Not Functioning Properly

Well, I've done it.

In an effort to make myself a more well-rounded individual, today, at approximately 5:55AM, I unplugged my high-definition cable receiver and, at around 1PM, returned it to the cable company.

Therefore, if you plan to visit the apartment, bring a DVD and your A-game conversation.

I hope this is not some horrible omen that I missed the USA win the biggest soccer game of the 233-year history of the country (future entry.) Or that I will be bypassing the drafting of Stephen Curry going as high as #3 in the NBA draft and I will just have to settle for hitting the refresh button over and over again just to spot where he lands. Currently I find myself asking, "If it's this bad now, what the hell am I supposed to do Independence Day weekend - read and watch fireworks? That's just ridiculous."

Fortunately, my summer does not have me under house arrest, babysitting a small infant or puppy or without plenty to do. For one thing, the summer team that I am coaching near Davidson extracts all of the life out of me. For another, I have plenty of work to accomplish for the Wildcats over these next four weeks.

(Did you buy those excuses? I have to keep reminding myself those are valid ones.)

So, on this my first evening without a working high-definition, cable television I have
a) gone to a concert performed by members of the summer team
b) made rice
c) checked some baseball scores
d) written this captivating entry

So far, so good. I'm not shore what to do now as I have now begun to wash some dirty clothes and move towards washing the clean ones when that load is finished. Once I've finished the neighbors' laundry. I guess I could resort to reading a book, but I think that's like the members of Survivor resorting to cannibalism on Day 33 of starvation. So if one night is Day 33...

I know I can handle this ultimate sacrifice. I will become that more well-rounded person I've set myself up to be. Starting today, I am going to be more proactive in writing emails, staying on top of my work and sleep schedule and look for a high-paying house-sitting job that has Discovery Channel in sparkling high def.

Good Friday

Bachelor Party USA was to commence on Friday, June 12th and last through the early morning of Sunday, June 14th. Most of my friends came from out of town:

Mark and Evan - DC
Crispino - Williamsburg
Watts and Tsai - Chicago
Joe - Atlanta
Jeff - Boulder
Reid and Robby - New York City
Gaetan, a true Philadelphian, currently resides in Pittsburgh as he begins his residency (awesome.)

We had planned this weekend for about two months, but didn't really set too much in stone except for Saturday golf and Pirate game. Friday became booked when the Penguins defeated the Red Wings on Tuesday night to force a Game 7 in the Stanley Cup Finals. As soon as it ended, Joe is on the phone with me, plotting when we would meet at my house, what we would bring, and what we would eat.

I have not watched a game with my buddies since high school and now I'm watching, arguably, the biggest game of my fandom career, with all of them in my basement. My dad cooked enough meet to feed Portugal with no salads to be found in sight. Mom had gotten me 36 bottles of IBC Root Beer per my request. We set up another television in the living room so there were three screens going in the house.

At 8:15PM, it was game on. I can remember so much about the game but so little about what everyone else was doing. Maybe it was because of our collective laser-like focus to the high-def NBC feed. It was the greatest.

As the third period was winding down and the Pens were clinging to a 2-1 lead, I kept thinking - there's no way all of these things can be happening at once. If they pull this out, I don't know what I'm going to do with myself.

Sure enough...

Usually after "biggest wins in my lifetime" type games, I'm calling everyone that is important in my world to talk about how the team did or how amazing a key play was. Check that off; everyone's in the TV room.

Like I said back in February, Pittsburgh sports mean so much to the city and community. This is who we grew up with, loyal to each through tough seasons, playoff lapses and the occasional championship. I've been more than fortunate to witness the Steelers raise the Lombardi trophy with no one in sight and the Penguins hoist the Cup with my friends all around me.

Both are so sweet...but I'll take the second one more any day of the week...

Looking Back - Chaper III - Turning Points

Obstacles are those frightening things that become visible when we take our eyes off our goals. – Henry Ford

So much of the program’s success is predicated on the conference championship. As is the case for about 90% of NCAA institutions that have a swimming program, the season’s culmination arrives when all teams in the league gather to decide the winner. You want to be your best, saving nothing to chance or fate, as schools duke it out for the crown.

