Skip to main content

Somedays

The Steele Stars Performing 'Go For the Gold'
Somedays, you are reminded how lucky you are. You are reminded how beautiful the world is and how unique your role in it is.

Today was one of those days - powerful because of its simplicity, purity, and raw passion. That special blend of forces most often found in children. That exuberant enthusiasm for life - that fearlessness to not just dream but to believe in dreams.

The morning required planning. We had to be up early to record our heart-rates, pee in our cups, and pack our bag for the days activities. So after wiping away the eye-sleepies, we headed to breakfast, nourished ourselves with some grub (and the ever so needed cup of joe) then headed for a meeting with Peter, the man of mindfulness, our sports psychologist.

Peter surprised us today. He didn't make us sit and be mindful, like he usually does. He told us to take off our shoes and stand on a foot wide styrofoam balance beam. I cursed myself for wearing dirty socks. Katie O'donnell and I flanked the left end of beam. Peter then informed us of our task, to arrange ourselves in height order without touching the ground.

Not a strategic move to stand next to OD; she is the shortest, and I am the tallest. It took a while, but we managed the task by crawling under, stepping over, and offering a balanced hand to our teammates. We finished with only seconds to spare.  Our discussion of the activity led to some pertinent conclusions about how to anchor our attention on our individual roles, and how that focus leads to outcome success.

With Peter's session concluded, we quickly changed into our uniforms, packed the vans and headed to Steele Elementary School, the home of the Stars, for what the USADA organizers termed a "character enrichment" program.

 It far surpassed enrichment, it was inspiration. Not by us, but for us, from the children. They welcomed us with a passionate chant of USA, eager high fives, and engaged eyes.  They listened to us as we spoke about character, sportmanship, and field hockey. They cheered for us when we played a 5v5 on gruesome grass pitch. They rallied us to Go for Gold. They sang for us an incredible song that moved some to chills and others to tears.

They reminded us how lucky we are. Not just to do what we do, but to be on their team. Because at the days end, we are all on the same team - fighting to make the best of ourselves in order to make the best of our world.

Somedays, you just can't help but smile. Because you know what an amazing life this is.

Check out the news coverage of our amazing visit to Steele Elementary here: http://youtu.be/Z4wE7GGk318

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

America's Got Talent, Not Time

Let's take a dive into the talent pool.   America’s got talent. A lot of talent. What it doesn’t have though is time and a cohesive system to identify and develop that talent to maturity. The short timeline for the development of talent undermines the country's ability to succeed at the highest level. A multitude of factors play a role, yet the most influential is the win now mentality driven by the demands of college and youth sport. This mentality  - and the money behind it - dominates the American sport landscape; it leads to early selection and deselection, myopic views of talent, and the narrowing of the playing pool before most athletes have time to emerge and fully develop. Recruiting accelerates the timeline. We expect more from athletes at an earlier age. We evaluate them at an earlier age. We select and deselect them at an earlier age. The consequence is that an abundance of talent drops out of the pathway, or goes unidentified and undeveloped. A number of factor...

Letters

Dear Rachel, I hope you play better today. But I hope more that you enjoy your play today. This might upset you but I was never really into winning or losing. I always loved just watching you play - when you were just playing the game and using your own abilities. And when the object of the game is to get the ball into the goal, and you play just to get it in goal, not to add up a score but to get it into the goal. I loved the goals they always give me chills simply because it is the object of the game - not because it makes you win. And then when you are playing to keep the goals from the other team, and you just block them because it is the object of the game not so they do not get points, or so you don't lose, but you play just to keep it out simply because that is the object of the game. I love that too. What I took from today was pretty simple - half the battle is your presence and your voice - you touch the ball, on a good day, for about a minute during a 70...

In the End, There's Love

This is dedicated to a teacher and coach who challenged me to live the lessons she taught. Thank you, Coach Shelton.      After 42 years,  Karen Shelton retired. I still can’t believe it is true. When I first saw the post, I scrolled quickly passed it, thinking it was another celebration post - the type that has become customary to Tar Heel fans over the past decade of Carolina Field Hockey dominance. A few seconds later, something made me pause. There was something more in that post. So I went back and read it fully.       My stomach dropped. My eyes welled with tears. A flood of emotions overcame me. Indescribable emotions.  There was shock. This is really happening. There was grief. This is the end of an era. An end that always seemed unfathomable. I can't imagine a Carolina (or recruiting sideline) without Karen Shelton (and Willy) leading it. There was love. The love surprised me the most. That it was still there, beating strong, after t...