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Published on January 14, 2016 07:12

January 13, 2016

How Long Is – For a While?

This is the 1st Chapter from
‘6 Minutes Wrestling with Life”

How Long Is – For a While?

“I don’t know if we each have a destiny,

Or if we’re all just floating around

Accidental-like on a breeze.

But I think maybe it’s both.

Maybe both are happening at the same time.”

Forrest Gump

August 21st, 2009

“Jess, why don’t you come sit down and watch this movie with us?”

I asked my daughter in an attempt to spend more time with her before she headed back to college. In a few days she would be returning to the Fashion Institute of Technology for her sophomore year.

“It’s Serendipity, with John Cusack.”

“I think I am just going to go to sleep for a while…”

Jess said as she spun around the wooden bannister and headed up the stairs to her bedroom.

That didn’t sound right…

Usually, Jess would say, “I’m going to bed – goodnight,” why did she say, “I’m going to go to sleep for a while?

That was weird.

Without anything else to go on, other than my parental radar, I dismiss the slight change in her “good night” wording and convince myself Jess is just tired after coming home from a ten-hour shift at work, where she has worked the whole summer in a retail fashion boutique in the Hampton’s.

In a few seconds, my parental radar’s antenna comes back down to earth and I get involved in the movie once again.

“Serendipity, it is one of my favorite words. It is just a nice sound for what it means a fortunate accident. Except, I don’t really believe in accidents. I believe fate is behind everything. I think fate sends us little signs, and it is how we read those signs that determine whether we are happy or not.”

BOOM.

“What was that?” I ask my wife, BettyJane, as I immediately do what any normal person does when they hear a noise in the middle of the night.

I wait for the second noise to confirm I heard the first noise.

There is nothing but an eerie silence.

I am still not convinced the silence negated the first boom, so I get up and put on the outside lights to the house.

I look outside.

Everything seems fine.

I check the garage – everything looks normal.

No other noises.

I’m satisfied there is no home invasion in process, the car is not being robbed and my family is safe, so I sit back down on the couch and continue watching the movie.

As soon as I sit down, I hear the second, louder noise – this time

A THUD.

BettyJane jerks up off of the couch and dashes upstairs, instinctively yelling “JESS! JESS! JESS!”

We didn’t know it at the time, but the first BOOM was Jess losing her balance and falling into her closet door.

The second THUD was her closet door collapsing and hitting the wall, and sliding to the ground.

I follow BettyJane and her instinctive motherly hysteria up the stairs.

We both get to the top of the stairs at the same time.

In the hallway to Jess’s bedroom, we see our twelve-year-old son, Travis, holding his sisters limp body in his arms.

As soon as Travis sees my wife and me, he drops his sister’s body and backs up to the edge of the wall, like someone would do after they accidentally shot someone and stood over the dead body.

He is in shock.

Ahh Jess.

I remember saying over and over again as I tried to lift Jess’s limp body from the ground. Her body is like liquid Silly Putty; every time I try and lift her, her body finds an opening and plunks to the floor, without any form.

Call 911!

Travis is motionless.

Call 911!

My seven-year-old daughter, Cassidy appears on the top of the stairs with our house phone. My wife yanks it from her small hands and starts dialing for help…

I momentarily look up and think to myself that Cassidy, standing on the stairs, looking at what is happening, looks as innocent as Cindy Lu Who when she saw the Grinch stealing the last bulb off the tree.

And just like the Grinch, I think up a lie, and I think one up quick, “Jess is just not feeling well – why don’t you just go downstairs, we will be down in a while,” I tell her as deceptively as the Grinch said to Cindy Lu.

She looks back at me as disbelieving as Cindy Lu Who looked at the Grinch as he slithered up the chimney.

As I am speaking to Cassidy, out of the corner of my eye, I see Jess attempting to use the wall to gain enough balance to stand.

She can’t.

But she creates enough room between her body and the wall to make an opening for me to insert my arm and help her up.

I get her up.

She leans on me.

Her face is six inches from mine.

Her beautiful hazel green eyes have turned morbidly black with dilation.

