Quiet as it’s kept, I love playing basketball against arrogant teams. It usually breeds a bit of complacency on the part of the overconfident and makes my job easier. There’s nothing like playing the role of the underdog, having that feeling that you have nothing to lose. I play in basketball leagues where pride reigns. And I can only speak for men because that’s who I compete against on any given Sunday and the arrogance exuded almost assumes a personified personality because it looks the same in nearly every gym. Arrogance on a Sunday looks like men who use words to intimidate and will look a referee in the eye and plead that the scorer’s table didn’t record the last bucket while knowing full well the plea is a lie. The Arrogance also reveals itself when a man who hasn’t put the time into preparation expects to beat you because he’s….well…himself. Are you tracking with me? Have you ever been around someone who expects to win simply because they showed up?

C.S. Lewis, in his book Mere Christianity, it quoted as having said, “…each person’s pride is in competition with everyone else’s pride…” When I walk into most gyms, I’m not participating in nor am I watching basketball; I am beholding one of the oldest spectacles in human history – the vying for more territory. I’ve found that at the root of pride is a desire to be known, a voracious hunger for being heralded. There is an inordinate concentration on being No. 1 but without the work ethic or the humility that accompanies competition. I see desperate men wielding the name of their team, organization and/or fraternity and using it as a credential.

The beautiful thing about basketball, however, is that it’s inanimate and its rules require skill, resolve and execution. The perfect player is not distracted by the Goliath of pretense and schoolyard bullying. Growing up in LA there was a lot of trash talkin’ on the court and I could barely “walk and chew gum” so I usually just shut my mouth and tried to play hard. So as I got older I continued to be a non-talker and it’s one of the best limitations I have. See, the problem with the pride C.S. Lewis spoke of is that it drives you outside of the rules of engagement. A man drunk with a false sense of superiority will lie to himself en route to embarrassment. The most ready example is the team that plays a team they’ve beaten before but loses this time by a hefty margin. They’re dominated that night and all they can say is, “We blew it. How could we lose to THEM.” Correction, your team was beaten because tonight they performed at a level far below capacity. Can you dig it? Minus the insidious pride, the true competitor gives credit where it’s due and concentrates on the things he can control for a future contest. The kind of pride I’m talking about has NO PLACE IN SPORTS or elsewhere for that matter. Winning is never about the perceived inferiority of that guy or what color your uniform is; it’s about how close you can come today to being your best. Corny but true.

When you were a kid, did people (grown-ups) force you to say, “I’m sorry” when you weren’t ready to do it? You’d fight your brother, pinch your cousin in the back seat or squabble with the BFF from down the street and then adults would march you into the enemy’s presence so you could mumble a barely audible and contrived apology. Well I had to do it and in retrospect I know now that character isn’t contrived nor is it expedited. There is no drive-through window where you can pick-up a side order of humility and contrition after binging on shame sandwiches.

Tiger Woods is not a kid and I think he is really sorry for the grief through which he’s put his wife Elin Woods but he’s hardly ready to reenter the professional world of sports. I know this because Tiger is not actually a cat, he’s a man. And lest any man delude himself, our impulses toward the opposite sex are ravenous, especially when those impulses are regularly yielded to in the face of more temptation than 99 percent of men will ever encounter.

It’s been three months or so since the confusing incident at the Woods’ house that led to seemingly countless women coming forward to expose the golf icon’s infidelity. And now we’re preparing for the return of the king. He’s not ready and it has nothing to do with golf. The sports world is like the other world, built on financial stilts that deem lucre the deity of our age. There’s home, family, the important things and then there’s money which trumps all three. WHAT? Sports wants to change so badly if you believe the words of its community spokespeople, the commissioners and such. But When a man falls 20 stories from grace, he’s going to need a little more than three months to reform a self that likely took a lifetime to construct. Go home Tiger Woods. Golf ain’t goin’ anywhere.

More than a year of blogging and not one entry about romance. Frankly, I didn’t know how to weave it in with all this speak of competition and unrelenting vigor. Can you hear the grunting? But a recent conversation brought to mind something we all can relate to – physical attraction. If you’ve been an athlete, you’ve been either a cold-hearted snake, a player distracted by love or the rare conscientious objector who trains like a machine emitting the snarl of a human bent on destroying friend and foe (I knew some dudes who were like that third one…for real).

But the reason I bring up love and all things gooey is because one of the pillars at the base of the 6ixth Man character model is something called SUBMISSION TO TRUTH. As if putting your own will aside wasn’t hard enough, couple the challenge with the endorphin rush of meeting a new love, a “boo”, su novia/o. How hard was it, is it, will it be to submit to the truth when that reality means choosing between a progressive move toward, say, a career and a special someone? Sure our economy is suffering and there’s still only a 1 in 3400 chance that you’ll get to the NBA. But those factors are often moot in light of a simple unwillingness to acquiesce to the non-romanticized truth.

At the heart of character worth having is the courage to know and submit to the truth when it says, this young lady is going to hamstring your efforts to serve humanity, to follow God, to train like a champion. Truth is not a respecter of persons nor does it feel familial loyalty to you and your whims. Truth is a gang buster whose pervasive presence makes barging in unnecessary. People always know when they’re dating the wrong person. That’s why they call into radio shows and chat on Facebook late at night. I’m not different. When I was fresh out of college, I was consumed with young love and submission to truth was an adversary to me. But misappropriated love, the summer camp-like romances we indulge in, have an expiration date at which point even the greatest of us must decide to either pursue greatness alongside someone who may or may not be willing or forfeit your purpose altogether in favor of the right now thrill of having a love interest. It made sense in my mind anyway. I gotta work on writing about subjects like this.

p.s. – Thanks to the friend who allowed me to pick on her indirectly in this post.

Let’s keep it real…No one really knows the science of decision making backward and forward. You prepare to take your life one direction and are met with any number of interruptions, rabbit trails disguised as viable options  or worthy endeavors masquerading as fool hearty impulses.

How do you know when to jump, when to risk the trapeze act minus the net? I used to say, “You DON’T!” I’d rant on about the gross dilemma of attempting new things, starting a company, trying out for a team, blah blah blah. What if you attempt the unbelievable while “lookin’ like a fool with your pants on the ground.” Slowly, I’m realizing that those tirades were indicative of my control-freakish frustration of braving any new territory that requires a machete.

In places like the Amazon region of Brazil, the actual machete is an extremely effective tool/weapon to wield.  Interestingly enough, it is probably known more for its weaponized utility in times of revolution than its usefulness in cutting down rubber plants and overgrowth. Whatever the usage however, your arm aches at day’s end and if you are like me, when life initiates a revolution of sorts through crisis and abrupt change, we’re often too confused and disconcerted to take up our proper arms. To JUMP and CREATE in real life and in real time I’m finding that I need faith and fortitude. The faith allows me to look at the trajectory of my life’s events and see how I was divinely forged. The fortitude is the gumption needed to be enterprising, available to serve and competitive in the face of destructive forces. What great time in history to be a JuMPeR.