faster, higher, stronger: It's Gotta Be Personal

Monday, August 13, 2007

It's Gotta Be Personal

I now have internet access at the new crib so my blogging will be much more consistent. I'm sorry for those who look forward to my inspirational messages (Matt) and haven't been able to be inspired over the last months. I will do better.

I spent 4 days at a National High School Baseball Showcase. Dickinson sent me there to recruit. I met players from all over the country and got a chance to meet and talk with coaches from major college programs. I met coaches from Georgetown, Yale, Princeton, Columbia, U of Richmond, Fordham, Maryland, Texas, and the list goes on and on. It was my first recruiting showcase and I gotta tell ya, it was intimidating. Here I am from small-school, DIII, Dickinson College and I'm talking to (some of) the same players as some of theses major college coaches...how do you talk to a kid about playing ball at Dickinson when earlier that morning, the coach from Princeton was talking to him? It took me a day or 2 to figure things out and get my bearings straight, but I figured something out (actually, a parent who had been watching me talk with players all week gave me the answer).

I was talking to a parent and he told me he had watched me all week and that he and his son both thought I was the most popular coach at the showcase (not to toot my horn or anything). They had watched me speak with each and every player that came up and introduced himself to me. They said they were impressed that I took the time ( a couple of minutes) to speak with them and not just shake their hand and walk on. This parent said, after talking to me for a couple of minutes, that he could tell I was passionate about the program and that he wanted his son to be at a program where the coaches are passionate. WOW! What a compliment! It nearly floored me to hear that.

After he said that to me....it hit me. I told him baseball was personal to me. It wasn't a business. I got the feeling from some of the coaches, that it was a business to them....it was cold and calculating. It was about getting the best players and being the best team. Players get cut and lose scholarships cuz someone else better comes in and the only excuse is "hey, it's not personal, it's just business." Well coaching is personal to me. I think when something is personal to you, you are passionate about it and people can see it in you.

Find what's personal to you. What are you passionate about? I had a talk with a friend a couple of years ago who was worried cuz one minute I'm way up on cloud nine, the next minute I'm plunging downward. He said I gotta find a even place, in the middle between high and low. Looking back, I disagree. I'm up and I'm down cuz I have passion for those things and I wouldn't trade it for the world. I wear my heart on my sleeve and although, at times, it may cause me to bleed a little more than others...I want others to see my passion. I'm proud to love doing things and I want others to see that in me. maybe they will find something they love doing and show others too.

I guess it's gotta be personal. I know it is for me. Not just baseball, but this whole undertaking of a goal (running marathons). It's personal cuz it's a striving for personal excellence. I guess I gotta hype myself up with words of passion to get me through training....but hey, whatever gets ya through, right?!

Thanks for listening!
SEE YA ON THE HILL!
Michael

1 comment:

The Browers said...: Good post, I'm inspired. Oh yeah, my blog counter registered 557 visitors this morning.; August 14, 2007 at 7:04 AM

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SOME GOOD QUOTES

***"Our greatest fear is not that we are inadequate,but that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant,gorgeous, handsome, talented and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be?You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinkingso that other people won't feel insecure around you. We were born to make manifest the glory of God within us. It is not just in some; it is in everyone. And, as we let our own light shine, we consciously giveother people permission to do the same.As we are liberated from our fear,our presence automatically liberates others."-Marianne Williamson***"The only people for me are the mad ones ... the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn, like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars.-Jack Kerouac*** "Citius, Altius, Fortius" A latin term, it means "Faster, Higher, Stronger." ***"Running, one might say, is an absurd passtime upon which to be exhausting ourselves....but if you can find meaning in the kind of running you have to do to stay on this team, chances are, you can find meaning in another absurd passtime....LIFE."-Bill Bowerman***"Be on fire for something."***"Anything you vividly imagine, ardently desire, sincerely believe, and enthusiastically act upon must, absolutely must come to pass."

What does "See ya on the hill" mean?

