Gun Control - I've got the silver bullet

My attempt to maintain the lameness of gun references in the context of this blog topic. A weak effort I realize...

I'm a firm believer in the "right" to bear arms. I own a couple guns and use them for recreational purposes, hunting and sport shooting. I don't think that right should ever be taken away from me, a law abiding, tax paying (substantial tax, but that's another post), citizen. I don't think my gun ownership makes me any more likely to commit a violent crime or be complicit in a death by a gun.

I don't think however that it should be everyone's "right" to own a weapon. Gun ownership should be earned. Earning this right in my mind would include four steps:

1. Sufficiently satisfying ownership requirements based on criminal history. Convicted of a violent crime, you no longer get this right, ever.
2. Satisfying training and educational requirements, which should be time consuming (minimum 20 hours) but not costly.
3. Satisfying a substantial waiting period for purchasing a gun, I would suggest a minimum of 21 days. There could be an expedited solution that would be costly, similar to getting a passport. Although i can't think of a reason why this would be necessary, it would provide flexibility that is typically necessary for such legislation to be effective.
4. Registering both the gun and owner and ongoing requirements to annually re-register the gun, re-satisfy ownership requirements, and satisfying continuing education requirements. People have to do this with their cars in many states, guns could be handled this way as well.

If these seem like pretty high standards for gun ownership, you are exactly right. Gun ownership should not be a compulsion. Based on the potential risks of gun ownership in the hands of the wrong people, there needs to be a commensurate amount of judgment, education, and training. This would be similar to other dangerous weapons...like CARS!

While I like the idea, I think the concept of judging the usefulness of guns as recreational is too subjective to be realistic. 2 examples:

1. Handguns - I know several people that participate in practical shooting leagues with handguns. While I don't own a handgun or subscribe to this form of recreation, it is a popular one with gun owners. Qualifying handguns as recreational would include the majority (snopes check needed) of weapons used in a violent crime.

2. Assault weapons - you may be able to use a similar argument as this one for handguns as well, but what about professions that actually use an assault weapon? Comfort and control of this is a BFOQ (tipping my HR hat to our brotherly expert in that field) Police officers, special operations officers, military and former military. What if a reservist wants to put in extra personal time to be as good as possible at his profession, should he be called to active duty? Can we realistically limit these individual's interest in career success for the sake of gun control?

In summary, give me my guns and put me through the ringer to get to earn that right. But don't throw the baby out with the bathwater by trying to eliminate gun control.

Trying (mostly unsuccessfully) to understand God's will

Ed, you wrote, "There is a reason for the struggle, a reason for the strife, and you will come out of it stronger."  That's what people who are NOT struggling through something try to tell people who ARE struggling.  They have good intentions - they are trying to provide some kind of comfort, some kind of noble reason for the struggle.  I've been on the receiving end of that kind of advice, and it's usually not very comforting at all.

I've had some extensive discussion recently with an old Navy friend who posed the question of why God allows bad things to happen.  He's a strong Christian but would like to be able to provide a reasonable answer to people that have experienced tragedy (like the loss of a child) who question God's sovereignty, God's control in this world, and God's will.  This question has been around for a long time.  Just go to Amazon and do a search on "why bad things happen to good people" and you'll find enough books to keep you occupied for a few years.  It doesn't surprise me.  When we hurt the most is when we are most likely to ask the question, "Why?"  We don't ask why during life's successes and achievements because we don't care why.  We're just happy.

I don't have a good answer, and certainly not one that will fit neatly into a blog.  All I can really offer is what I usually provide here: a few random and probably incoherent thoughts.

First, I've learned through the years that the best way to provide comfort is NOT to try to provide answers.  When I come home from work frustrated and vent to Jennifer, the last thing I want from her is to explain why.  What comforts me the most is to hear her say, "I'm sorry you had a tough day honey."  When someone suffers the death of a loved one, the best comfort you can provide is to say, "I'm really sorry for your loss."  When someone is in the grips of grief, telling them that the death was all in God's will, that it's all part of God's plan that we will understand someday in the future, there is no comfort.  The result is usually anger at a God who we are told is a God of love.  How does a God of love cause such pain?  

To make this a little more personal, why are there 15-year-old girls that have sex once in the back of a car and carry a baby to full-term, when a married Christian couple who wants to have children can't seem to make it happen?  Where is God in that situation?  There is no pat answer.  I think we can all agree to that.

