young Captain but also about all of his brethren still on the line. Think just a bit about some small, concrete way to express your support for them and their families. For this, I am sure, is also what Coach has in mind when he offers up these epic challenges and names them after those we have lost.

This, I am sure, is what makes our community just a little bit different.

bingo

Among the many things that I have called over the course of my lifetime, none has been more meaningful than “Coach”. I spent time on the sidelines and on the bench for about 10 years coaching junior high school sports.  When my own children moved on to high school sports I retired to the committee rooms and the grandstands where adults who don’t coach play their role in youth sports.

There are three roles that adults can and should play in youth sports. First and foremost, all adults who are involved in youth sports should have as their primary goal the safety of the children playing the games. Secondly, kids who play sports should be guided by the adults around those games, taught by their elders not only about the games but also taught the life lessons that one can glean from playing sports. Finally, we ARE talking about kids here; the last important role that adults have in youth sports is to make them FUN!

Let’s start by talking about safety.

I suppose we should probably define youth, huh? There’s not much to debate the inclusion of grade school or junior high school kids. Sure, reasonable people can disagree about the importance of playing time and, when to start cutting kids and when to start playing to win, but through eighth grade there is simply no question that these kids would be considered in the “youth” category. In some quarters it might be a little more dicey with high school athletics, but when it comes to safety I don’t see how you can separate high school kids from their younger brothers and sisters. Protecting ALL of these kids is job number one for every adult involved in youth sports.

A quick word about college sports: the brightest, clearest dividing line between youth sports and sports as commerce, or job, is clearly the line that separates college and other athletic programs aimed at very young adults, and professional sports. But even here that line might be a little fuzzy. There are reasonable people who would say that Division I athletes on scholarship are de facto professional athletes. I suppose I’d feel a little more comfortable with this if a larger percentage of these young men and women went on to earn a living from their sport after college. Certainly we can agree that divisions II and III in the NCAA would still constitute youth sports, don’t you think? For my mind only the most cynical among us would draw a line between divisions I and II when thinking about the safety of the athletes.

So, how do we ensure the safety of our children when they are playing sports? It starts at the very top with league commissioners and athletic directors. Every organization that sponsors athletic competition with youth participants, be it a league or a school or some other organization needs to be clear from the outset that job number one is keeping children safe. Commissioners need to set clear guidelines, rules that will be enforced that put safety first. No spearing in football. Elbows in on the basketball court. No head shots–not a SINGLE headshot–in hockey or lacrosse.

Each one of these directives needs to be clearly communicated to the athletic directors or program directors responsible for individual schools or teams. These men and women in turn need to hire or appoint coaches who will make it their primary mission to teach the children in their charge how to play the game safely. Not only must the coaches do this on the practice field, but as they roam the sidelines and pace in front of the bench they must bring this to the games as well. How many times have you been in the stands and cringed when a defensive coordinator screamed at his players, exhorting them to “take someone’s head off?” I can’t count the number of times I’ve been sick to my stomach watching a coach dance with glee as a long pole defenseman stands over the attackman he cross-checked in the back of the head. No amount of teaching in practice can withstand this type of “coaching”.

During games coaches need to look first to the well-being of their players; only after assuring that they are okay can winning and losing enter the equation. I’m certainly not proud to admit this, but I remember one clear instance where I probably should have kept a star athlete on the sidelines during a football game. I actually had my very favorite coaching job–I was the assistant to the assistant to the assistant backfield coach, responsible only for catching the kids doing something right and praising them for when they did. But I was the quasi-team doctor as well, and when our star halfback limped off the field with a sprained ankle, I really probably should have overruled the head coach, the offense coordinator, and the young man’s father and kept him on the sidelines, at least a little bit longer. Coaches need to allow themselves to be trumped by trainers and doctors.

