Tag Archives: athletes

Build-Up

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Build-up: (n) a gradual accumulation or increase

When the project fails, in retrospect, we call it “hype.”

When we’re trying to promote the project we refer to it as “build-up.”Dictionary B

How much advertising is really necessary to propel a good idea?

How much money do we need to spend to advertise quality?

How much recognition is achieved by shouting things from the housetops?

It is the nature of the human race to be picky and to appear disappointed.

So if you advertise the “best tacos in San Antone, Texas,” very few people will agree and admit, “That was the best taco I ever ate.”

Instead, you will be inundated with descriptions of other tacos they’ve enjoyed, or worse, suggestions on how you could make your taco better, so your advertising would coincide with the product.

For instance, I think we would have a more successful democracy in America if we had less build-up.

  • Why do we have to be the “greatest nation on Earth?”
  • Why do we have to be superior in every way?
  • Why do our missiles have to be more powerful?
  • Why do we think our athletes are more attractive or healthier?
  • Why do we think our women are fairer than those in the Middle East?

What have we really achieved as a nation, a people or even as individuals, through build-up?

Because just as soon as you try to convince someone that you’ve found the best … they will start looking for better.

 

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Big-Head

Big-head: (n) a conceited or arrogant person.

Dictionary B

Conceited: “Look at what I can do!”

Arrogant: “I do it best.”

Where is the joy in doing?

Somewhere along the line, all of our athletes, superstars, politicians and celebrities grow weary of the aspect of the joy in the art or practice that brought them into notoriety.

They become professionally famous.

Their lives become the pursuit of maintaining that status, which demands that they feather their nest even as they deflower the reputations of competitors.

It is nasty business.

It’s based around the ridiculous premise that if you don’t toot your own horn, it won’t get tooted. Yet eventually people get tired of your brassy promotion. What then?

Is there any satisfaction remaining in just being able to share what you can do? Or does that ability have to be accompanied by awards, accolades and predominance?

The best way to get rid of a big head is to keep your focus shrunken to the blessedness of living out that which you originally dreamed to do.

If people enjoy it, so much the better.

But if they don’t, or if the fame you seek eludes you, then make sure that when you finish the day, you do so with a spring in your step and a joy with your pursuit.Donate Button

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Bauble

Bauble: (n) a small, showy trinket or decoration.Dictionary B

Conflicting opinions not only create conflict, they often permanently stall progress in favor of those conflicted getting along.

Because of this, we are never quite sure whether we have arrived at any sense of reason or compromise which has thrust the human race forward.

This is why we’re so enamored with baubles.

They are the little confirmations, given significance, which make us feel we are doing well.

  • After all, what would a contest be without certificates of participation?
  • Can we have a competition without a trophy?
  • And I do believe that most athletes would quit if statistics about their accomplishments were not being jotted down in a book somewhere.

Why do we need a bauble to dangle from our tree of life to confirm that we are well decorated?

It would be much more intelligent for the human race to pursue things that are fruitful instead of merely awarded.

I, for one, would love to see the entertainment industry allow their movies to be judged by the common man and woman instead of being lauded with praise by the elite before they’re even released to theaters.

Would we end up with different choices? God forbid, would the masses deem a Disney flick about penguins more popular than an avant garde project about a female dancer who secretly believes she’s a penguin?

Baubles are often the trinkets that convince us of truths that are not necessarily in evidence. Yet we will always pursue them … because we are captivated by things that sparkle.

 

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Athlete

Athlete: (n) a person who is proficient in sports and other forms of physical exercise.dictionary with letter A

I often find myself aggravated when I listen to one of the pundits on ESPN or other sports programs talk about athletes having a “God-given ability.”

I think it’s one of the largest cop-outs in our society. It seems to me that when we discover that anything will take effort or demand commitment, we pull out the DNA card and insist that “we are not born with that particular inclination.”

The trouble with ignoring your inner athlete is that you rob yourself of the grace, agility and even healthy lifestyle that are conducive to human well-being.

I think it’s disgusting that we are not encouraging all young people to participate in some sort of team sport actitivity, which would enhance their abilities, so that they would possess the confidence and physical know-how to maneuver themselves through the narrow spaces of life.

Yes, athletes have an advantage, and it’s not just in high school and college. People who are athletic tend to stay trimmer, thinner and in better health than those who aren’t.

As a young boy I was allowed to vegetate, with the most exciting part of my day being breakfast, lunch and dinner. The end result was obesity.

When I finally got old enough to discover my “athlete in residence,” I was already so overweight that it was nearly impossible to return to a normal size. It has to start early–and we have to escape the notion that our five-day-old child has a personality; that because he laid his tiny hand on a ball in the room that he will someday be a superb “baller.”

We are trapping our children in a destiny that doesn’t exist, and in so doing we are robbing them of the power to find the full extent of their athletic ability, which grants them the jubilance and health to be alive and virile.

  • We are all athletes.
  • We are all given opportunity.
  • We are all provided life.

And as soon as we allow our children to tap that energy within them, the obesity rates that have been going up will suddenly drop.

For I will tell you–it’s not about how much you eat.

It’s about how you burn it.

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Armchair

dictionary with letter A

Armchair: 1. (n) a comfortable chair, typically upholstered, with side supports for a person’s arms. 2. (adj) lacking or not involving practical or direct experience of a particular subject or activity.

There should never be more pundits than participants.

There. I have established a new rule.

Like most rules, it will be ignored in favor of some sort of haphazard pursuit of unbridled freedom.

Yet we have too many people with too many opinions who have too little talent to participate in the matters that are too important.

Last night as I watched the National Championship for college football, I was astounded at how many different people they had conglomerated to voice their opinions on the activities of these barely post-adolescent young men, who have been pushed to the forefront as superior athletes.

Some of these “armchair quarterbacks,” as we often call them, are actually former players. But they all seem to forget a very important fact. Even though I didn’t play football very long, I will tell you something which is never brought up by those in armchairs, be it about sports, politics or life in general:

It happens too fast.

If you expect your training or your brain to be able to come up with some magnificent way to handle the task in front of you, you will be confounded, stumble and make mistakes.

Just as a politician who wants to seek counsel with many people before making a decision always ends up piping in a little too late, any football player who believes he will have time in the middle of the game to access the resources of his brain and come up with the perfect solution for the situation, is going to end up looking foolish and inept.

Life really works with the conjoining of two magnificently unpredictable units: instinct and luck.

And the only way to be successful is to put yourself into enough uncomfortable situations that your instincts begin to turn you in the right direction, and then realize that the choices you make will still require some luck in order to be fruitful.

I got tickled after the game last night when they asked a player what he was thinking “right before he threw that pass.”

The young man crinkled his brow as if he didn’t understand the question, but politely replied, “Well, it was just a play and I played it through.”

Exactly.

America sometimes seems obsessed with the notion that we can educate ourselves into a better world.

Pundits love to discuss, from their armchairs of comfort, how somebody should have done something completely different in a given situation. But the best we can really do in life is to stop being afraid of difficulty.

For it grants us the instinct to know what to do at the right moment, and then step back…and pray we get lucky.

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