We live in a fallen world.  Genesis 3 tells the story of the fall of man and how sin entered the world.  The world we live in is not the one that God would have chosen, but when WE chose sin, we ended up with a fallen world.  God created us with free will, and that means mankind was free to choose sin.  The fact is, we choose sin in some way or another every day.  It would be nice to blame it all on Adam, but the fact is, if Marc was the first man, we would be calling it Marc's original sin instead of Adam's original sin.  So our world, in many ways, sucks.  We have death, disappointment, abuse, hate, fear, etc. because of sin.  Jesus himself said, "In this world you will have trouble."  (John 16:33)  

I'm not saying that, "We brought this on ourselves" is any more of a comfort to people.  But for me personally, a huge part of the story of Jesus Christ is understanding why he needed to come to earth in the first place.  And the answer is that he came to deal with the sinful world that we live in.  I'm also not saying that all bad things are the result of personal sins we have committed in the past.  The Bible is full of stories of righteous men and women that endured terrible circumstances (Joseph, Job, Paul, Daniel, etc).  That may be what Jesus meant when he said, "In this world you will have trouble."  In other words, it doesn't matter what you do, you'll go through some shit.  But his statement immediately following was this: "But take heart!  I have overcome the world."  God knows that we're going to experience shit.  But he never leaves us when we're going through it.

If you think there are a lot of books about why bad things happen to good people, take a look at the volumes that have been written trying to describe the God himself.  Theology is the study of God, and the number of books written on God could fill the oceans.  Isaiah 55:9 says, "As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts."  For me, I've just reached a point in my life where I am comfortable with the fact that I will never fully understand God.  With each passing year I realize that although I keep making the box that I want to keep him in even bigger, he'll never fit in it.  Omnipotence, omniscience, and omnipresence are not concepts that our mortal minds can ever fully grasp.  I'm comfortable with saying, "I don't quite get it."

But in the end, I know that God IS love, because that's what his word tells us, and he demonstrates it to me all the time.  I love the story of the prodigal son (Luke 15), the story of the shepherd leaving the flock to find a single sheep (John 10) and the multiple stories of God accepting his people, the Israelites, back.  God GENUINELY REJOICES when people turn to him.  He doesn't care what you did five minutes ago or five decades ago.  He loves us so much that he is simply delighted that we've turned to him.  So Ed, he doesn't care WHY you may be drawing to him now.  He could care less.  He's just glad that you are.  The bible tells us that God delights in his people (Psalm 149).  Our pastor preached a sermon a couple of weeks ago in which he said, "God cares about you more than anything RIGHT NOW."  Psalm 103 says that God has removed our sin as far as the East is from the West.  He does not take it into account.

I'm all over the place.  I will summarize by saying that I find comfort in knowing that God is bigger than all the shit in my life, that he loves me NO MATTER WHAT, and that he hurts when I hurt.  That is where I receive my comfort.  No human situation on the earth can ever change it.  I don't think I'll ever understand completely how any of that mixes with "God's will".    I'll finsih with a quote that I like by A.W. Tozer: "The yearning to know what cannot be known, to comprehend the incomprehensible, to touch and taste the unapproachable, arises from the image of God in the nature of man.  Deep calleth unto deep, and though polluted and landlocked by the mighty disaster theologians call the Fall, the soul senses its origin and longs to return to its souce."  

Marc, shooting from the hip, as usual

This blog is about gun control.  That makes the title funny, right?

Ed, thanks for keeping the blog going as of late.  You've posted some stuff that has caused me hours of consideration on a variety of topics.  If only someone could invent some kind of technology that converts my thoughts automatically into a coherent blog post.  That would be a first for me!  I have intentions of responding to those "tough" blogs that you've posted, but contrary to every time management and productivity article in the last 20 years, I'm going to tackle the easy stuff first.

It's easy because my Facebook post that indicated I was shocked by the comments of Bob Costas during Sunday night football got me involved in an email discussion on gun control with our Uncle Jerry.  I won't post the entire email chain, but I'll post my input to the discussion:

JJ, thanks for giving me the opportunity to jump in.  I'll try not to be TOO lengthy.

