COMPOSURE 101

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I showed my 8th graders a 9 minute clip of the man known as the ICEMAN. Wim Hof, of Finland, set a world record after running a half marathon, barefoot in -40-degree farenheit temperatures. The feat nearly cost ma man Hof his toes but he travailed and finished. He said his gold medal was the rising sun which had just risen as he crossed the finish line.

It was corny probably and lame but the students were riveted. They may be tired of hackneyed attempts to motivate them for standardized tests but they know incredible when they see it. And if you’ve ever been cold you know that triumphing the discomfort of the elements is ridiculously hard. Overcoming anything uncomfortable is not only difficult but it’s counter-cultural.

I went with the extreme example of a man running barefoot in snow for two hours because I think kids aren’t very tough. Wait a minute. I don’t know if I’m very tough myself. People in general aren’t very tough which is a dangerous trait that leads to us not being very disciplined. I noticed in my students that so much of their performance was governed by affinity and pleasure fulfillment. I watched my students explain away the need to try on state-generated tests simply because the tests don’t feel good. I said to myself, “Self. You gotta do something. These kids lack spinach, power pellets, wonder-twin powers…” It’s weird how something like “mettle” can be both severely lacking and in a state of atrophy. Nevertheless, it is and the problem is not intellect but rather willingness to demonstrate resolve when opportunities arise. Wim Hof is simply so rugged, so poised, so composed that he literally can will his body to stay warm under adverse conditions. How come I can’t do that? Why can’t kids leave their cell phones in their backpacks long enough to avoid detention? Foregoing comfort is the new version of man vs. wild minus Bear Grylls. I’m hard on students because I’m not sure they’ll ever read a Guiness book let alone attempt to break one of its records. Thank God for Wim Hof and YouTube.

THE NBA AND BAND-AIDS

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I’m so not a band-aid kind of guy. If you hate terrorists and bring up the subject, I’ll ask, “What made them that way?” If you abhor the imperialist history of any given nation, I’ll inquire about the path that led to avarice and conquest. Ask for the head of one Metta World Peace of the Los Angeles Lakers (MWP), the eccentric formerly known as Ron Artest, and I’ll present the interrogative, “Who else’s head belongs on that platter? Are there hosts of suspects, sadists  and maniacal miscreants who should be fired from their extremely lucrative pro-jock jobs? Who are the nemeses of pure sport who should be banished far from basketball loving fans and the general populace of super athletes?”

I’ve had a hard time this week in my vocabulary scrimmages with people who not only call Metta’s elbow move to the head of James Harden “Bush League” but worthy of criminal assault. Try as I may, it’s hard for me to merely talk about the isolated severity of MWP’s actions last Sunday vs. the Oklahoma City Thunder, one of the NBA’s most dynamic up-and-coming franchises poised for a run at this year’s title. People don’t like frighteningly violent plays in any sport, particularly when the guilty part has a history of at least one epic fit of rage (In 2004 MWP, then Ron Artest, ran into the stands to attack a fan he believed had dumped beer on him intentionally.)

Singularity is easy when it comes to vilifying someone. I mean, we all hate brutes who assault women and children, murder people and cheat. Something in us burns at the sound and sight of innocent victims being harmed. This is why the Columbines and Virginia Techs of our era are so appalling. I reckon gross acts of violence strike deep chords synonymous with the types that riddled communities affected by the American Civil War, the Holocaust, Pearl Harbor or the 9/11 attacks. Humans have strong protective instincts that extend into self-sacrificial proportions when offspring are threatened. My mom once went after a kid who had pulled a knife on me. Fortunately, we managed to “mysteriously” avoid that confrontation. Translation: When she made me get in the car to go find the kid who chased me home, I pretended I didn’t see him still standing in the location where he first confronted me.