Ahh Jess.

Jess’s body starts shaking, trembling.

She is seizing.

Her eyes roll back into her head – all I see now is the whites….

Her body gets real stiff. I feel if I were to move her, I would break her.

“I got to go – I got to go…” I yell out.

I bend down, put my left arm between Jess’s legs, while my right arm grabs her elbow, and I put her in a fireman’s carry hold and I run down the stairs.

“Be careful, don’t slip, don’t slip – take each step,” I say to myself as I run frantically down the stairs.

I get to the bottom of the stairs.

Her body feels different.

Heavier.

She is covering more of my back and less of my shoulders.

I kneel down and gently lower my head to take her body off my back and shoulders.

I place her on the cold, tile floor inside the front door.

She has stopped breathing.

Ahh Jess.

I immediately pinch her nose, open her mouth and start performing CPR.

“This is not happening,” I think to myself, as I blow air into her mouth.

I put my right palm on my left thumb and I start pressing on her chest.

Nothing.

I keep repeating the process for what feels like forever.

I feel a tap on my shoulders and hear, “We’ll take over from here.”

The EMT’s are here. Thank God.

They open up their EMT medical box. They apply an oxygen mask to Jess’s face and do something to Jess’s chest, and within a few seconds they have her breathing again.

Wow. That was scary.

A few minutes go by and Jess seems to be coming out of it.

I walk outside for some air. I needed to stabilize myself after the heart pounding events of the last few minutes.

I hear, “Hey buddy. Buddy, over here.”

There are two police officers waving me over to them.

I walk over to them.

One of the officers puts his arm around me, starts to walk me in a direction away from the other officer and says,

“Hey buddy – the next time you call 911 make sure someone is not breathing, you hear?”

And he walks away as if I annoyed him.

I didn’t have time to say “F&*k You” to the officer; I see my daughter being brought out of my house, and down my front stairs on a gurney. The EMT’s are not rushing, they are calm and they are by her side. They head toward the ambulance in the street.

I think to myself, “A tragedy has been averted.”

Why else would the officer say that to me, if we were not out of the woods?

“Is anyone driving in the ambulance with us?” the EMT inquires.

It immediately dawns on me that Maverick, my fifteen-year-old son, is not home, and we need to call someone to come over and watch Cassidy and Travis who is still in shock.

“Call Rich and Terri,” I yell to my wife as she is lifting her leg to get into the back of the ambulance.

“Ok, I will. I’ll meet you at the hospital. Don’t stop for Jujubes,”

BettyJane says as the ambulance back door slams shut and she disappears.

Things have to be OK if she is quoting Seinfeld, right?

When I get to the hospital, Jess has already been transported into a partition in the Emergency Room; BettyJane is outside of that partition looking in.

Five doctors are working on Jess.

They seem to have her stabilized.

Everything is under control.

A few minutes go by; both BettyJane and I are watching every move inside that room.

Doctors start leaving the room, one at a time.

In a few minutes, the last doctor leaves the room.

That is a good sign.

Now there are only a few nurses in the room with Jess.

They start leaving also.

Now there is just one nurse in the room. Jess is stable.

Wow – that was scary.

BettyJane and I continue watching the one nurse in the room.

She picks up an IV Medical bag, hangs it from Jess’s medical pole, which is attached to her arm.

Then she leaves the room.

Jess must be stable if she doesn’t need anyone by her side, I think to myself.

Twenty seconds goes by.

DING, DING, DING, DING…

Every bell and red alert starts to go off and Jess is shaking uncontrollably. Her head goes up and down, violently hitting the mattress over and over again.

A swarm of doctors and nurses rush into the room.

What just happened?

BettyJane rushes into the room and confronts the nurse who hung the medicine on Jess’s pole.

“What did you give her?”

She gets no reply, so she rushes to the garbage pail where one of the doctors unhooked the IV bag and tossed it away.

“What is this?”

She asks as she picks the IV bag out of the garbage.

A doctor walks up to her, takes the bag from her hand and escorts her out of the room saying, “We need to work on your daughter now.”

BettyJane obliges and comes by my side outside of the room.

