What Kind of Person?
November 30, 2012
The Nov. 12, 2012 issue of Fortune magazine asked 21 high-profile people from all walks of life for the one piece of wisdom that got them where they are today. The responses were typical tripe . . . except from Scott Griffith, Chairman and CEO of Zipcar. Griffith said he received this advice from his brother 15 years ago:
"You have to think about what kind of person you want to be when you’re done with this experience. Think about coming out of this a different person than you go in.”
Mr. Griffith got this advice shortly after he was diagnosed with stage 2 Hodgkins lymphoma. But he came to see how this advice could be applied to any challenge – positive or negative – in his or anybody else’s life.
Think how different things would be if Pete Rose had asked this before betting that he could get away with gambling during his Major League Baseball career; or if Mark McGwire, Roger Clemens or others had asked it before the start of their steroid-stained MLB careers.
Which takes me to more recent fallen heroes: Lance Armstrong, and Generals David Petraeus and John Allen. All three have done so much that is so good, most of which has unraveled with their ruined reputations.
If they had only asked, “What kind of person do I want to be when I’m done with this experience?”
They have come out of their experiences different than they went in, but not at all as they had hoped.
We used to say, “No good deed goes unpunished.” It’s also true these days that no bad deed goes undiscovered.
Heads and Heat
August 16, 2012
We are engaged in very serious discussions. They’re not only complicated, with unintended negative consequences possible from what are thought to be positive actions; they’re also a matter of life and death.
The topic is football – the high school sport under most scrutiny today and suffering from the most criticism it’s seen since the 1970s when catastrophic neck injuries spiked, liability awards soared, many insurers balked, and most helmet manufacturers abandoned the business altogether.
During recent years we have learned about the devastating long-term effects of repeated blows to the head; and we’re trying to reduce such hits. We’ve learned that 70 percent of concussions in football result from helmet-to-helmet contact, and we’re trying to have coaches teach blocking and tackling differently and have officials penalize “high hits” consistently and rigorously.
During the past several years we’ve learned that serious heat illness and heat-related deaths are 100 percent preventable, yet nationwide there were 35 heat-related deaths in high school football alone from 1995 to 2010; and we’re promoting practices that acclimatize athletes more gradually than “old school” traditionalists might advocate.
As we simultaneously address issues of heads and heat in football, some coaches may think we’re being overbearing, while many in medical fields say we’re out of date, citing higher standards of the American Academy of Pediatrics, National Athletic Trainers Association and National Federation of State High School Associations, as well as many of our counterpart organizations across the country.
As we consider in-season changes to improve athlete acclimatization and reduce blows to the head, we should be open to making out-of-season changes that work toward rather than in opposition to those objectives. There can be no sacred cows. The topic is too serious.
Ultimately, if we err in the outcome of this year’s discussions about heads and heat in football, it must be on the side of safety, on minimizing risks for student participants. They deserve it and, once again, the sport of football needs it.