But somewhere in our history on the planet, the righteous indignation so prevalent in momentary encounters with violence and injustice stopped transferring to the bigger picture. Case-in-point: The uproar in favor of banning MWP permanently from the NBA. If I could be heard on this issue all I’d write in caps is HERE YE HERE YE, MWP IS BUT A SYMPTOM. Why is this such a difficult truth? It is inconvenient yes because the financial apple cart of professional sports sits on a broken sidewalk. Elite men and women with extreme character flaws define sports. They have public selves we admire and private personas we lambaste. We expect the most privileged and most touted subculture of our populations to be humble having no practice in the art. We call them down-to-earth because they once signed a batting glove or jersey. In a magical vacuum we have conjured archetypes of heroes made flesh. But alas, they are even more earthly than we imagined.

There but for the grace of God go all of us but the usual offenses of our athletic icons include things like Hugh Hefner-esque promiscuity, gambling, habitual drunken driving, public violence and even murder. We the sinfully sanguine take aim at certain villains and not others. We rant about the no-brainers and evade the complexities of moral overhaul. Have we forgotten our friends Gilbert Arenas and Javaris Crittenton who, within the last two seasons, decided to bring personal firearms into an NBA arena despite the fact that neither player worked for the secret service? We’re talking about making an example of MWP but one of the two regulators I just mentioned is still playing NBA basketball. Crittenton has murder charges pending for the killing of a mother of four he says he didn’t mean to shoot. Then there is the infamous retired New Jersey Nets star Jayson Williams who accidentally shot and killed his driver with a 12-gauge and attempted to avoid charges.

The point is not that Metta World Peace deserves kid gloves are pardons. There is no justification for brutality in sport, which is very different from good old physical competition. We need not contrast his citizenship restoration over the last 8 years or his placid moniker against what many would call a rapacious core. Whether the blow to James Harden’s skull was intentional or not is a mutually exclusive issue, supposing we discuss it purely on the merit of how it compares to other brutish acts in sports. My point is simply that irresponsibility is not a stranger to the NBA particularly. Air Jordan himself is said to have had a gambling problem on par with Charles Barkley’s $10 million fettish. Players have misrepresented or at least embarrassed their wealthy employers on countless occasions. Now retired San Antonio Spurs defensive stopper Bruce Bowen was kicked an opposing player in the face in a way that seemed intentional. We praise my favorite player of all time, Magic Johnson, as an ambassador for HIV awareness and he is that. But he also lived recklessly en route to the disease and put countless individuals at risk. He would and has echoed this truth.

All I’m saying is, players have made a living off of  and while committing egregious acts. They have done things you and I would be fired or jailed for. Band-aids are for small cuts. The NBA’s character wound is much less benign. It is a gushing wound, bleeding profusely as numerous negative traits trickle downward for aspiring youth to acquire. There’s hard but rewarding roads ahead should the NBA choose to travel them and it will take some courageous, insightful and ethically brazen individuals to step to the task.

SANDBAG: LAMAR ODOM

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The blog comments reeked of a good riddance vibe as NBA enthusiasts and Dallas Maverick fans applauded the divorce between Lamar Odom and the 2011 World Champions. But there’s nothing more troubling than when elite public figures receive preferential treatment or conversely are ridiculed because they’ve let down the expectations of a fan base.

Lamar Odom was shredded today in the media after several wire stories ran disclosing the dissolution of the marriage between the Dallas Mavericks and last year’s NBA Sixth Man award winner. And one of my favorite quotes authored by the “avatar-less” contributor known as Tiggle read:

He should be forced to pay back all his earnings. Yes he had problems but who hasn’t. They gave him time off and did everything for him and what did he give back? The worst performance I have seen in a long time. There are a ton of people out there that could have put up a better performance for 200k a-year. I am tired of athletes making all this money for nothing. I see it all the time, they don’t care as long as they get their paycheck.

Maybe the “Tiggler” is right. If you lost your mom to cancer at 12, an infant son, a 24-year old cousin to murder in 2011 and rode in an SUV that struck and killed a 15-year old pedestrian, you would need only stacks of cash. Because it’s common place to experience those events in one lifetime. Moreover, it’s standard emotional operating procedure to play basketball effectively at the highest level that exists after even an intermittent succession of these mild tragedies.