The ultimate arbiters of safety, however, are the officials on the field. Whether it’s grade school, junior high school, high school, or even college sports, the officials who enforce the rules must make the safety of the participants their primary concern. Oh, I know, I know, the officials are supposed to be invisible, doing everything they can possibly do not to impose themselves on the game, not to affect the outcome of the game. The players should win or lose; the officials should not take a role. Blah, blah, balh. All well and good, until the retaliation for the retaliation for the initial hard tackle from behind results in a three ligament knee tear for that girl who was just about to get that shot off in soccer. All well and good, until they’re wheeling the center off on a stretcher, unconscious from the elbow he took to the jaw as he skated through mid-ice. All well and good, because the officials lost control of the game, allowing dangerous plays earlier for fear that they might “affect the outcome.”

Bullshit.

As far as I’m concerned the greatest responsibility for protecting our children on the various courts and fields of play lies with the officials. The referees and umpires who are right there in the middle of the game MUST protect the children playing the games. Dangerous play just cannot be allowed. Officials have lots of latitude, and every sport has rules, penalties for dangerous behavior. Blow the whistle! Throw the flag! Pull out that red card! Set the tone early and let it be known that dangerous play will not be tolerated.

My youngest child, in ways too many to count an athletic clone of his father, finished his high school lacrosse career sitting on a bucket on the sidelines, sobbing as he vomited. He was vomiting because he had just suffered a concussion, his third, this one the result of a vicious crosscheck to the back of his head. The play occurred just feet from the sidelines, yards from the referee looking directly at the play. Unbelievably, he hesitated. He HESITATED! He actually gave thought to not even pulling his flag. Eventually, out came the flag and the verdict was rendered: one minute for unnecessary roughness. Almost the smallest infraction in the game of lacrosse. One minute for a blatant headshot, right in front of the referee, right in front of Randy’s coach.

The trainer on duty, a lovely young woman, very empathetic… very concerned, hovered over him. Was he crying because his head hurt so much, she asked? No, he sobbed, he was crying because he knew he had a concussion, and he knew that that his playing role in youth sports was now over, his days as a lacrosse player now officially done because it was no longer safe for him to play. How many more, I asked.  How many more children would be hurt before that referee said enough? How many more, I asked him out loud in a silent stadium, my voice the only sound, clearly heard by every ear in the stadium. Everyone turned to look at the father escorting his injured child off the field. Everyone, that is, save one, the coward who couldn’t look at the child he had just failed to protect.

Officials, indeed any adult, who will not protect the children who are playing have NO role in youth sports.

Joe Mauer stayed home. Not only did he re-sign with the Minnesota Twins, he LITERALLY stayed home. Born and raised in St. Pau,l Minnesota Mauer can’t even get himself to go across the bridge into Minneapolis. Arguably the best catcher in major league baseball, with “told” riches laid out before him for the taking, he turned it all down in order to walk the same streets, shop the same shops, and see the same sights he has seen his entire life. Yup, old Joe doesn’t even have to find himself a new barber–the same guy  who cut his hair in high school still has the job!

Now, I live in Cleveland, and you might have heard about our own native son, kid named Lebron, who has a very similar opportunity before him. (I wrote a little about this in “It’s Not About the Money. No, Really!”). Lebron James appears to be the biggest, most important free agent in the history of the NBA. 25 years old and no worse than entering his peak years, Lebron is an unrestricted free agent.  Indeed, unlike Mauer, Lebron is actually unencumbered by any of the economic realities of his game or his league–his off the court income dwarfs what he has or might make in salary. As such he has the liberty to make his decision based on the non-contractual issues like the aforementioned off court income, or the adventure of exploring a new city, or mining the value of staying home.

It’s really hard to determine which of these two young men is more important to the economic success of this team, and the related economic success of his city. Knowing that Mauer would re-sign allowed Minneapolis to give the go-ahead to a new baseball stadium. Knowing they had Mauer in the fold, ownership has begun to sign other pieces to a championship puzzle. On the other hand the most conservative estimate of Lebron’s economic impact is that he has single-handedly increased the value of the Cleveland Cavaliers franchise by $100 million. This is probably ridiculously low; Dan Gilbert the mortgage king will have surely made the largest “underwater” major purchase in the history of sports should Lebron James leave now.

