Reality Check

No truer words are spoken. The few opportunities I have had to speak to a group of middle school athletes, that is the message I try to drill home, "Whom do you surround yourself with?"

 

Say what?

 

I see you need the Plate Dad translator also, glad to know i am not the only one that needs it.

 

Here ya go

http://www.thisboardrocks.com/forum/showthread.php?p=2042110&highlight=Plate+translation#post2042110

 

No matter the odds

attempting is what is important.

Rev. Bob Richards was a two time Olympic gold medalist, and I really liked would he said on this subject: “I won two gold medals, but I but you there were over a million guys that could have beaten me in each Olympics, but they never had gotten out on the track, they never tried, they never stretched their mind to even dream about winning.”

Once had a college professor expounding upon the difference between theory and reality, and he points out the window to where the football team was on the practice field. “That is reality. While many of you in this classroom snicker and scoff at them, the successes and failures they are experiencing right now, no matter how great or small, are significant because they are out there doing it.”
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“As I look back now we were not really that good. . . And yet, in our little world we were champions, and from that simple fact radiated an inner confidence that has never left me. I could never become a bum, because I was a champion. Realizing this, I was able to lift myself onto a level of existence I could not have otherwise attained.”

“But there was something more. In Uncle George’s small gym and Coach Grady’s larger court we won championships and I came to regard myself as a champion. I carried myself a little taller, worked a little harder in school, and built a confidence that was crucial. I drew away from the boys who were headed for reform school and patterned myself after those who were headed for college.”


“Young people need that experience of acceptance; it can come in a variety of ways, of which athletics is only one. For example, they need to know that their parents approve of them; they need occasional praise from an older person.”

James Michener, Sports in America 1976

 

it's the DREAM

I may be naive, but it seems to me that it's the DREAM that keeps athletes going.

Those that have the dream, KNOW that they will have to put in the extra time, both on and off the field (ie classroom, practicing, etc)

Those that have the dream, have a SUPPORT SYSTEM (ie parents, coaches, friends) who continue to encourage them to succeed.

If they have the support system and the dream, then they will already know what it will take to try and play at the next level (i'm talking college here)

Just because you make it to college on a team, doesn't mean you will play - so, do you just give up when you don't play as a fresh or soph? Or, do you keep working, working harder than everyone else, so you can get the opportunity as a Jr, or Sr? What happens when you give up and the next spring the starting CF is hurt and, if you'd stayed, they would've given you the opportunity, cause you were the next in line, but, instead, you gave up, because you didn't like the odds???

IMHO, I don't think a player needs to worry about the so-called "odds". They will get lost in the hugeness of that. They just have to go out and give more than everyone else gives. They have to believe in themselves that they can do something that most people are not WILLING to do (and I firmly believe that's what it's all about - what people are WILLING and UNWILLING to do).

Sure, someone might say to you, "the odds are....". But you just never know... you just never know what might happen. It's called "longshots" and there have been too many "longshots" who've come out winners in the end.

 

odds

I remember listening to a WWII vet talk about being in a war as a young man. He said that as he listened to a commander speaking about a difficult mission coming up, where the "odds" of casualties was great, he wondered to himself which ones of his buddies weren't going to make it. He said that he had no doubt that he'd be okay... the thought process of the young!
As long as the "odds" give you a !% chance and it's something you desire (and are willing to work for) then go for it. Nothings worse than regretting that you didn't try.