It had been assumed and postulated that perhaps, for the first time in Odom’s life he was experiencing a type of joy unrelated to his unique skill-set. When he married Khloe Kardashian it seemed like a renaissance of storybook proportion. And why not? Haven’t we experienced jubilant ecstasy at least due to infatuation if not robust romantic love? By the same token, having conducted a few funerals and attended more, I think death is the most jarring element of humanity. It can drive people insane at worst and, in muted form, send them reeling into years of reclusion. Handling loss is heavy lifting and your bank account can’t save you Jack. I don’t mind people being glad that a guy who didn’t help their team just made tracks. But it’s embarrassing to watch people pretend they are a friend of sorrows akin to Lamar Odom’s. How many of us are? And even if we were, how would we fair on a national stage where healing is inconsequential. Money is king in this world and because of its reign, even water-cooler experts bask in delusion breathing fiery epithets at the icons of sport. Tiggle was right about one thing, “Who hasn’t [had problems]?” Doggone right. Most of us have the kinds of mortal wounds that go untreated and that’s why we can look at other hurting people and say, “suck it up homie. You make stacks. That’s all the remedy you need for that ailing mind of yours.” If this wasn’t a public blog I’d tell you what that logic really is.

Something makes me think that Lamar Odom doesn’t want excuses made for his forgettable season. After all, he has forged a career in arguably the most competitive professional athletic job market in the United States. Some of that is being a 6-foot 11-inch, nimble utility but much of it is 10,000 plus hours perfecting a craft just like the other elites. All that needs to be said and acknowledged is that closer study might reveal the kryptonite that is disappointment via human loss. The mere thought of death makes people nervous. It’s incredulous to think a life filled with deathly episodes wouldn’t paralyze a person at times.  Maybe we really are connected to each other in ways that impair even the most determined of wills. Careful with those stones everybody, especially y’all who toss them anonymously in the blogosphere.

HURDLING SHAME

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There are many types of humiliation but would you agree that the worst of them is when you’re being humiliated for no reason? A case-in-point would be those moments when you’ve found yourself the object, literally, of ridicule. We used to call it a “bagging session” but you might have known it as “roasting” or “doing the dozens.” Depending on your definition of this experience, you may have had a chance to defend yourself against insults but often times, if the dude bagging on you was skillful, all attempts to return fire failed.  Once that guy swayed the crowd in his favor, ignominy was eminent. It’s all still fresh as I remember how we’d talk about each other, setting boundaries to not insult family members. But oddly enough, it always devolved into exchanges typified by statements like, “Yo mama is so fat she stepped on a dollar bill and made four quarters in change.” It’s nice to be an adult.

At any rate, I read a familiar text this week in Hebrews 12:2 and the segment that grabbed my attention read,

“…For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame…”

It got me to think about how the cross was such a fiendish way to die. It was excruciating, a word that actually originated form the practice of crucifixion. Often it involved impalement of the wrists, mutilation of bones and ultimately suffocation all after a series of beatings with glass and bone-ridden whips. It’s been said that the criminals crucified under the Roman government’s command were nude during punishment or at least scantily clad. It was a public disgrace and needless to say, in the case of Jesus Christ, it entailed all of the tangible discomforts we protect ourselves from today:

  • Public Nudity (Most of us dress before going out)
  • Wrongful Conviction (A Roman official admitted Jesus had committed no crime)
  • Physical Agony (Spikes driven through wrists and feet to impale body to cross)
  • Sleep Deprivation (Trial through the night preceded the scourging by Roman guards)
  • Ostracism by a native community (Jesus’ community demanded he be murdered)
  • Abandonment by closest friends

There are six things we either fear or avoid on a regular basis and yet that passage in Hebrews 12:2 said that “for the joy set before him, he endured the cross…” And it placed in perspective the ease I expect from my life, the sense of entitlement I exude. I expect people to respect me, expect friendship, expect inclusion and no cavities when I take a trip to the dentist. Could it be that a life of ease is proof that no joy sits before us? Are we striving for anything that attracts resistance? Is there meaningful purpose to your and my personal development that will expose us to difficult but worthy undertakings? Undoubtedly, the answers should be yes. Life is not about how well we preserve our own ease and pleasure. It’s not about cookouts and birthday parties, though I love me some tri-tip and German Chocolate cake. There’s always more and the more will cost us something just as it cost Christ. Jesus had a vision that by being a sinless representative offering, he would be reconciling mankind with the God of the universe. It meant everything to him and brought him joy which makes me think he may have found a moment to smile even while being shamed. There’s beauty in the pain of right sacrifices.

