RUGator

Four of my favorite all-time Florida Gators are represented in the lithograph above. They are (from left to right): Steve Spurrier (#11-QB), Chris Collingsworth (WR), Wilber Marshall (#88-LB), Kerwin Bell (#12-QB), Emmitt Smith (#22-RB), and Stever Spurrier (wearing visor as former head coach).

This (along with other cool Gator art work) can be ordered by going to the following link:

http://www.skylinepictures.com/Florida.htm

Since 1990, here are the teams Nick Saben has coached:

Toledo-1990

Michigan State: 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998, 1999

LSU: 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004

Miami Dolphins: 2005, 2006

Alabama: 2007, 2008, 2009

…just sayin.’

Chip Carey (TBS baseball announcer): Please stop talking! I’m begging you. Please!

Bathroom hand dryers: When was the last time your hands actually got dried with one push of the button? Still end up using paper towels (or toilet paper).

Sports “color” commentators: Dave Winfield today on ESPN radio when asked what the Yankees had to do to win- “The Yankees need to get the lead and then they need to hold the lead.” I’m screaming.

Tired of hearing one of my colleagues telling me, “FYI.” It’s tired.

As I watched expert after expert dissecting every aspect of every sporting event and athlete known to man, I pictured how critically important all this information was/is to the lives of so many. And I wondered, “what if we spent half as much time focused on our own lives?”

I swear, Starbursts have gotten smaller over the years. Pretty soon, they’ll each be no bigger than a Skittle.

Nebraska football vs. Nebraska basketball

Duke basketball vs. Duke football

Penn State football vs. Penn State basketball

“Recognition is the greatest motivator.”

Gerard C. Eakdale

Reading about Penn State’s iconic coach, Joe Paterno, I learned of the “experiment” he put into place early on in his career.

That high academic standards and athletic achievement were not mutually exclusive.

Paterno himself played football as an undergraduate at Brown. His parents wanted him to go to law school. He had other plans.

And so I borrowed an idea from him.

Perhaps I could demand high achievement from my students. But how would I do this? I didn’t have the athletic fields to reinforce any classroom ideas I might try out on them.

So I stumbled upon something else.

As a first year classroom survival technique, I got to know my kids. What made them tick? Where were they from? Who were their parents? What if I put them (the kids) first and not the “material?” It’s all I had. I didn’t know any better.

Show them that you love and respect them and they’ll run through walls for you. That popped into my head. I was on the look out for ways to recognize them.

Nicknames, likes, friends, aptitudes, eye-contact, accountability, one on one conversations, listening more than speaking.

In short: THEM.

Simple.

Not easy.

But, it works.

Can you do that?

Put others first. Listen more than you speak. Build others up. Hard work. Persistence. A positive attitude.

It never ends. Isn’t easy. Preaching to myself. Constant reminding.

It keeps me up at night.

And gets me up in the morning.

This is what I’m talking about.

http://videos.nj.com/star-ledger/2009/04/phillipsburg_and_easton_replay.html

Never been a big “one ‘l” in “cancelled” sort of guy.

Prefer “grey” to “gray.”

More of a “one ’s’ in ‘buses’” than two fan.

Hate it when baseball announcers say “r.b.i.” rather than “r.b.i.’s”

And I have no patience for “blow hard” golfers who call courses “tracks.”

For the second year in a row, the Rutgers football team ranked in the “Top Five.”

http://www.nj.com/rutgersfootball/index.ssf/2009/05/rutgers_football_program_ranks.html

One of my favorite sports writers is Jeff Passan of Yahoo Sports. He “gets it.”

In the following column, he continues his verbal assault on baseball’s ills.

Please go to: http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/news;_ylt=AqmkYeBr583jGfAuLzh5Zek5nYcB?slug=jp-manny050709&prov=yhoo&type=lgns

He rightfully calls for an immediate and complete banishment from baseball for all those who test positive for performance enhancing drugs.

Throw ‘em out! All of them. A-Rod, Ramirez, Clemens, Tejada. All of ‘em. Out!

Can’t take it anymore.

I read somewhere that when a plane is in flight, it’s basically off course most of time. But its radar system, knowing its destination, continually makes the proper adjustments to get it back on track and ultimately to where it’s going.

And with us too?

In December of 1994, I was that plane.

In a bookstore, I happened upon “Coaching Football” by Tom Flores and Bob O’Connor. I was going somewhere yet nowhere. In chapter 2, entitled “Why We Play the Game,” there’s a section devoted to an overview of how Homer C. Rice (former Georgia Tech athletic director and college and professional coach) talks about how he went from dirt poverty to those lofty postions. I was intrigued. He discussed the role that football played in his success, how the game taught him to overcome adversity, and how to set goals. I was motivated to reach out to him, so I wrote him a letter.

He responded by sending me a very personal letter and a book that he had written called “The Attitude Technique.” This book became my “radar system” as I, with blind faith, implemented the practices that he used to successfully transform his life. He also mentioned another book which his father had given to him when he was a young boy. That book was called “I Dare You,” by William Danforth (the founder of The Ralston Purina Company). “I Dare You” is about how to live the “Four Square Life” (and if you ever buy any product made by Purina, you’ll notice that the company’s logo is the “four square checkerboard.”) That checkerboard is based on Danforth’s “four square” philosophy for living. After more letter writing to other coaches, I was astonished to discover that many of these same coaches had used Rice’s “Attitude Technique” as part of their team’s overall football program.

Both books and the subsequent correspondence I had with Homer Rice, literally changed my life. Since then, I have purchased multiple copies of “I Dare You” which I give to my students to read on a rotating basis. Every student gets one week to read the book, sign and date it upon completion, and return it to me to pass along to the next pair of students to read.

So “I Dare You.” If not now, when. Remember this: all can, some will, but most won’t. Which group are you in?