As I look into the room, I see the frantic pace in which everyone is working, and I realize I have entered a place where no person ever wants to be.

I have entered hell.

My wife realizes this also.

NoooooooOOOO

NOOOOOOOOOOO

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

She offers up a deal to the Gods…

“TAKE ME INSTEAD”

There is nothing more blood curdling than a mother’s cry and scream when her child is in danger.

I look up and I that see the nurse behind the ER desk is crying.

At that moment, BettyJane decides to sacrifice herself to the gods in place of her daughter.

She decides to do a Tosh.O trust fall, with no one behind her to catch her – to seal the deal.

Luckily I am within five feet of her when she decides to do this and somehow I avert her crashing backwards, head first to the floor.

I lift her up, catching her just inches from the floor.

Her body is limp and she is repeating the words “I’m OK”, “I’m OK”.

I know she is playing possum with me, hoping I would leave her alone so she could attempt the trust fall again without my being there.

I am wise to her strategy and I hold her in my arms.

She sinks through my arms and withers to the floor.

“Get the white curtains.” A doctor commands.

“Get the white curtains and close the ER!”

“Move everyone out of the ER – NOW!”

Did he just say, “Close the ER?”

The nurse at the ER desk, who has to be a mother, is overwhelmed with a sense of powerlessness as she has the same look on her face that Patrick Swayze had in Ghost right before the spirits arrived.

I immediately sense it.

“Ohhh noo. NOOOO,” I yell.

I force BettyJane to sit in a chair to avert another attempt to sacrifice herself.

It has been 2 minutes since the red alert.

A Jamaican priest walks over to me and says,

“I would like to administer last rights to your daughter before she dies. She only has a few minutes. Without it, she will not be able to get into heaven.”

I look him square in the eyes and say, “If you don’t get out of here, I am going to kill you, and you will be the one needing last rights.”

He continues and continues and continues. He puts his hand on my shoulder and starts saying, “Forgive him Lord, he knows not what he is doing.”

I reply, “I know exactly what I am doing, and I am giving you a five second head start.”

He moves away.

I look up and I see my mother and mother-in-law walking into the ER.

There is terror on their faces. I now have three people to console.

The priest attempts to convince my mother, who is a Eucharistic Minister, to allow him to administer last rights. She tells him to get away from her before she punches him.

He moves on.

It has been 3 minutes now.

Come on, come on…

This can’t be happening.

4 Minutes…

5 Minutes…

6 Minutes…

“It’s over,” I thought.

Wait – I see movement from inside the room. I can hear them talking.

Please don’t say it – just don’t say it.

Just don’t say, “Time of Death.”

The doctor is coming out.

I brace myself for what I feel has to be the inevitable speech,

“I am sorry we tried everything that we could…”

Dr. Clarence walks out. My wife and I have nicknamed him that because he looks like the Angel from “It’s a Wonderful Life,” and he says, “We went well beyond what we should have done. She is an eighteen-year-old girl, we tried everything we could to save her.”

No No No No No No

But he then said, “We had to put her into a medically induced coma, it is the best we could do.”

“A medically induced coma?”

I’ll take it – ten seconds ago I thought Jess was dead.

“Does she have at least a 1% chance doctor?”

“Yes, she has a 1% chance.”

“How long will she be like this, doctor?”

“I don’t know,” he replied.

“For a while.”

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Published on January 13, 2016 06:24

January 10, 2016

Why Do You Wrestle?

Excerpt from “6 Minutes Wrestling with Life”

August 29th, 2010

Yesterday, while I was on the side of the mat, next to some wrestlers who were warming up for their next match, I found myself standing next to an extraordinary wrestler.

He was warming up and he had that look of desperation on his face wrestlers get when their match is about to start and their coach is across the gym coaching on another mat, in a match that is already in progress.

“Hey, do you have a coach?” I asked him.

“He’s not here right now,” he quietly answered; ready to take on the task of wrestling his opponent alone.

“Would you mind if I coached you?”

His face tilted up at me with a slight smile and said, “That would be great.”