THE BUSINESS OF CHANGE

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Change is a skill. People get paid to manage it and better still to manage how other people manage it. And the reason you can earn a check managing change is because it’s hard.

Derek Fisher wears a #37 on his jersey in Oklahoma City and I’d bet it’s indicative of his age. Ain’t that dude 37 years old? I know he’s about a year up on me which is one of the reasons I’ve always liked him. He’s always reminded me of me, my era and the non-inked up version of the NBA that preceded the current episode. But in the twilight of his career, he was thrown an off-speed business-based pitch that uprooted him from Los Angeles and sent him to the best team in the Western Conference. In some ways it’s a blessing as he brings a distinct championship pedigree to a young squad. He was Captain in Lakerdom but now that word seems too limiting for the role he’ll have to play amongst neophite teammates, many of whom were in middle school when he began his career.

Change messes with your mind yo and the irony is that life is riddled with it. Change starts in the diaper and proceeds to present itself intermittently and abruptly throughout your time on the planet. And I think that changes prepare you for changes to come. NBA veterans like Derek Fisher know that being traded is a possibility which means potential changes in residence, schooling for your kids, ethnic demographics, weather, etc. If you hate change and the flurries akin to it, you’ll want to work on that life skill.

I like how “Fish” is handling change in businesslike fashion. He’s dealing in reality and he wasn’t even traded to the Oklahoma City Thunder. He was actually traded to the Houston Rockets who bought out his contract allowing OKC to pick him up. So unlike Lamar Odom of the Dallas Mavericks who can’t seem to let go of the tumult surrounding his departure from LA, the wily professional is in every Sportscenter Highlight on the night when his new team needed two overtime sessions to run down those pesky Timberwolves led by the ferocious shooting of Kevin Love.

I guess the point is that when you’re moved, change is official. We don’t always get to pick the changes that occur in our lives and when we do, transition is still no easier. But with a new jersey comes a new number often times. Find significance in the episode you’re in today. You can only play for one team at a time. Play the best “you” for the team you’re on today.

Mysterious King James

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Just when the King appears superhuman, he begins to commit the most glaring of faux pas. Six for seven from beyond the arc and while warding off the mythical Mamba himself. What beast shoots a step back 3-pointer from beyond 25-feet only to watch it splash down like a space capsule plummeting back to Earth after entering the Earth’s atmosphere? Lebron James does…but not in the closing seconds of a game.

The NBA All-Star game has a reputation for evolving before the very eyes of anxious enthusiasts. What begins as a glorified pick-up game featuring dainty defense metamorphoses to a bragging rights oriented slug fest in the waning minutes of the fourth quarter. And on February 26, 2012, Lebron James, also known as King James or the Chosen One or arguably the game’s greatest monster, rallied his forlorn Eastern Conference troops from 20-points down to close within one point of the West. James put on a masterful artistry of dominance and finesse. He sat at 36 points rivaling the West’s Kevin Durant when he found himself in the all-to-familiar position of human dagger. The funny thing was, he didn’t need to win the game; he just needed to shoot the ball.