If I really drill down on this question in my own mind, I come back to the question of how much authority the government should have to protect its own citizens.  I don't mean to open the "big government" can of worms, but in my mind you can lump gun control in with that issue.  Are guns dangerous?  Hell yeah they are, especially when they are used improperly.  JJ, I agree with SOME of your points, in that I think there is a line that needs to be drawn somewhere in regards to the types of weapons available to the general public (assault rifles for example).  But my original question has to do with how much authority the government should have to protect its citizens.  YOU may not think it's a logical argument, but the fact that other things, when misused, kill people IS a valid argument.  It's estimated that alcohol-related deaths are around 75K per year in the United States.  Why isn't the government trying to limit alcohol access to the "financially responsible"?  The answer is because alcohol is not the issue, the IRRESPONSIBLE use of alcohol is the issue.  Why are guns different?  That's what I think the gun control lobby needs to explain (at least to me).  Financially responsible people can misuse anything as easily as someone who is not financially responsible.  Personally, I have a hard time understanding when the government decides to get involved for "safety" reasons and when they don't.  Why do we have seatbelt laws?  Helmet laws?  Even soda consumption laws in New York City!  Why does the government feel the need to protect its citizens in this arena but not in so many others?

I don't really like your Constitutional argument either, since it's the omission argument.  The Constitution doesn't say specifically that I can have a car, but that doesn't mean they should prevent me from having one.  Just because the Constitution doesn't specifically say "a well regulated militia and everyone can own a gun if they want to do so", that doesn't mean they didn't mean to allow it.  In the late 1700's following a rebellion against jolly old England, I would venture a guess to say that nearly every single household had a gun.

I'm intrigued by your thoughts about financial responsibility.  Are you thinking that you should be required to have some type of insurance with a weapon (like liability insurance for a vehicle) as well as yearly registration, inspection, and licensing requirements?  I actually kind of like that idea.  Unfortunately, gun control advocates usually are locked on a single track: don't let people have guns.

Finally (and I promise I'll shut up for awhile), just as you find the usual pro gun lobby arguments illogical, I find the usual gun control lobby argument illogical:  Removing guns will remove the violence.  Blaming the root problem of violence on the instrument used in the violence is convenient, but it doesn't address the problem.  If you want me to concede that banning guns would reduce gun deaths, then you have to concede that banning alcohol will reduce DUI deaths.  Trying to get rid of guns doesn't deal with the real issue.  By way of analogy, in the past few years the military has FINALLY shifted focus in the fight against sexual assault to bystander intervention, because they realized that you can't stop the sickness that causes men to sexually assault by telling them not to do it.  You can only hope that someone recognizes a bad situation and intervenes to stop it before it gets to that point.  In the same way, you can try to stop the violence by removing guns, but that won't fix the problem.  

Violence in our culture... well, that's a whole different email chain!

Guns

A recent tragedy with a KC Chiefs player shooting the mother of his 3-month old daughter and then turning the gun on himself has raised some interesting dialogue among family and friends.  Dialogue that I felt were worthy of a blog post.

Now I'm going to provide my opinion and not try to influence you to agree.  I'm simply going to share my opinion and ask my brothers to provide theirs.

Where do you stand on gun control?

Me, I'm for it ... kind of.  I believe in my first amendment right to bear arms and I don't think that should be taken from me.  However, I do think that steps need to be taken in an attempt to control the violence in this country.  Gun control, in my opinion is one of those steps.

I am in favor of limiting who can own automatic weapons, handguns and any other firearm that couldn't be reasonably used for sport of some type.  Shotguns and rifles are the typically used firearms for hunting.  And the only restriction I would place on owning these types of firearms is having to register them, and having a reasonable "cooling off period" before you could pick up a gun of this type that you purchased.  Seven days seems reasonable.

Which means I'm in favor of more severely limiting the ability to purchase, own and carry weapons that are most typically used for violence.  I know shotguns and rifles are sometimes used.  But more often than not it is handguns - and automatic weapons when mass killings occur.

I haven't worked out all the details on my proposed regulations but this is my general philosophy and stance.

So what's your view?  Hit us back in the comments ...

All I Want For Christmas Is ...

FOR MY FAMILY TO BE FINANCIALLY SECURE!

Ok, I've been unemployed longer than I ever would have imagined.  I'm the primary bread winner.  With that comes pro's and con's.  When you are the primary bread winner and your unemployed the con's get really big!

As a general rule of thumb (check out snopes.com for a reality check on this statistic) a person is generally unemployed one month for every $10k in salary.  That better not be the case!  Oh, and I'm better than most so that won't be the case for me.  Doesn't everyone think that?

I've worked hard to find a job, but to date what I have to show for it is a couple of good leads and a long list of Almost's and TBNT's (thanks but no thanks).  It's a challenging roller coaster to ride.  I don't like roller coasters and this one isn't any different.