The journey leading to the Davidson CCSA Championship, as we mentioned, begins before the first day of classes. The new crop of freshmen would arrive with a new hunger for success. The returning team could have forged stronger bonds through their training and friendship or severed their ties with spite, jealousy or even malice. Either way, the road is long.

If you polled the team and asked each of them, in one word, to describe the first four months of the season, no one would utter “smooth” or “easy” or “uneventful.” There were days that felt 48 hours long and others that flew by. The boatload of work that accompanies the students at Davidson seems excessive, but the rewards of nailing a mid-term or paper resonated with the staff and those Cats willing to feel good about their teammate’s achievement. And it’s not like Davidson is VMI. The kids aren’t immune to the luxuries that come with being in college. You may have the occasional homesickness bug, flu bug, bed bug or crazy hall mates bugging you about keeping the noise down or the lights on.

And through all of this, your swimming telescope is aimed at both personal and team accomplishment at the conference championship. You may get distracted with the college lifestyle and the burdens that come with being 18-22 years old, but you’ll refocus and keep your eyes on the prize. With all of this action crammed into the first semester, it’s pretty clear to me the turning points of the season for the Cats came in those ten eventful days in Deerfield Beach, Florida. No school work, no parents, no parties. Just your teammates, the coaches, cooperative weather and challenge of putting up with each other and grinding through fatigue, early mornings and hunger Survivor-style.

And it was pretty clear who survived and who fell by the waste side, both as a competitor and a teammate.
For me, while swimming at William and Mary, Florida was both torturous and exhilarating. For one, I knew some of my teammates cringed at the fact they had to work harder during this trip than any other of the season. The Wildcats were quite similar. You could look at this as a chance to improve yourself or pamper yourself. I was never one to travel so I was pretty pumped at the prospect of getting out of Virginia or Pennsylvania for longer than 24 hours.

Now you should note that I was not the friendliest person in the pool or in training. I really didn’t have time for slackers, even as a freshman. I viewed myself as one of the least talented swimmers on the team, if not at the very bottom, and if I was executing more efficiently in practice than you, you were going to hear about it. I distinctly remember a couple of occasions during my senior season chewing out some of the prima donna freshmen for the lackluster, arrogant approach to practice (this happened about 20+ times over the course of the season, but I digress.) I really appreciated my teammates that put in a maximum effort, understanding that was the point of the trip and not to ice their shoulders, sit out practice and work on their tan.
Your tolerance for others had to be at its peak, too. Florida training, like it or not, pits the same people around you for 10 days, sharing the same space, food, television, etc. It’s all sunshine and ice cream sundaes when you’re getting along. It’s terrifying when you’re not. Again, survivor-style.

I can’t speak for every member of the team about the fun he/she may have had or just how much it stung the muscles and joints to put oneself through a great deal of physical labor. Yet, the exact moment when the season turned came as a conglomeration of the above three factors, coming together in one small meeting at the end of one of our morning sessions.

Early that day, an upperclassman was dismissed from the trip for an egregious team violation. The coaches, set to address the incident with the squad at the end of morning training, gathered the team to address the situation. It was brief and, in my opinion, did not seem to rattle the team too much.

Once our head coach had made his point, another upperclassman decided to take it upon himself to speak on behalf of the dismissed crony. His tone was not convincing and his announcement to side with his friend, again, did not shock anyone. But this particular Wildcat, maybe without knowing it, had drawn a line in the sand. With all of the commotion and distraction the team had gone through from the commencement of the season leading up to that very meeting, here’s a guy that had the audacity to basically proclaim, “I’m out – who’s coming with me.” He may not have said it in so many words, but he had no qualms about his actions.

And right there, the team got stronger.