Bron Bron the phenom earned the right to shoot the last shot by destroying everything in his pathway during the comeback effort. He’s the train out of control, with no brakes, blaring the air horn for the benefit of those anywhere near the tracks. But when the out-of-bounds play was drawn up for him, the ball ended up in the hands of Deron Williams who was willing to shoot but ill equipped for the impromptu role of hero. Why, that was King James’ job. But not to worry, fans thought, for the king wound up with an offensive rebound and plenty of tick for a 1-on-1 exhibition vs. his mentor Kobe “Bean” Bryant. Ah but once again, as if spellbound, his highness deferred to his teammate attempting a 20-foot pass through defensive traffic to Dwyane Wade which was ill fated. And alas, a rally in futility quickly became the fodder of today’s talk radio and lunch-time water cooler discussions. At 6’9” and 260 pounds, Lebron James’ freaksih athleticism is rivaled only by the inexplicable tendency of his to remove his size 16 shoe from the gas pedal. It’s hard to simply say that Lebron can’t finish games or that he doesn’t want to win. But maybe he lacks the heart of Simba who couldn’t wait to be King. Lebron James was actually being beckoned by his own friends on both sides of the contest yesterday, “Shoot the (expletive) ball.”

There’s a time to perform and a time to move beyond performance to risk. However, risk has that onomatopoeidic ring to it which connotes snatching victory from the proverbial jaws of derision or possibly becoming the object of ridicule. Most of us aren’t wired to gamble. Fortunately though, especially when you’re as gifted as Lebron, it ain’t even about what people say. It’s about me, you and the king learning how to risk failure because winning is as much a pursuit as it is a luxury. In the words of the now defunct MVP Kobe Muppet, “You got to be hungry Lebron….I’m talkin’ ‘bout STOMACH GROWLIN’.”

THE DELUSION SERIES: EPISODE 1

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Before Whitney Houston passed away last weekend, people spoke of her voice not being what it once was. I read articles and blogs recounting unsatisfied audiences, rudely storming out of venues and asking for refunds. Thanks to the wonder of high-speed internet, I caught glimpses of Whitney on her road to icon status and while she sounded different than I remember her on tracks like “I Get So Emotional,” I thought that she probably shouldn’t have been thrown back on stage so soon. Wasn’t she surrounded by executives and publicists? Isn’t it their job to protect their client and do what’s best for her? I couldn’t help thinking that if she didn’t sound great on stage, it’s because her team deluded themselves or purposely gambled on Whitney’s reputation. Could they have subjected her to ridicule when she may have needed a little voice rehabilitation and some graduated repetitions to strengthen her voice to performance level. Money motivation always moves things along more quickly. Someone needed only to think that getting Whitney’s name back in front of the public would be lucrative and voila, caution and consideration was thrown to the wind.

Delusion is when you or your crew thinks you’re ready when you’re not. It’s when you think you’re better than you are and when you believe the strange inflated image you see in the mirror accurate. Delusion can be engineered both by our own thinking and by others. Here’s some questions to connect you to this post:

Have you ever…

  • …bought a size smaller than you really wear knowing it won’t fit?
  • …used your car to send a message about what kind of person you are?
  • …(men) bought a bigger shoe size than you really wear?
  • …told people about dating conquests that never happened or grossly inflated them?
  • …played the victim when you were really the assailant?
  • …made fun of overweight people when you yourself are either unhealthy and thin or overweight yourself?
  • …attempted something because you’ve always wanted to do it but knowing you don’t possess the talent or skills?

Yo, if you don’t see delusion in this list, you’re deluded right now. Delusion is synonymous with deception or false pride. It’s a cruel weaponry and the very antithesis of truth. That’s why I’ve hated American Idol from the start. I hate seeing people embarrassed because they’ve managed to evade or ignore the truth that singing is not a strength. And every time I discuss this pet peeve of mine, people say, “Those foolish mortals probably ignored the friends telling them not to try it.” Maybe. All I know is that it’s the basic acceptance of truth that shapes and saves life. I was hit by a car in the crosswalk twice in 1990, burned my hand on the iron twice in the early 1980s and stapled my finger once. I’m a believer in walking bikes across the street now, recognizing when the iron is plugged in and respecting the ferocity of the Swingline.

“I have done that,” says my memory. “I cannot have done that” — says my pride, and remains adamant.  At last — memory yields.”

– Friedrich Nietzsche