Through the sounds of whistles and yelling fans I heard him ask me “What is your name?”

“My name is John,” I replied.

“Hi John, I’m Nishan,” he said while extending his hand for a handshake.

He paused for a second and then he said to me,

“John, I’m going to lose this match.”

He said that as if preparing me so I wouldn’t be hurt when my coaching skills didn’t work its magic on him.

I said, “Nishan, it is not the outcome of a match that makes you a winner. You are a winner by stepping onto that mat.”

With that he just smiled and slowly ran onto the mat, ready for battle, but half knowing what the probable outcome would be.

When you first see Nishan, you will notice his legs are frail – very frail. So frail they have to be supported by custom made, form fitted braces to help support and straighten his limbs.

Braces, I recognize all too well.

Some would say Nishan has a handicap.

I say, that he has a gift.

To me the word “handicap” is a word that describes what one “can’t do.”

That doesn’t describe Nishan.

Nishan is doing.

The word “gift” is a word that describes something of value you give to others.”

And without knowing it, Nishan is giving us all a gift.

I believe Nishan’s gift is inspiration.

The ability to look the odds in the eye and say, “You don’t pertain to me.”

The ability to keep moving forward.

Perseverance.

A “whatever it takes” attitude.

As he predicted, the outcome of his match wasn’t great. That is, if the only thing by which you judge a wrestling match is the final score.

Nishan tried as hard as he could, but he couldn’t overcome the twenty-six-pound weight difference he was giving up to his opponent in order to compete.

You see, Nishan weighs only 80 pounds and the lowest weight class in this tournament was 106.

Nishan knew he was spotting his opponent 26 pounds going into every match on this day.

He wrestled anyway.

I never did get the chance to ask him why he wrestles, but if I had to guess I would say, after watching him all day long, Nishan wrestles for the same reasons we all wrestle.

We wrestle to feel alive, to push ourselves to our mental, physical and emotional limits – levels we never knew we could reach.

We wrestle to learn to use 100% of what we have today, in hopes our maximum today, will be our minimum tomorrow.

“We wrestle to measure where we started from, to know where we are now, and to plan on getting where we want to be in the future.

We wrestle to look the seemingly insurmountable opponent right in the eye and say, “Bring it on – I can take whatever you can dish out.”

Sometimes life is your opponent, and just showing up is a victory.

You don’t need to score more points than your opponent in order to accomplish that.

No, Nishan didn’t score more points than any of his opponents on this day that would have been nice.

I don’t believe that was the most important thing to Nishan.

Without knowing for sure, I believe the most important thing to him on this day was walking with pride, like a wrestler, up to a thirty-two-foot circle, and having all eyes on him, watching him compete one on one, not only against his opponent, but against himself and all life has thrown at him, and in the process, giving it all that he had.

That is what competition is all about.

Most of the times in wrestling you are competing against yourself.

Nishan is no different.

They say 80% of life is just showing up.

Nishan showed up today.

He showed up when most of us would have stayed in the stands.

Today, all his opponents may have scored more points than he, but Nishan competed.

He competed against his opponents, he competed against himself and he competed against life.

And no matter what the score may have said in any one of his matches, he won in every case.

You learn later in life how important the disciplines of wrestling are to you when handling real life problems, especially when facing a seemingly insurmountable opponent – a disease or illness.

If you live long enough, life will throw you to your back.

And when it does, you are much better off if you’ve wrestled.

You will know how to fight like hell to get off your back, get back on your feet and come back and win.

Chances are, I probably will never see Nishan again.

That is just how life works.

“Wrestling brother,” keep moving forward.

And I thank you, Nishan, for the gift.

You are an inspiration.

Excerpt from “6 Minutes Wrestling with Life”

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Published on January 10, 2016 09:06

The Point

yourbest

Sure winning is fun.

But only winning is not the point.

Wanting to win – is the point.

Not giving up and never giving in – is the point.

Never letting up – is the point.

Never being satisfied with what you have done in the past – is the point.

Constantly striving to become the best that you could be – is the point.

To lose and learn, en route to becoming excellent – is the point.