Lebron just completed his seventh year as a Cleveland Cavalier and despite yeoman efforts by general manager Danny Ferry and owner Dan Gilbert, Lebron and company have not been able to bring a championship to Cleveland. This has been his mantra, oft stated, that winning is his only priority. Only slightly behind that, though, is the goal of winning “at-home.” Lebron actually has more in common with Joe Mauer then it seems at first blush, for Lebron is not really a Cleveland kid at all, but kid from Akron. Indeed, Lebron built his castle in Richfield, equidistant as the crow flies from both Akron and Cleveland, but spiritually more a suburb of the former.

So what is Lebron to do? What does Lebron want to do? What SHOULD Lebron do? Our local paper, the Cleveland Plain Dealer, has been awash in stories, commentary, conjecture, and innuendo. A friendly acquaintance who writes for the Plain Dealer has been tasked with the onerous job of recording and reporting “Lebron rumors”, with absolutely no requirement to confirm anything she writes. It’s the Lebron-A-thon, all Lebron all the time! The hometown is actually getting smaller and smaller every single day.

What do I think? I think Lebron is a really smart kid, much, much smarter than the majority of sports fans give him credit for. He’s actually quite different from the majority of the kids who went straight to the NBA from high school, and pretty much all of the “one and done” kids who spent a year in college before beginning their careers. My bet is that Lebron would have been much more than the keeper of a “gentleman’s C” average in college. No, Lebron would have been a solid B student taking a real college curriculum.

He’s also aware that he will eventually screw up somewhere, somehow, sometime. He’s a pretty shrewd character to be sure, but he is also a 25-year-old who has openly admitted that he is still in the process of growing up. Cleveland is a pretty small place, more small-town than major city actually, and it’s pretty hard to hide 6’8″, 265 pounds of handsome wealthy young man. I’d love to be wrong on this, really I would, but my guess is that he senses the inherent safety of a truly big city.

Knowing this I still think Lebron is too smart to not see that he has placed himself in a no-win situation should he decide to leave Cleveland now. There’s been too much talk over the last several years about winning at home, and too little talk too late about what home actually is. I think Lebron realizes this, and I think he is using his unique position to maximize his chances of winning one for the “hometown.” I’m predicting some fancy footwork, behind-the-scenes maneuvering, and a couple of major surprise announcements at the end of this week, all of which give Lebron a chance to make good.

Then what’s the true value of staying home? Here’s my bid. The value of staying home is exactly one championship. My prediction is that Lebron signs a two-year contract with a player option for a third. If he wins a championship in either year one or year two he’s outta here. He made good, kept his promise, it’s time to move on. If he fails to win a championship in year one or year two he invokes his player’s option to great fanfare, with all kinds of emphasis on the sacrifices that he is making to stay in Cleveland. If the Cavs shouuld win championships in BOTH years one and two he certainly stays for year three, unable to resist being linked with Phil Jackson as the only architects of “three-peats” in the history of the NBA.

After that, come hell or high water, it’s Cleveland in the rearview mirror. Three years, over and out. At age 28 Lebron will be off to other pastures, new challenges, fresh horizons. World as oyster, and all that sorta thing.

Why? At the end of the day it pretty much comes down to the difference between Joe Mauer and Lebron James much more than it comes down their similarities or to the differences in their hometowns. Mauer has never sought the limelight. Indeed, he has actively sought the cocoon of small-town, hometown. James, on the other hand, has ALWAYS sought more. Even in high school he had one eye on the game at hand and one eye on the tomorrow to come. Nothing wrong with that, really. They are what they are, and it is what it is.

S0 what’s the value of staying home? One championship and three years to get it. You heard it here first.

 This whole Tiger bashing thing has never seemed quite on the mark for me, but until recently I really haven’t been able to put my finger on just why. Leave it to two of my touchstones, Crossfit and Sports Illustrated, to bring it into focus.

Selena Roberts opined this week that in some way Tiger is not worthy to take the crown from the great Jack Nicklaus, that his personal failures, his lack of “goodness” somehow disqualifies his results on his particular field of play. She goes even further, conflating l’affaire Tigre with the whole Barry Bonds/Mark McGuire debacle in MLB. Somehow Ms. Roberts is channeling Tiger’s aggrieved mistresses on our collective behalf, coming to the inevitable conclusion of the offensitive that Tiger’s behavior off the course nullifies his accomplishments on it.