I've also worked to resurrect and grow a business of my own, HRO Partners.  Exciting right?  YES!  We work with some fabulous clients and people.  Have done some really great HR and people practice stuff.  But it isn't paying the bills.  Rather, it's just a nice supplement for my continued job search.

As a general rule of thumb (check out snopes.com for a reality check on this statistic) a start up business doesn't become financially solvent until it has been in business for eighteen to twenty-four months.  That better not be the case!  Oh, and my company is better than most so that won't be the case.  Doesn't everyone think that?

So hopefully I've made my point.  I'm clinging to statistics and believing I'm better than that.  I'm busy working to find the path that it right for me.  Many of my family members and close friends have provided their perspective as to what I should do.  I appreciate and value their opinions.  But their opinions aren't mine.  And mine (and my wife's) is the one that matters right?

I'm normally a very decisive person.  But this is a BIG DECISION and one with no obvious and apparent right answer for me.  I want to do what is best for my family.  I hope that what is best for my family is also best for me.

So ... I'm counting on Santa.  Here goes ...

Santa,

I've been a pretty good Spouse, Father, Brother, Cousin, Uncle, and Friend this year.  Not perfect, but pretty good.  So please bring my family a big bag of financial security for Christmas.  I don't care what form that financial security takes.  A great job, a great business, or Powerball winner - I'm good with any of those choices!

Love,

Eddie

Destiny ...

One of my favorite grammatical shortcuts is the …  

You’ll find it regularly in my blog posts.  It’s one way to let the story end itself and give the reader latitude to write their own script and add their own twists.  I only wish there was a way that … could be deployed in real life. 

You see, I’m a bit of a control freak.  Some would say that’s a bit like calling the Pope a bit Catholic.  Ok, so I like control.  Don’t most people?  See, my defense mechanism is already kicking in.  But that’s why I struggle with terms like fate and faith – and destiny.  The idea that something greater than me is at work. 

I’m getting reacquainted with God for lots of reasons, really.  The first is that this is one of the biggest regrets Holly and I have as parents of our children.  That we didn’t expose them enough to God, religion and church.  So we’re trying to make up for lost ground.  Another reason is that we have fallen on challenging times.  With the loss of our primary income it’s put a lot of strain on the family.  Not outward strain, internal strain.  It’s a well known fact that people show more religious tendencies when going through challenging times.  Poor people are more religious than the rich, unemployed more than the employed, and broken families more than stable ones.  You get the point.  And one final reason for getting closer to God is I’m getting older.  Not old mind you, but older.  Not wiser either, just older.  I don’t feel infallible anymore. 

So back to the point I’ve thought more about my purpose in life in the last six months than I have in the last two decades.  And I’m no closer to the answer.  Frustrating as I so badly want to know my purpose and just get on with it.  Regardless of how humbling or challenging my purpose might be I just want to know.  That’s the crazy thing about fate, faith and destiny.  God knows it but you don’t.  You may think you do and then something happens.  Something big.  And you find yourself wandering and questioning why you are lost once again.  Well I’m getting too old for this shit. 

But that’s God’s way, or so I’ve been told.  Open your heart, open your mind, and let him guide and direct you.  Don’t become inanimate, but don’t fight it either.  There is a reason for the struggle, a reason for the strife, and you will come out of it stronger. 

I’m trying real hard to put my faith in God.  I do believe in him, that he has already written my book and I’m simply turning the pages.  Trying to write my own script, my own ending.

I’ve learned a lot over the past six months and yet I feel I now know less than I did before.  Less confident, not nearly as bold.  But maybe that’s what He wanted.

Until my purpose becomes clear, I’m just going to keep reading … 

Trisha Hall got skill!

I couldn't agree more on the idea of photography and talent. My slight spin on the topic is that most people mistake volume for talent. Spend some cash on a camera and take a shit ton of bad pictures of your ugly pets and all of the sudden you're Ansel Adams that is over-qualified to bore the extended family to death at gatherings.

Trish got perhaps the same auspicious start. As a stay at home Mom, she wanted to take good pictures of her kids. But unlike most people, she actually had some talent and focused on developing a skill. She took classes, and she practiced. Practice doesn't mean just taking pictures. It means a methodical process of taking pictures and learning from the process. Not unlike other finely honed skills, she learned from her mistakes, identified what worked and what didn't, and experimented with different settings.

Combine focused effort and good talent and you get an amateur photographer who actually creates a beautiful product. And that's why we asked Trish to take our family pictures, and we couldn't be happier with the result.