Because it is not winning that counts.

What counts is the yearning to win that catapults one into action – to prepare to win.

That’s what makes a true athletic champion.

That is only half of the point.

To take the qualities you learned while pursuing athletic greatness and transfer them into becoming a life champion…

Is the point.

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Published on January 10, 2016 07:45

January 4, 2016

You Can Only Hope…

The Dog Days of wrestling are upon us.

January.

You can only hope that your opponents make practice only about losing weight and enter into a weight cutting cycle of diminishing returns.

Wed – Fri – Sat

Wed – Fri – Sat

Wed – Fri – Sat

Wed – Fri – Sat

You can only hope they arrive 10+ pounds overweight to their first practice on Monday.

You can only hope they put on 6 layers of clothing and make wrestling nearly impossible.

You can only hope they get home, only to head right out to their second Monday practice, this one at their wrestling club; just to do the exact same thing.

Make practice all about losing weight.

You can only hope that on Tuesday, after not drinking any water, they are ‘only’ 5 over before practice.

You can only hope they practice the same way as they did on Monday, this time by passing any water breaks.

You can only hope they leave Tuesday’s practice 2 1/2 over because they didn’t really keep their sweat going during practice.

You can only hope they assume that they will float a pound overnight so when they get home they need to go for a run to lose the other 1 1/2 pounds.

You can only hope during their run, they drag it and only lose 1, leaving them 1 1/2 over.

You can only hope they assume they will float a pound overnight, which is inaccurate because of their lack of water intake.

You can only hope that they wake up and find themselves 1 pound over with only :45 minutes until the end of morning weigh in.

You can only hope they need to ‘find a way’ to lose the weight.

You can only hope they make weight just under the bell.

You can only hope they eat 4 pounds worth of food and drink, expecting to float the pound and be on weight for the afternoon weigh in.

You can only hope they get to the other school for weigh in and realize their scale is 1/2 lb. heavy.

You can only hope they briefly have to run and make the weight.

You can only hope that after weighing in, they blow back up.

You can only hope they say, “Heck, I have 48 hours to make weight again – I’ll will deal with it tomorrow.”

You can only hope they arrive at Thursday’s practice 4 over.

You can only hope they again make the practice only about losing weight.

You can only hope they leave the practice 1 over.

You can only hope they withhold food and drink until morning weigh ins on Friday.

You can only hope they lay in bed all of their other waking hours and are a pleasure to be around.

You can only hope they make weight on Friday and have 3 pounds to gain until their match, which is at 7:00 pm.

You can only hope they gain 4 1/2.

You can only hope they make weight on Friday night, eat and blow up again, not factoring in that they have to make weight again in less than 12 hours.

You can only hope that they wrestle 4 matches on Saturday, drained and look like crap.

You can only hope Friday night after their match, they are up until 11:30 cutting weight again.

You can only hope Saturday morning arrives and they are just so ecstatic that they made weight that they rationalize to themselves that they just got to get their mind off of losing weight and allow themselves a day or so where they are not thinking about making weight.

You can only hope they splurge all day on Saturday and Sunday because they fear that they will not be able to eat the upcoming week when they have to do it all over again.

Which they will have to do.

For three more cycles.

Wed – Fri – Sat

Wed – Fri – Sat

Wed – Fri – Sat

You can only hope that after completing this cycle for a month they crawl into the month of February, the post-season, never getting better during the year, and with an immune system depleted and unprotected.

You can only hope they wonder why they just can’t get rid of that cough.

While you….

For the next 8 weeks just eat the same amount at each meal, regardless of if it is the night before a weigh in, or immediately after.

Eat for energy, to build strength and for recovery.

You replenish your water loss during and after every practice.

And you show up for practice in a pair of shorts and a tee-shirt.

In practice you focus on three things – timing, technique, and becoming the best wrestler you can become.

Losing weight is not one of them, because you are not cutting weight, you are eating for success.

And you will peak for the post season.

Your opponent can only hope that you don’t have the discipline to eat in such a way….

But you do.

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Published on January 04, 2016 18:47

Only One

Gratitude and comparison can’t occupy the same space in your mind.