Rubbish.

Unlike Mssrs. Bonds and McGuire there is no credible evidence that Tiger has altered the balance of the playing field through anything other than talent and effort. Not unlike our growing Crossfit competitions, it is nothing but the result that matters on the competitive pitch. Tiger has 14 majors, 70-something wins. Count ’em.

Ms. Roberts commits the amateur’s error of amnesia, a particularly disappointing error given her experience and position as a national sportswriter. You see, most of the extraordinary athletic feats we extoll were performed by jerks, at least at the time of their performance. Raving egomaniacs, barely tolerated by their competitors, if tolerated at all. Think about it. Think about the signature athletic accomplishments in your lifetime and the lifetime just prior. Does anyone qualify as a genuinely nice guy? Happily married, kind to children and small animals alike? I’m sure there are others, but I come up with a very short list of Lou Gherig  and…Lou Gherig.

Jack Nicklaus? Ridiculed behind his back as “Fat Jack” by the jealous, and “Carnac” for his self-righteous know-it-allness. Possessed of an outsized ego and not really at all concerned with how he was perceived by anyone in his heyday, it was only at the end of his PGA career that the “Golden Bear” became teddy. Jack possessed that certain arrogance and dismissiveness of any and all not strictly necessary to achieve his lofty goals, similar in scope and kind to the various corporate chieftains of his generation (Se Welch, Jack, et al).

Babe Ruth? Come on. A veritable bull in the china shop of life, he mauled his way through the 30’s indulging appetites as outsized as Tiger’s. Openly jealous of the afore mentioned Lou Gherig, our collective memory of The Babe is air-brushed in the azure of ages past, just like Ms. Robers. Mickey Mantle? Spend a little time reading about his treatment of Roger Maris, or re-read Bouton’s “Ball Four”. The guy was a ton of fun, but virtuous is nowhere to be found in any true-to-life memoirs of The Mick.

Philanders, drunks and gluttons, or arrogant chieftains lording their superiority over their minions, the owners of most of our cherished athletic records are nearly uniformly men besotted with themselves, consumed in and by their pursuits, convinced only that they deserve whatever it is that they desire. At the very least they are possessed of overriding ego and an ability to channel their every effort in the pursuit of records, leaving in their wake a sea of collateral human damage.

Well, that…that…that just seems so WRONG. They don’t deserve our support, our worship. They should PAY for their misdeeds. Ah…here Ms. Roberts gets it just a little more right. They do, indeed, pay for being miscreants off the field, at least nowadays they do. Kobe loses millions in endorsements for taking liberties with one who was unwilling. Barry Bonds makes nary a cent off the field, and hasn’t since long before his hat size grew.  Mark McGuire is driven underground for YEARS after his retirement, cut off from both the succor of adoration that might come to the clean holder of a cherished record, and just as completely shut out of the riches that such adulation would bring. Babe Ruth, Mickey Mantle, Joe Louis and others in that era largely escaped this fate because of a fawning media who protected them. Ms. Roberts is quite right to decline that role, and quite right to unravel the tightly woven tale of Tiger that allowed him to accrue his nearly obscene off-the-course riches.

But “goodness” as a pre-req for greatness as regards epic athletic feats and achievement? Nonsense. It’s still exactly 100M, and it will remain so whether or not Usain Bolt becomes a bonehead. A home run is still over the wall, whether it’s hit by The Mick or Junior. We shouldn’t care where Joe Willie spent the night before as long as he beats the Colts the day after. We are indifferent that Lance Armstrong leaves everyone he touches with his bike in a flaming heap by the roadside, we simply yearn for Tour de Lance v 8.0.

Tiger will pay a price, has paid a price, for his behavior. He is down…what?…somewhere between $25 and $100 Million A YEAR in lost endorsemant money right now. You know, $25 Million here, $25 Million there, pretty soon you’re talking about real money, eh?