While a minimal level of talent is required, Malcolm Gladwell writes in his book Outliers that the separator of expertise is a very high threshold of practice. So while I may not be a gifted writer or journalist, this blog is a great place for me to practice! So maybe I can some day write songs or craft a best seller.

I Got Skill

I could go on about this one, but I’m going to cut to the chase so that I can get this on the street.  But first let me apologize in advance for any feelings that I may hurt…  I'm sorry!

I’ve known literally dozens of women who have decided in the past couple of years that their new career would be photography.  Let me start backpedaling already and admit that a couple of them have a legitimate eye for photography, but most of them have about as much talent for photography as I have for piano composition.

Here’s the bottom line:  Buying $3000 worth of camera equipment doesn’t make you anymore of a photographer than a $3 million Stradivarius makes you a violinist.  Why does everyone think they can make money being a photographer?  It’s not the only field where this general assumption about “professional” level of skill is ubiquitous.  Graphic design is another one.  Just because you know how to use the “insert picture” function on Microsoft Word, you are NOT a graphic artist.  And yes, I’ll hit closer to home: just because you have a blog it doesn’t mean you’re a journalist!

I’ve seen some very good photography from self-proclaimed “professional photographers”.  In fact, this subject came up in the first place when I asked you, Brad, about who took the recent pics of your family, in particular the girls.  They looked really nice, so nice that I asked if you had them taken by a professional.   She’s really good!  We have a dear friend in Maryland whose photography is amazing to me.  She is so talented, and she has an eye for it.  Did she go to school for it?  No.  In fact, she was a grade school teacher who picked up photography after she decided to stay home to raise her kids.  She’s managed to be very successful in the photography business.

It can be done, but I would say that a very small percentage of the population can actually succeed for any length of time in their new photography business.  Most will last about a year, which is how long it takes for the initial business from close friends and family to run out. 

Now I feel like a jerk.  Eh.  I’ll be over it tomorrow.

Marc on Livestrong

Ed, I agree with most of what you said about Armstrong.  Regardless of whether or not he doped, you don’t dominate the sport like he did without working harder than everyone else.  It’s not like you can sit at home on your ass, ride your bike for an hour a four days a week,  get a blood transfusion, and win the Tour de France.  Still, it’s a bummer to think that Lance felt he needed that extra push.

Jennifer asked me why doping was so prevalent in cycling.  I couldn’t really give a good answer, although I postulated that it’s because cycling doesn’t involve much skill, so it levels the playing field more than other sports.  What I mean by that is that yes, muscle and power helps you on the football field, but you have to bring a lot more to the table than that.  You need to have a good deal of skill to read defenses, read offenses, instincts to follow the play, etc.  And a high level of skill is required for nearly all sports.  Biking doesn’t seem like it to me.  So maybe it’s log-jammed at the top and everybody is looking for that edge, because you can only train so many hours a day, right? 

Your point about remembering not to “iconify” people is well taken.  I’ve always joked that I’ll never be able to run for President or even Congress, because by the time the media drags all of my skeletons out of the closet I’m through!  People are people and everybody’s got junk.  Of that much I’m sure.

LIVESTRONG

The "look back" by Armstrong was one of the greatest moments in all sport, up there with Babe Ruth calling his shot, MJ draining the winning shot over Byron, and Doug Flutie's infamous hail mary.  All you can say when you watch these highlights over and over is .... WOW!

Marc, your post raises some really interesting questions.   I want to compare Armstrong's fall from grace with a couple of other "fallen" as a point of reference.  

What I'm trying to get at is whether punishments handed out in sport ever seem sufficient and appropriate.  All seem hollow in one way or another, at least to me.  

Example #1:

Penn State - The University employed a pedophile and then others employed by the university refused to address it.  The "reasonable person" clearly would have done something to report and address this terrible series of crimes.  

Penalty - Removal of wins for nearly a decade, a 60 million dollar fine, loss of scholarships and then a bunch of other smaller penalties.  Interestingly in this case Penn State didn't get the "death penalty" for their football program, and I saw lots of Penn State fans in Kinnick Stadium on Saturday for their thumping of the Hawks.

Example #2:

Michael Vick - He owned a private dog fighting ring and bred dogs to fight, sometimes to death but more often to serious injury - all for money.  