They are incompatible.

You should choose only one.

If you do allow both into your mind, one will totally dominate the other into submission, until it gives up and goes away.

And you will be left with only one, anyway.

Gratitude, is an appreciation of what one has.

Comparison is an anger of what others have and you do not.

One should never compare themselves with someone who has more than they do unless they are also willing to compare themselves to someone who has significantly less.

When one does.

One will then find gratitude.

And the choice will be made for you.

A life without gratitude is in no comparison to one with.

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Published on January 04, 2016 10:47

January 3, 2016

Moneyball Comes to Wrestling

In the small amount of time that I got to observe Rob Koll, the Head Wrestling Coach for Cornell University, I quickly concluded that he was a wrestling genius.

One of my observations that helped lead me to my conclusion was his ability to ‘Create a Crowd.’

A few years ago, as I was one of the more than 5,000 fans in the stands watching a dual meet between Cornell and Oklahoma it dawned on me, why and how, all these fans got there.

The attendance for the Cornell – Oklahoma match was created by the convergence of multiple events, with the sole mission of putting fannies in the seats and eyeballs on the program.

The morning of the match there was a youth tournament held at the location where most stuck around to watch the college match that followed, especially the champions of that day, as their awards were given to them at the halftime of the college match.

The next day was the New York State Championships, a college tournament which easily brings in thousands of wrestlers and spectators – all of whom look to be entertained the night before their tournament.

A college match became an event. Thousands of people converged to Cornell’s gymnasium, hungry to watch wrestling.

Billy Beane of the Oakland A’s was also a baseball genius.

His ‘Moneyball’ strategy allowed him to take a team that was strapped financially and have them be able to compete with the big money boys – the New York Yankees and the Boston Red Sox.

‘Moneyball’ is the strategy of utilizing overlooked resources and maximizing their value.

It may be of no coincidence that the Oakland A’s and the LIU Post wrestling program share the same colors – green and gold.

As soon as I walked into the gym I felt the excitement.

The acoustics were phenomenal.

It was an event.

The convergence of multiple events which put fannies in the seats and eyes on the program.

Moneyball converged with college wrestling.

LIU Post utilized the untapped resource that they had in abundance – the Long Island high school wrestling fan.

Long Island is comprised of the two best wrestling sections in New York State, Section 8 and Section XI.

Both Sections have passionate wrestling fans.

By having side by side high school and college matches, with both Section 8 & XI participating, LIU Post was able to create something that was more valuable than the sum of its parts.

It turned a match, into an event.

Pure genius.

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Published on January 03, 2016 11:51

January 2, 2016

Trust Yourself

Travcatch

“Trust yourself.”

That’s the advice I always gave my two sons before they walked on to a wrestling mat, right before a match.

It took me a long time to get to that point, to trust them enough to leave it in their own hands.

“I just can’t figure him out.”

“I do everything for him and he just won’t listen to me anymore.”

I can hear the frustration in the voice of every wrestling parent that I hear mutter these words.

Believe me, I know.

I’ve been there myself.

I understand.

It took me a long time to figure out – that they no longer want you to figure it out.

If you have one of these young men who no longer listens to you, I attest instinctively, they yearn to figure it out for themselves.

Thus, they no longer listen to you.

Which causes your frustration.

I have learned this frustration emanates from the fact the child is ready for Phase 2 in the development of an athlete, and you are still stuck in Phase 1.

I believe there are two phases to being a Sports Parent and developing an athlete with the overall goal to prepare him for life.

Phase 1, is the Partnership Phase.

This is the phase where you, as his parent, do everything necessary to put him in the position to have the opportunity for success.

You run ahead of him and clear his path.

With your efforts he see success.

If the purpose of sport is to prepare a young men for life, then in the overall scheme of things, it is not Phase 1 that is the most important phase, it Phase 2.

The Development Phase.

The hardest of the two phases.

This is the where most sports parents frustration levels start to rise.

This is where the partnership with their son ends and his preparation for life begins.

The Development Phase is the phase where your child learns how to ‘figure it out’ on his own.