Me? I hope Tiger laps the field at both the British Open and the PGA. He plays golf by the same rules as Jack, Arnie, and Old Tom Morris; no gimmes, they still putt ’em all out. Like Crossfit, every second counts, eh? Records are made to be broken and I want to experience the thrill of witnessing athletic feats of grandeur. I’ll decide whether or not to like Tiger based on his People Magazine profile, sure, and I’ll think about whether or not I buy something on his say-so a little more closely now, but I wanna see greatness on the golf course.

That’ll be good enough.

Bob Ryan, the great Boston Globe sportswriter, is famous for a writing style in which he simply jots down short little “thoughlets”. He basically just throws out whatever’s on his mind, expanding on some thoughts, and just letting others dangle, tiny little flags sent up the flagpole. If you’ve ever read him, and if you pay attention, you notice that he occasionally revisits these “thoughtlets” with a much deeper examination.  This technique or style has been ripped off by countless other sportswriters, usually without attribution.

Over the course of my day-to-day life I find myself interested in countless little ideas, tiny thoughts, or random observations. Not all of them are worthy of the full attention of the “Restless Mind”, but I think a lot of them really  ARE interesting, and I really hate to lose  them. So I thought on occasion I, too, would steal this technique from Mr. Ryan, only I am going to openly acknowledge that it’s his, and openly thank him for giving me the idea. So, without further ado, here are some  random thoughts banging around between my ears…

1.)  Lacrosse.  I am absolutely up to my eyeballs in lacrosse this weekend, and loving every minute of it. My son Randy had a  game yesterday, and looking back I realized that I spent at least six hours in front of ESPNU watching NCAA lacrosse as well. It’s really a fantastic sport. I’m a little guy, and lacrosse would’ve been a great sport for me when I was younger. Unfortunately, I didn’t come upon lacroses until I was a high school junior, and I didn’t get a chance to actually play lacrosse until I was in college. I was a pretty typical football player turned lacrosse player — great wheels, no stick. I was a defensive midfielder before the position actually  existed. “Hey, Darrell, see that kid over there? Yeah, that one. The one who knows how to play lacrosse. Go beat the crap out of him and don’t let him score!” Yup, I was THAT guy.

When my oldest son, Danny, started playing in junior high school I rekindled my love for the game. I’ve been telling people for years that lacrosse is the perfect game for boys. You get to do everything your mother ever told you NOT to do: you get to run with a stick, and you get to HIT people with! Seriously, how good is THAT?! It’s funny, though, because it’s exactly this part of the sport that is putting this wonderful, lovely game at risk in our local public high school.

You see, our athletic director is concerned that lacrosse is inherently a dangerous sport. He’s concerned that the injury rate is, or will be, much higher than all other sports simply because it’s lacrosse. I don’t think that’s the case. As a matter of fact, after watching very high level lacrosse on television this weekend, I’m convinced it’s not the case. I say this after having watched my youngest son, Randy, get the snot beaten out of him in his last three games (Randy is an attackman who plays the “X.” position; he has the ball an awful lot making him an inviting target).

What the athletic director is actually seeing it is a rather unskilled version of the game. As such it’s really not any different from unskilled versions of any other contact sport. Who among us hasn’t seen an unskilled basketball team rough up the team made of five extremely skilled but rather slight hoopsters? Or the soccer team that consists of brutes, muscling their opponents off the ball? Or the classic example, the hockey team whose tactics consist largely of muggings on skates? No, it’s not the game. Lacrosse is no more or nor no less injury-prone than any other contact sport.

It’s really quite beautiful, and I have to make sure our athletic director realizes this.

2.)  Women’s lacrosse. If you love men’s lacrosse you’ve probably watched a game or two of women’s lacrosse. While I write this I’m watching the Virginia women beat Towson State in a playoff game. They have lacrosse sticks, they shoot at 6′ x 6′ goals, and the ball spends an awful lot of time in the air being passed from player to player. The similarities seem to end there, though. It’s a totally different game!

I’m I’m reminded of watching my sister play field hockey in high school. Man, talk about a game with lots and lots of rules, totally impenetrable to all but the chosen few who have been initiated in some secret athletic rite. I could never figure out why any whistle was blown in field hockey, and I have to confess that I’m just as bewildered watching women’s lacrosse. The women are very fast, clearly elite athletes, and they’re certainly holding lacrosse sticks and shooting at lacrosse goals.