Penalty - Jail time, suspension from the game of football, and probably a fine which I can't recall.  He is currently a starting quarterback in the NFL with a multi-million dollar contract once he had "served his time".  Oh, and the interesting twist on this one?  He now owns a dog as a pet.  Man's best friend right?

Example #3:

Lance Armstrong - Now his case.  I don't know all the details of the accusations and the due process to prove his temporary innocence and now assumed guilt.  

Penalty - Titles removed.  No jury (I know because Armstrong refused) and a process that Armstrong openly stated was frustrating and not fair.  I don't know all he went through, but I know it was a lot.  

So, are the penalties in each of these cases appropriate?  I've picked some of the most colored ones just as a point of reference.  Without question Lance's cheating is the least offensive of the examples I've named.  His doping didn't hurt anyone but him, his foundation and his legacy.  

But in my opinion penalties of removals of titles, wins, etc. are hollow.  And if you finished second in any of the Tours Lance won, congratulations.  How's that feel?  No better I suspect.  

And if I were head of any organization responsible for keeping the sport of cycling clean from doping, international or American, I would declare a death penalty on the whole sport.  Everyone.  All races.  And then I would figure out whether to allow doping and let these cyclists all be on a more level playing field.  Because once thing about this case is clear.  

No one has control over doping in the sport of cycling.  Nobody.  Maybe that should be Lance Armstrong's next legacy.  He can be the poster child for cleaning his beloved sport up!  

I'm a Lance Armstrong fan and always will be.  He was the best cyclist ever - period.  

And while the report that he doped has irreparably damaged his legacy, it doesn't diminish what he accomplished.  Recovering from near death cancer and ascending to the top of the sport with an attitude and fearlessness that made all other riders (including several others that doped) look like amateurs.  I'm just sad that his legacy has come down to this.  

Guess it could mean we shouldn't hold great athletes in as high regard as we do.  The "whole person" argument stands up a little better with Armstrong than it does other sports icons I have always admired, but he's still got lots of skeleton's in his closet on the personal side as well.  

  

I'm not sure what to think

Well, that's not technically true.  I do know what to think, but for some reason my gut wants to fight it.

Another sports hero has fallen off the pedestal.  I tend to agree with Nike when they say that there is "seemingly insurmountable evidence" that Lance Armstrong was doping during his seven year reign at the top of the sport.  It's really sad.

Is it still amazing that he came all the way back from near death to cancer, there's no doubt about that.  But he was a doper like seemingly everyone else in the sport of cycling.  So I guess that makes him just like everybody else.  He's not special anymore.  I don't WANT to believe that he's not special, but what do you do with all the members of his team that have come forward about all the doping stuff?  You could mentally dismiss one guy who claimed it when he himself had been busted for doping (Floyd Landis) but I can't dismiss 11 former teammates saying the same things.  And these aren't no names who are trying to make some quick money.  They are guys still racing who put a lot on the line to testify.  Tyler Hamilton, Levi Leipheimer, George Hincapie, etc.  It makes sense now that Floyd Landis was so devastated by his doping conviction.  He was probably pissed, wondering how Armstrong got away with it for so long and then he got caught.

In the end I know that Armstrong will always be able to say that he never tested positive on a drug test. Does that mean he was just a really good cheater?

I know he's done amazing things in the realm of cancer awareness and research.  I really hope all this stuff doesn't damage that part of his legacy.  His is still an amazing cancer recovery story.

I guess I'm just a little bummed.  One of my absolute favorite, and maybe THE favorite moment in sports was "the look" that Armstrong gave Ullrich on the L'Alpe-d'Huez in 2001.  It has given me chills every time I watched it in the last 10 years.  It's diminished a bit now.

What do you guys think?  Are you writing him off completely?

You're either all in or you're out

I was all fired up, and then Ed stole a bunch of my thunder!  No worries though, I’ve still got some fire in my belly.

First, I agree with Ed that we need to first separate professional sports into a category all its own.  Maybe you can include college athletics as well, because as you both well know, I consider college to be the minor leagues for professional sports.  When you start talking about professional sports, you are talking about money, and that changes everything. 

Winning = money, and that bottom line drives a lot of the really poor behavior that you see on the athlete’s side as well as in the fans.  Fans feel entitled too, as if the team owes them something.  When you’re paying thousands of dollars for season tickets to watch a team that sucks and loses all the time, you probably get frustrated and that inevitably will start manifesting itself in behavior toward the refs, the coach, and the players. 