The two phase process can be best illustrated with this baseball analogy.

Imagine you are the coach of your son’s baseball team.

Your son is your catcher.

You would like for him to be the best catcher that he can be.

As a coach your job is to get him ready for the next level of play.

There are two parts to being a great catcher.

The first part is to learn how ‘to receive a game’.

The second part is for him to ‘call a great game.’

The first part of being a great catcher can be obtained in Phase 1.

The second part can only be obtained in Phase 2.

In Phase 1, the Partnership Phase, you may be more important to his overall success than he is at this early stage.

You as the coach, call the game for him.

As his coach you are synchronized with him in order to execute a precise game plan in order to win the game.

By you calling every pitch allows him to concentrate on becoming a great receiver.

He will see success from the results of the calls you made.

You will have virtually made all the decisions for him.

And he, to his credit, will have trusted you enough to follow your every instruction.

I suggest once an athlete gets to this part in the process he craves to be more involved in the decisions that created his own success.

He craves to be the most important part of his own success.

And if his cravings aren’t met, you run the risk of him over ripening.

His appreciation for all that you do for him will slowly turn into resentment towards you as he comes to realize and understand the significant role that you have played in his success.

Which in his mind translates into the realization that people feel he has played a much smaller role in his own success, than he knows he actually has.

And he hates that realization.

He yearns to figure it out on his own.

Without you.

Don’t be offended by this, for this is a good thing.

Isn’t sports supposed to prepare a young man for the real world?

Obviously you won’t be there in his life to make every decision for him.

He must learn to become successful with the decisions that he makes.

He must learn to figure it out.

It is a natural progression in the process of preparing a young man for life.

As a parent you must not get stuck in Phase 1.

It is an easy trap to fall into.

Let me warn you the longer that you stay in Phase 1, the more diminishing returns you will see.

If, as a sports parent, you do not embrace the transition from Phase 1 to Phase 2, the price that will be paid will be your son’s passion for the sport.

Don’t burn that passion.

Flame it.

Allow him to develop.

Allow him to figure it out on his own.

To gain experience.

Which comes from making mistakes.

Obvious ones to you, but understand it is not you that is figuring it out now.

It is him.

You have to allow him to make calls that you don’t agree with – allow him to attempt and fail on his own.

A minor league baseball coach once told me that when he gets a highly touted phenom in the minors for the first time, he allows them to fall flat on their face, on their own, before he offers them any advice.

His reasoning is they are more receptive to his advice after they failed on their own.

When they fail on their own, they are then ready.

For change.

Up to this point they have been a phenom who has always done things that worked.

But now the ante has been upped.

The competition increased.

What worked for and against 99% of the population is no longer the mission.

It is to beat the best 1% of the competition, which is the new mission.

And that requires a totally different preparation mindset.

A mindset that is exactly like the one they will need when they have to go out into the world on their own.

They need to be able to figure it out.

They do that by first you teaching them how to call their game.

Then allowing them to call their own game.

Having your son have success by you figuring it out is not the goal.

Preparing him to make decisions in life that lead to his own success is the real goal.

And this occurs only in Phase 2.

By allowing your son to call a great game, he will then be able to make decisions in his own life, without you.

And if he happens to call for a fastball over the plate when the right call was to call for a curve-ball low and away, well then he will remember that the next time he is in that same situation.

And the pain of that memory will cause him to make an adjustment.

They say great catchers make great coaches.

Great catchers also make great parents.

What is the difference between a franchise and a sole unit business ?

The magic is in the duplication.

And that is the reward.

That someday the son you allowed to figure it out on his own will one day teach his kids to do the same.

Trust yourself and in the process to allow them to figure it out on their own.

So, the next time you catch yourself saying,

“I just can’t figure him out,”

Realize that your son is trying to ‘figure it out’.

Trust in the process.

Trust in him to be able to do so.

Trust me.

It has taken me a long time to learn that the best way to get rid of frustration is to embrace Phase 2.