I hope I figure out women’s lacrosse in less time than it took me to figure out field hockey!

3.) There was a  very insightful article, an interview of the great economist Gary Becker in the Wall Street Journal couple of weeks ago. Becker touched on all kinds of topics, and spent a little bit of time on one that’s very close to my world, namely healthcare economics. He’s a little frustrated, heck were ALL a little frustrated by the willful obfuscation foisted upon the great unwashed mass of humanity that doesn’t work inside the Washington DC beltway when it comes to health care economics.

A case in point is the effect of out-of-pocket expenses on the overall amount of money that is spent on healthcare in any given country. In the United States we presently spend about 17% of our GDP on healthcare. Out-of-pocket expenses make up only about 12% of total health-care spending. In Switzerland, however, a country widely acclaimed for a very effective health care system, and equally acclaimed for spending only 11% of GDP on healthcare, the Swiss have out-of-pocket expenses equal to about 31% of total spending.

Swiss consumers of medical care are assumed to  have the ability to make complex medical decisions on their own behalf. Do you think maybe, just MAYBE there is a correlation here? Do you think that perhaps the fact that Swiss patients individually own 31% of the skin in the game has anything to do with driving overall healthcare costs lower? That perhaps the fact that every healthcare transaction is roughly 1/3 the responsibility of a patient, thereby involving every single patient in the financial aspects of every single health care decision, might be in part responsible for a lower percentage of the GDP being spent on healthcare?

Nah. Couldn’t be that.

4.)  Aches and pains. My partner Greg Kaye turned 41 years old this week. Greg actually handled the “turning 41” part much better than I did 50, only finding it difficult over the last month or so. Greg is also a former athlete, just a little less  “former” then yours truly. But Greg has struggled over the last month or so because of a couple of nagging injuries which have limited his athletic exploits, and consequently reminded him that he is no longer 21.

I’ve got pretty much the same chronic infirmities that I’ve had for several years. I’ve made my peace with them, at least I think I have. The difference for me now is that every time something new crops up I’m having a hard time putting aside the thought that it’s not just a little niggling effect of being 50 years old, but that it might actually be something serious. I’m starting to see friends, and friends of friends die. Some of them are dying from common things, and some of them are dying from relatively uncommon, weird things. I have a little bruise on my trachea right now. In all likelihood that’s all it is. The good news: I probably won’t put a tie on for a week or so. The bad news: until I put a tie back on I’m going to be wondering.

We used to call this “medical students disease”, the phenomenon where every medical student came down with whatever disease we happen to be studying at the time. I apparently was never cured of “medical students disease”!

Admit it. How many times have you heard or read a professional athlete utter the words “it’s not about the money” and forced yourself not to gag? Seriously, it’s ALWAYS about the money.

We hear this ad nauseum during the free agent season in every professional team sport as players from superstars on down to less-than-super subs angle for the biggest payday possible. The phrases “max contract”, “salary cap”, and “veteran exception” vie for our attention with batting averages, rebounds, and sacks. We the fans are spectators not only to the games but also to the gamesmanship between owners and players, each trying to maximize their piece of the pie. It’s ALL about the money.

The realist in me wants to acknowledge that this is simply the labor/management battle played out on the front page of the Sports Section. How, I ask, is this any different from the headlines in the Business Section where the “Masters of the Universe” keep score with their multi-billion dollar spoils?

But then it hits me…in the board rooms and the banks how much money you make is the ONLY scorecard. There is no other way to rank the players or the teams. The person with the highest salary wins. That’s it. Nothing else. The company/bank with the highest profit is the “best”. If Goldman Sacs makes more money than JP Morgan then Goldman is the better bank and Lloyd Blankfield is better and smarter than Jamie Dimon. Money is the only metric, and no one sits at home playing Fantasy Wall Street or cheering for their home town Hedge Fund.