At the professional level there are some good examples, but for every good example, there is a bad one.  For every Mike Tomlin there is a Rex Ryan, for every Peyton Manning there is a Phillip Rivers, for every Troy Polamalu there is a Terrell Suggs (okay, I’m a little biased on that one), and for every Larry Fitzgerald there is a Plaxico Burress.  You get the picture.  In the end even if you’re mean and nasty, if you can still play ball with the best of them you can get away with whatever insane or inappropriate behavior that you choose.  Two examples come immediately to mind for me.  First is Ray Lewis, and yes, I’m the president and CEO of the Ray Lewis Hater Club.  He got away with murder (quite literally in my book) and was voted Superbowl MVP the following year.  What’s an obstruction of justice conviction in a double homicide investigation when you can still knock people’s teeth out on the football field??  The other example is Michael Vick.  He ran an illegal interstate dog fighting ring for five years and was convicted of federal felony charges.  He tortured and executed dogs.  But hey, the man can still throw the rock, so he recently signed a six-year, $100 million contract.  I know I’m not saying anything you don’t already know, but the bottom line in professional sports is performance on the field (or court).  “Good guys” have it a little easier, but even the “bad guys” will eventually find someone who will pay them (i.e. Dennis Rodman, Terrell Owens).  So, professional sports is not about sportsmanship (although you do still see flashes of it).

Youth sports.  Oh lordy where do I begin?  This is one of the few reasons that I’m glad that I don’t have kids.  From what little I know, youth sports is a tragic mess.  And I’m not going to say that it’s all gone bad in the past 10-15 years.  I remember coaching 5^th grade basketball when I was in highschool and they didn’t even keep score.  But I know for a fact that the parents were keeping score in the stands, and I know for a fact that some of the parents were mad at me, especially when I benched the best kid on my time because he wouldn’t pass the ball.  He would shoot every time that he touched it. 

Sportsmanship aside, my frustration with kids and sports is that there is no room for kids to learn anymore, or simply play for the exercise or recreation.  Just like everything else in our society, it’s ALL OR NOTHING.  You are simply not allowed to be no good anymore.  I can remember my first year in Midwest after pee wee league.  I played for Tim’s Tropical Fish, and when I say played, I mean sat on the end of the bench and watched.  To this day I remember how that felt as an 11-year-old (or close to it).  Ed, you bring up a good point about separating competitive leagues from recreational leagues.  With kids, rec leagues should be mandatory equal playing time, REGARDLESS of talent level.

What I can’t quite figure out is how much of the problem with kids and sports comes from the parents.  My first instinct is to say that MOST of it comes from the parents.  Ed provided the perfect example; the PARENTS are the ones making the phone calls to try to finagle a “better” team.  Sixth grade?  Are you serious?  In sixth grade Dad was still trying to get us to keep our hands up on defense and dribble with our opposite hand!  Maybe my memory is skewed, but I don’t have any recollection of wins or losses in sixth grade. 

I’ve said it a million times but I’ll say it again:  People want to blame TV and video games for obesity in children, but I put as much blame on the fact that kids just can’t play sports for fun anymore.  If you’re kid wants to play a sport, he/she better be good at it, because there’s no room for kids who are just doing it for fun.  You have to be “all in”.  For example, it cracks me up when I hear about second grade soccer teams that have practice three times a week and then a game every weekend.  To quote Allen Iverson, “We talkin’ ‘bout practice man.”  Practice?  Do second graders really need to spend eight hours a week playing soccer?  What if you just want to play soccer for two hours a week?  Sorry, you’re not all in, so you’re out.  I can still hear Dad saying, “Everything in moderation,” and it was one thing that I’ll keep with me always.  As incredibly wise as that is, it goes against everything in our culture these days, our culture of extreme, ultimate, epic, humongous, and super.  You’re either all in, or you’re out.

Gosh, I haven’t even touched on the money part of kids athletics yet!  Remember the good ole days when $5 got you a t-shirt, one game, and one practice per week?  I have too many friends that are going broke trying to fund their kids’ athletic endeavors.  Maybe you’ve experienced this one Ed!  Why do 8-year-olds have to have complete matching pick-your-sport uniforms with gear bags and a trip halfway across the country to play in some tournament?  It’s ridiculous, and it prevents lots of kids from participating in sports.  LOTS of kids.  But hey, let’s blame Xbox, because it’s a lot easier than adults having to evaluate their own motives when it comes to kids sports.

Why’d you have to bring this up Brad???  I need to take a walk and cool down!

