Baloney
January 27, 2015
When I was in high school and college I worked a different job each summer, usually looking for hard labor that would help prepare my body for the next football season, and each time confirming that it would not be my choice for lifetime employment. One summer I worked at a lumber yard and paper mill complex along the banks of the Wisconsin River.
Every day I ate lunch with the men who had made this their life’s work; and I grew in ways both positive and negative as I listened to their conversations and tales. We all brought our own lunch pails.
One day, one of the more veteran employees opened his lunchbox and flew into a rage. “I can’t believe it,” he exclaimed. “Baloney again! I hate baloney.”
Trying to calm him down, another worker said, “If you hate baloney so much, just ask your wife to make you something else.”
To which the complainer replied, “That won’t work. I make my own lunches,” which resulted in an uproar of laughter from the rest of us.
I thought of this incident recently as I was preparing to meet with constituents about the rules they most love to hate: policies relating to coach and player contact out of season. Those are our most criticized rules.
But it occurs to me, if we don’t like the sandwich we’re eating – out-of-season coaching rules – we should remember: we made them ourselves, and we can change them. In fact, no one is in a better position to do so than we are. And no one has a greater duty to do so than we have, if we really are in need of a new recipe.
Rocket Science
January 5, 2015
I have always been fascinated by space exploration and in awe of all that is required and must go right to send a space vehicle atop a multi-stage booster rocket from a moving object like Earth, and land it softly on another moving object like the moon or Mars or most recently a massive rock, after a journey of many months and millions of miles. How can people figure that stuff out?
There cannot be a problem of school sports that is more complicated than those of space exploration, except for one feature – which is that our problems deal with people, who are far less predictable and dependable than the laws of physics.
Making matters worse is that we are working with people in a competitive arena, and in an emotional setting, where the objectivity which characterizes the scientific method of rocket scientists is generally if not universally absent.
As long as potential problem-solvers view potential solutions through the lens of what does or does not benefit them in terms of competitive edge, our efforts to make good changes will never launch or, if launched, will miss the target.