When I ran my first marathon (the LaSalle bank Marathon) in October of this past fall, I raised money for the foundation started by my favorite athlete (and childhood hero): Walter Payton. Walter Payton was (and still is) my idol because of the way he played the game of football. He was never the biggest guy, never the fastest guy, and never the strongest guy, yet he found ways to kick and scratch for every yard on every run. He never gave up easy, never just ran out of bounds, and never slid to avoid a hit. In the off-season, he would embark on this hellish training program that always included hill running. He would run hills until he could no longer walk, and then muster up the courage and strength to keep running. He would invite other football players to come and run hills with them and then laugh as they utterly destroyed themselves just trying to keep up with him...all the while he was just warming up. I think life is a lot like runninig hills. Running hills is hard. Running hills will really test you. There is no way to rest while running uphill. Hills, to me, are like those challenges we face in life: job challenges, financial challenges, personal challenges, relationship challenges, emotional challenges, etc. We can avoid'em and pretend they don't exist (at which point we'd be stuck standing at the bottom of the hill), or we can put our heads down and get running. That's not to say that if you just put your down and run, that you'll conquer every hill...sometimes the hill is just too steep. But to me, the analogy of the hill is more about your willingness to climb than it is how many hills you've conquered. Cuz we all know by now in our lives that once you've conquered one hill (or failed), there will surely be another hill ready for you. So I see this running as a hill for me, a challenge that tests me, and challenges me. That's why I finish my blogs with "SEE YA ON THE HILL," cuz I figure if I see you on the hill, that means you to, have accepted whatever challenge has been laid before you, as opposed to just standing at the bottom, unwilling to climb at all.

WHY RUN A MARATHON?

I have been asked that question many, many times since I started running 2 years ago. I can't honestly say that I've yet to come up with a viable, concrete, understandable answer to the question. I should admit here that I HAVE NEVER ENJOYED RUNNING, NOR HAVE I EVER BEEN ANY GOOD AT IT. I played soccer in high school and I was a fullback, so I did the minimal amount of running. Anyway, I started running cuz I was fat. In 2004 I was going through some life/relationship issues and I wanted to make some changes...I felt little control over what was going on in my life and I was searching for something I could control, my weight was something I could control. I started running a mile before I would do my lifting routine (I would go to a memeber of my family's home and workout in their basement-gym ((BIG shouts out and a big thanks to Karen and Steve)). Then I began running a mile before and then another one after lifting. At this point, I must admit, I was just excited when I finished my mile in under 10 minutes (now thats my super-easy pace). At some point in 2005, a friend of mine (BIG shouts out to OG) asked me to run in a 5k (3.2 miles) with him. He had already paid the entry fee for another runner who had cancelled on him and he didn't want his money to go to waste. So I ran it and finished in 25:41 (not bad). After that, I figured-what the hell-if I can run 3 miles today, I can do it again tomorrow and then the day after, and try to get rid of some of this fat I got goin' on. As the 3 miles became easier and easier, I bumped my runs up to 4 miles, then 5 miles, and so on all the way up to 8 miles before it finally got too cold to run outside and I packed it in for Christmas. I began to wonder what enjoyment I got out of doing the act of something I didn't actually enjoy. After much thought, I found that I enjoyed the challenge of going farther than I ran yesterday...knowing that with every step, I was now running 1 step farther than I had ever run before in my life. That Christmas, in need of something in my life to make me feel a lil'more worthwhile, something to take my mind off my struggles (still in the midst of personal/relationship issues), I set upon the goal of doing (what I felt at the time was) the impossible: run 26.2 miles. I looked forward to the training, the focus (cuz my focus would be on something other than what it had been focused on for the year prior) and the determination it was gonna take to get me to the finish line. I set my goal, I did it, and now I wanna go again and improve upon my first attempt. That's why I run. Those personal issues I had are now long gone and have been totally dealt with. Now I am left only with the challenge of being better than I was the last time out...of making myself a better man, a better citizen, a better human being. Come along for the ride! Encouragement is always welcome!

faster, higher, stronger

Monday, August 13, 2007

It's Gotta Be Personal

1 comment:

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