It no longer became about Florida or winning a conference championship. It became about having a bad situation self-exalted and deciding, as a stronger unit, to be better than that. Personally, even as a freshman in high school, I was entrenched in seniors (and even juniors) feeling entitlement, demonstrating poor leadership or pettily demanding something from their teammates or both. I was convinced that I would never act that way if I were fortunate enough to get in that leadership role. The Wildcats had some of these very upperclassmen and the group, after that announcement, rallied behind that very premise: “WE will not act this way. Thank you for making it very clear.”

Florida came and went and the weeks that followed seemed just a little different than the ones in 2008. The team understood who had kept their eyes on the goals. Yes, there continued to be distractions, but it most of it was in vain of the guilty parties. And once attention was not found by the culprits, there no longer seemed to be a need to continue. I commend those Cats that did not waver from team objectives.

It was crystallized who was on board. And this foundation laid groundwork for a terrific conclusion to the season.

Next Entry – Championship Mettle

Can't Handle It

Bill Buckner was one of the greatest baseball players of the late 1970s and 1980s. He was as reliable of a corner outfielder as you were going to find in the American League and the Boston Red Sox were lucky to have such stability at one of their key infield positions. I never knew who Bill Buckner was other than the player who had the ball slip through his legs in Game Six of the 1986 World Series.

After retiring from baseball three seasons later, Buckner moved to Idaho, which isn't exactly near Boston or the painful memories that he was reminded of every day since the Game 6 debacle. Depending on who you reference, blame for Buckner's mishap could be overblown by overzealous fans, over-eccentric media or over-hyped citizens from the largest city in America, who happened to be the recipients of the World Series trophy that season.

Since the fall of 1986, Buckner's life was threatened. His children were bullied and tormented. His wife would hear her husband and family name as the punchline of countless jokes and references to failure. Certainly it was not fair. It was down-right cynical and torturous.

But do you know what Bill Buckner did after Game 6 and Game 7 of that World Series?

Bill Buckner stood at his locker, looked at the local, national and world media directly in the camera, and answered every single question they could ask him.

Do you know what Bill Buckner did the Monday after the World Series?

He did an interview with NBC to try and explain exactly how he felt, how the play unfolded and what he would do from here.

Buckner understood his responsibility to the team and the fans of the Red Sox. It was striking to me to read the above link about how he was cheered along Boston even after the Red Sox came up just short. The majority of people in New England forgave Buckner, even though it probably wasn't his fault at all.

And now look at LeBron James.

People may know that I am not a LeBron James fan. His weekend removal from the NBA playoffs comes as a shock to everyone, even if they say otherwise. The Cavaliers were pushed around by the Magic - who probably should have won 5 of the 6 games played in the series.

After Orlando destroyed the Cavs in the final game by 13, James - true to his classlessness, stormed off the court in a huff, not acknowledging the Magic for a hard fought series. He did even look at OSCAR ROBERTSON - one of the NBA's all-time greats in the face to give him a handshake at the conclusion of the game (look closely at the :11 sec. mark of the video - the gentleman in the white hair.)

The worst of it came the next day. James was gracious enough to dawn the media with his presence and proclaimed that he is "a winner" and "a competitor" and "doesn't see the point of congratulating someone who just beat him up. I just don't see the point in that." Listen to how many times he says "I." Hardly ever "we" or "the Cavs."

James may be the best player in the NBA. He may love to smile and take stupid, fake photos of his teammates and throw chalk in the air as they win 66 regular season games and he may love his Vitamin Water when they take-out the Pistons and Hawks. And in the heat of frustration, it's marginally excusable if The King wants to pout his way of the floor so he doesn't get too much confetti in his delicate eyes. But he's embarrassed his teammates, the organization and anyone else that competes and loses with grace. Just because you've gotten whatever you want whenever you've wanted it doesn't mean you can't acknowledge a victor.

I know that I will never be pointing my athletes or people that I influence to emulate James. He may win 10 NBA titles by the time he's done playing ball and he may make trillions of dollars as a "global icon." But I'm glad he's not playing anymore this season. The people playing, I guess you could say, are the winners.