GETTING THERE

I don’t know what it takes to get an NCAA athletics scholarship but I know what it takes to make a kid play like he/she is on scholarship. The sad part is when I’m too arrogant to share those insights without a snide jab as an appetizer. Case in Point: I rolled out to my Alma Mater Chapman University in Orange, California on Tuesday for my weekly dosage of college level basketball, my brand of cardio. I’m not that 5K guy. At any rate, I’m friends with one of the young bulls on the team who’s going into his senior year and he was looking for help related to gaining muscle mass, about 15-17 pounds worth. So I told him, “Ma dude, just match your weight in protein grams, modify your workout to strength cycle and it’s done, .” He’d counter with something like, “Uh, I’m a cereal guy, low on funds with no real cooking skills.” The college bachelor he is. And I stood there deriding a 21-year old with clownish quips about how simple it is to eat, log what you eat and do it consistently. He was asking me how to even track protein intake. “What does the right diet look like Norm? If I go to Subway once-a-day what can I eat?” I looked at him like he had a third arm. Then about 20 minutes into it all I realized he was serious. He really was in need of help. I had forgotten what it’s like to eat Hamburger Helper everyday because you work nine hours-a-week and go in-and-out of class comas because you stayed up all night writing a paper assigned three months ago. My young friend is just that…young. How the old forget or worse yet, how we grow impatient and conceited with our full gas tanks, satiated appetites and wisdom via multiple trials in error. That day I was reminded of something I learned when I was five years old. SHARE…