Just over a month has passed since
one of the most horrific events that has taken place on our nation’s soil and I
pause to think about how the heartfelt words of two athlete’s parents apply to
current events and opportunities that are right in front of our faces. Juxtaposed to the cacophony of opinions, misguided
executive orders and general fear boiling over in the collective conscience of
America stands our sons, grandsons, our neighbors sons, our nephews, our little
cousins that most likely “surprised” our aunt and uncle. These boys and their strength, or lack there
of are the prime ingredient to the betterment of our nation.
At a Christmas (not “holiday” or
“winter break”) party I enjoyed getting to reconnect with old friends that have
moved away and neighbors I had not seen since I lived with my parents. While there was a distance to be closed in
order to catch up with many of these folks I found that through my parents and
siblings I had kept up some kind of knowledge of where the people were in there
lives. At least enough to get the
conversation ball rolling. One neighbor
in particular, who had moved to Houston with his wife and her children,
mentioned that he was having a bit of a challenge motivating his adolescent
step-son to do “anything” with his free time worthy of the verb, DO. This
piqued my interest because I considered the past neighbor to be an upright man
who had served in law enforcement and through correspondence with my father
would be someone I would turn to with this type of challenge.
“I remember being pretty worthless
at times as a teenager,” I offered up.
The neighbor questioned, “but when did the light bulb come on for
you? You went to college and earned a
athletic scholarship, you don’t do that sitting around, playing video
games.” Choosing to compete in NCAA
track and field is a difficult transition of mindset to describe to others, not
because I don’t remember what I was thinking twelve years ago, but because I
keenly remember that I resisted actively making the decision to DO something
with myself. I believe my dad saw that I
was mentally backing down, going into a retreat, and he firmly warned me that
it was a great opportunity and that I would regret not taking it.
I remember feeling a pull towards the
opportunities before me, but at the same time weighing out the time commitment
and the struggle that I knew those opportunities entailed. I felt that because it was going to be
challenging that it was the right thing to do.
I do remember dwelling on the idea that I enjoyed putting in work and
seeing my race performances improve.
That cause and effect was the carrot tied to the stick for me.
Fast forward another month and we
are into the New Year, 2013. Baseball
season is coming soon and a small group of high school baseball players are
hoping to improve their strength and speed.
These young men consistently attend my biweekly training sessions,
working to shave tenths of seconds from their 60-yard sprint time and add
ounces of muscle to their frames. Through
witnessing their weekly investment of time and effort since late November I can
appreciate their sincere love for baseball and their desire to improve
themselves.
After 6 weeks of training, which
happened to be when the athletes re-tested in their 60yd sprint (ALL of them
dropped 0.5 seconds or more off of their times) a mother of one athlete
commented on how the training produced positive changes in her son other than
the obvious physiological gains. While I
enjoy hearing from parents of my athletes for confirming home adherence to the
nutritional guidelines and the sound sleeping patterns, I simply like to see
parental involvement in general. The
mother’s words of praise led me to map out the path of carryover from strength
and speed training to seemingly unrelated areas…
Check out PursueStrength.blogspot.com next week for Fathers,
Gun Control and the Pursuit of Athleticism: Part 2