And there’s the rub–the games we watch all have a scorecard, and we keep the score of the games the same way whether it’s the Cleveland Browns vs. the Miami Dolphins in the NFL, or the Shaker Heights Eagles vs. the Southbridge Mass Ponies in Pop Warner. A free throw is one point whether it’s Bingo Smith at the line in the NBA or bingo (yours truly) at Tri-City Park in Rocky River. If you’re playing the game in the back yard, or if you’re a fan of the pro game it doesn’t really matter. What you care about is winning. Period.

When was the last time you heard the words “it’s not about the money” from a big-time athlete, spoken or unspoken, and you believed them? I can come up with exactly one, and I’ve been following pro and college sports since I could turn on a TV. I really did believe Tim Tebow, the kid from Florida, who came back for his senior year to play quarterback. I mean, what did he have to gain money-wise by doing that? Heisman trophy winner. Leader of two NCAA champions. Top five pick in the draft whenever he came out. I really think the kid just loves college and being a college student and football player. Other than him? Shut-out.

But there’s something really interesting blowing in the winds of the NBA. You know that place, home to the “Bird Exception” that allowed the Celtics to pay Larry $33 Million in his last season. Where Michael Jordan took home a cool $30 Million despite making somewhere north of $50 Million in endorsements each year for 10 + years. Some upper mid-level power forward–I can’t even remember his name–agreed to hold off on signing his contract with the Cleveland Cavaliers, promised a huge raise and the chance to play with LeBron James, only to exile himself to Utah when an offer of more money arose. I DO remember what he said in the paper, though. Yup…you guessed it…”it’s not about the money.”

Still, there it is, a whisper dancing just outside the conversation. Someone, a very important someone, has a chance to utter that fateful phrase, “it’s not about the money”, and really mean it. Here now is LeBron James, a free agent at the end of this NBA season, who has the opportunity to sign a contract that is all about his team winning. LeBron, who makes somewhere in the vicinity of $80 Million in endorsement money, can sign a “max contract” that will pay him around $100 Million or so over 7 years, maximizing his income from playing the game but also maximizing the difficulty that General Manager Danny Ferry will have gathering talent to surround LeBron in order to win. Win like you and I think about winning, as in winning NBA championships.

It’s just the tiniest of breezes now, barely enough to tickle what’s left of the leaves on the trees in Cleveland, not even enough to rustle the top sheet of the Plain Dealer as it sits in your driveway. LeBron could sign for the veteran’s minimum, about $2 Million per year. The $2 Million wouldn’t even count against the Cav’s salary cap! Doing this would free up, what, $20, $25 Million per year? That’s enough to sign not one but TWO major players, especially if they, too, sign on just a little bit to “it’s not about the money”, it’s about playing with LeBron and WINNING. Dwayne Wade AND Chris Bosh in Cleveland with LeBron James. In Cleveland, playing to win.

It’s still about the money, of course. I’m not naive enough to think that there wouldn’t be massive positive PR for LeBron if he took a minimum contract and stayed in his hometown city and then won. I also know that he can revisit his max contract option in 2 or 3 years and get pretty much the same number he would get now, even with the massive increase in off-court income likely to come his way if he played it my way. But still, a chance to say “it’s not about the money” and really mean it, even if it’s only for a couple of years? It’s man bites dog stuff.

Who knows if it will happen but I get a little smile as I think about the hurricane that will tear through the Player’s association if LeBron does this. I love thinking about David Stern’s office after the tornado plows through if LeBron comes out and says “it’s not about the money” and means it. If LeBron James is the first professional athlete in modern sports history who literally puts his money where his mouth is.

Hey…anybody out there have Maverick Carter’s cell number?

Why don’t we see any more three-sport athletes in college sports? I think it’s because we rarely see any STUDENT-athletes at the highest level of college sports.

Heck, we rarely see any more TWO-sport athletes. Gone are the likes of Bo Jackson and Dion Sanders in Division I. Gone, too, are athletes like me (football, lacrosse), my sister Tracey (field hockey, track) and countless other athletes at the Division II and III level. It seemed like all of the athletes I played with in College at Williams played more than one sport and played them all well. Most of them doing so much better than I to be sure. Most sightings of  multi-sport athletes in Division I have traditionally occurred in the Ivy League but no more. The three-sport athlete is dead and gone, and the two-sport athlete is following quickly.