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Scold, But Then Mold

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Published on January 02, 2016 09:51

January 1, 2016

Scold, But Then Mold

There is a distinct point in time, in the development of a young man, when you can look back and pinpoint where his commitment to his wrestling journey began.

I remember my son’s time, very well.

It was hard to watch.

As growth always is.

“Don’t you ever disrespect me, this sport, or this club like you just did, ever again,” Don Donnelly scolded Maverick in Danbury, CT right after a match, when he was in the 8th grade.

Maverick had just shown tremendous frustration in his inability to score points at the end of his match, as his opponent hung on to a one point lead, as he milked the clock.

Winding up on cross-faces, pushing after the whistle, storming off the mat.

We’ve all seen frustrated wrestlers.

“If I ever see you act that way again, you will never wrestle for ‘The Razor Wrestling Club’ again,” Don continued his scolding.

And he was absolutely right and I supported him 100%.

We have all seen it, the coach that takes the kid by the arm and gets in his face, rightfully so, about the way he just acted during or after his match.

Just as Don’s scolding started to lose steam, the magic began.

Don started his molding…

“Son, you have a ton of athletic ability. When you learn to funnel your frustration and anger into learning moves that will actually score points on the mat, well, that will be the day you will have a chance to be special in this sport.”

They say anger is frustrated love.

Scold.

But then Mold.

A coach’s job is to transform frustration into passion.

You just never know what impact your words will have on someone.

Maverick soon focused his anger into scoring points.

Many points.

15 points per match, virtually every match.

For two years.

He became a scoring machine.

Accumulating over 50 techs in those two years.

I always have wondered what would have happened if Don had stopped his tirade with just a scolding?

What if he had left out the molding?

Would Maverick have ever gone on to score those points like he did?

I never have to think about that question for very long.

I have always pinpointed Don’s “Scolding and Molding” tirade as the pivotal event in Maverick’s wrestling development.

The scolding was 100% justified and warranted.

The molding was brilliant and rare.

The job of a coach is to take the data, the same data that everyone else has and to make something more out of it than anyone else did.

To expand, to open up possibilities, to change behaviorism in order to get different results.

Seeing a frustrated wrestler is the data everyone else has.

What separates coaches is what they do with that data.

What they conclude with that data, that no one else concludes, with the same data.

The ability to take a frustrated fighter and and create something special.

A wrestler.

Don’s “Scolding and Molding” propelled Maverick into his journey to become a wrestler.

I am sitting in a gym many years later, watching hours upon hours of other people’s sons wrestle.

A wrestler shows anger and storms off the mat after being frustrated that he couldn’t score points in the final seconds of his match.

The coach confronts the wrestler.

He gets in his face.

“Come on.”

“Come on,” I say to myself, as I am watching the young wrestler being scolded by his coach.

“Keep going, coach.”

“Keep going. Don’t stop.”

“Don’t stop.”

“Ahh man, he stopped.”

The scolding came to an end.

I am mad.

I am mad because the coach left out the molding.

I say to myself, “Coach, you had a chance to be special.”

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Published on January 01, 2016 09:08

December 30, 2015

In the Eye Of A Storm

Every man, every woman, carries in heart and mind the image of the ideal place, the right place, the one true home.

Edward Abbey

I have come to realize my ideal place, my right place, my one true home, is in the eye of a storm.

For it is the storm, which has made me appreciate the calm.

It is the clouds, which have made me see clearly.

It is the rain, which has caused me to grow.

It is the odds, which have taught me to believe.

The ocean, which has made me feel vast.

The waves, which have made me feel directed.

The oars, which have made me feel purposeful.

The solitude, which has made me soulful.

The empty boat, which has made me resourceful.

Yes, I am most at home in the eye of a storm.

For, the eye of a storm has magnified and extracted from me my greatest asset.

My fight.

The eye of the storm has pounded me into the best version of myself, and revealed to me who I am.

And what I value.

Life.

So, give me a row boat and some oars.

Throw me into the ocean, far from land.

Pelt me with rain and stun me with thunder.

I will never go under.

For I’m not looking for any port in this storm.

For it is in the eye of the storm where I yearn to be.

Right here, where I am my best me.