Why is this so? Is this just the logical extension of the death of the three-sport high school athlete? Are ambitious, selfish, narrow-perspective coaches the cause of the demise of the collegiate multi-sport athlete? Or is it the parents, blinded by the false promise of scholarships who allow themselves to be swept up in the fallacy of early specialization, who are to blame?

The answer is “yes” at the lower levels of collegiate sports, Division III in particular. Parents especially shoulder the blame here, pushing their children to specialize early, to forgo  multiple sports played just for the fun of it in the hopes that a single sport will be the wildcard that gets their child into that super-selective college. Without any evidence that playing multiple sports will reduce the chances that a child will play a sport in college, parents allow themselves to be seduced by coaches who have only their own interest at heart.

What of Division I you might ask? What about a situation where a scholarship is possible? A situation where an athlete may get a free ride in return for playing a sport in college? Well, here we introduce the holy grail, an athletic scholarship in return for helping a Division I college make money. Here, at the highest level of sport is where money ultimately has soiled the playing field. For every sin that a high school coach has committed in the pursuit of a victory there is a college coach and a college athletic director and a college president who has committed the same sin. The college coach, AD, and president have the added PROFIT incentive to monopolize the college athlete,  and their sins are correspondingly magnified.

Need an example? How about looking at Florida State, home of the Seminoles and alma mater of the outstanding college football and baseball player Dion Sanders. Here, right now, we have a college president openly lobbying for a ruling that will not result in the forfeit of 14 football games as a result of an academic indiscretion on the part of a significant number of football players. We have a college president and an AD more concerned with the legacy of a millionaire coach and the affect on the reputation (and fund raising) of a football program than with the reputation of the academic institution.

The three-sport college athlete died shortly after the STUDENT-athlete died.

Need another example? Two weeks ago the WSJ published an article on sports in the Ivy League, “Can the Ivy League Get Its Game Back?” The basic theme was that there was something wrong with Ivy League sports and that the solution was that they should become more like major Division I programs and that they should compete in ALL post-season competitions. Tommy Amaker and Harvard are  held up as examples of what should be done, that lowering academic standards is priority one. Next is the institution of league tournaments to generate interest and money. Finally, it is proposed that Ivy League schools should offer non-need based athletic scholarships.

Rather depressing at first blush, but this may actually be where salvation may lie. This may be where the student-athlete is reborn and along with him or her the three-sport athlete. What if the Ivy League DID compete at the highest level and won WITHOUT changing their academic standards like they did pre-1960? What if the best high school student-athletes chose to attend Harvard or Princeton instead of Ohio State and Michigan? If the majority of college athletes do NOT go on to make a living playing their sport wouldn’t it make sense for them to attend the most selective college possible, just like every other kid?  What if the Ivy League applied the same criteria to admitting athletes as they do for the rest of the student body and looked for the well-rounded athlete? The three-sport athlete? What if Dartmouth and Columbia started to win?

I think the schools of the Ivy League should stand up and lead. By offering athletic scholarships to EVERY athlete who makes a varsity team they will remove the economic disadvantage they presently have when competing for the top STUDENT-athletes. Unlike other institutions of higher learning the Ivy League schools are more than able to handle the dollar costs involved. In doing so they will undoubtedly find that they can fill each of their teams many times over with student-athletes who would start at most Division I colleges without changing the admission criteria for athletes one iota.

In fact, the truer they are to the entirety of their stated admission criteria, to produce a college class of diverse, well-rounded individuals, the more likely they are to seek the well-rounded athlete. If the Ivy League were to return to its athletic roots while maintaining its academic ideals and identity the best and the brightest high school athletes will beat a path to the door of its member schools. The Ivy League will have “Its Game Back” and we will once again see Yale in a Bowl Game, Harvard in the Frozen Four, Princeton in the Final Four, and Penn in the College World Series. We will see them win. If they will lead they will win.

And perhaps, just maybe, a coach or a parent will say to a boy or girl who is doing homework after the last game of his or her Fall sport, “Hey, when is the first basketball practice?”