Ed on How Sports Have Really Changed

I'm going to attempt a counter point to Brad's comments although I agree to the principles behind the examples.  I just don't agree with the examples.  First my commentary on the two specific occurrences Brad referenced in his post:

The contested infield fly rule call and throwing bottles and trash on the field.  It's a playoff game, and the call was controversial.  I don't agree with throwing trash on the field as a show of disagreement, nor  in an attempt to injure any player or umpire.  However, the jeers and booing from the crowd would be, in my opinion, perfectly appropriate.  The profanity at times like this is simply fan passion (and often alcohol) getting out of hand.  I know I talk more like a sailor when I'm drinking alcohol.  Passion is part of the game, any game.  In some cases it's internalized and actually enhances performance.  In instances where it's blown off externally it usually ends up being nothing other than a showing of bad sportsmanship.  It's not reflective of the game, or sport in general.  It's more reflective of a more liberal society in terms of behavioral norms that are deemed acceptable.  I can point to lots of examples of this that are much bigger than sport.

The "supposed" cheering for Kansas City Chief Matt Cassel being hurt.  In short, hogwash.  Winston, the aforementioned teammate who claimed to be embarrassed by what he heard, was emotional himself.  He was using very strong language and you could see the intensity in what he was saying.  But many people in the media (ESPN analysts, PTI sportscasters, and 101FOX KC Chiefs announcers) who were also there, reviewed the tapes, etc said that most people were quiet when it was realized that Matt was hurt.  Did the fans want a change at QB?  Yes!  But did they cheer because Matt was hurt or because Matt being shook up meant that Brady Quinn would be coming into the game.  I believe the latter.  Most fans (including Chiefs fans) are loud, and there are always a few really obnoxious ones like the one Brad and Sheila sit next to at Iowa games.  But it's the exception not the rule, and the suggestion that "the crowd" cheered when their own QB was hurt seems to be an exaggeration of what really happened - not a reality.

Professional sports is full of passion and that's the way people want it.  People tune in to see the raw unaltered passion that typically can't be displayed as purely anywhere else.  And that's why people don't act the same on and off the field.  It's different out there and it's supposed to be.

I don't think that professional sports is the best place to go to see how the game has changed.  Instead, my example comes right from home, with my kids.  Now that's where I have realized how sports has really changed.

At the KC Baldwins we've recently contemplated the upcoming recreational basketball league, whether Alex and Luke would want to participate, and whether I would coach Luke's team like I have the previous two years.   The news of the upcoming sign up deadline was learned through calls from parents of the team I coached the previous two years.  Luke's age which is 4th grade two years ago, 5th grade last year, and now 6th grade boys.  These interested parents were inquiring as to whether I was interested in coaching again.  But for very specific reasons - whether I would be willing to do a little roster trimming and then recruit for some better players.  These parents told me that I was likely to lose one or two of my best players to other teams since they had been recruited by other coaches, and that I needed to drop a few of the players on my team from last year so that we could "upgrade".  Placing a few select calls would surely result in a better and more talented team overall.  To be honest the drama of the situation put me off.

I had agreed to coach Luke's team two years ago because no one else was willing.  But I came to enjoy it and genuinely liked getting to know each of the kids and developing a personal relationship with them.  Taking kids who knew little about the game and how it should be played, teaching fundamentals, and giving everyone nearly equal playing time.  We won some games, and we lost some.

And yes, I wanted to win.  Big shock to you all but I pride myself on being a competitive person.  But this was a recreational league who I thought randomly assigned new players to teams, and whose purpose was to teach kids the game.

Boy was I wrong.  Really?  More competitive parents out there than me?!  You can imagine my surprise and dismay, knowing personally how much I've been accused of a "win at all costs" mentality.

If I was to continue coaching I would be competing with other coaches for the best kids.  Oh, and don't get stuck with the kids that suck too.  Gotta cut those boys quick.  Hopefully they recognize they suck and don't sign up for the league - and if they do at least they'll be a burden for the other teams.  Especially since the league rules promote equal playing time.  Yeah right.

Seeing a kid who sucked develop and advance by leaps and bounds was one of the greatest joys pieces I got from coaching the team.  A surprise great pass, a box out and rebound, a pick and roll producing a layup.  YES!   Seeing the surprise in the players eyes - did I just do that?!  But not any more.

So I bailed.  Luke elected not to play (that was disappointing, and another story) but it enabled me to find my way out to this predicament I'd suddenly found myself in.

I'm not coaching and Luke is not playing.  And the league will continue advancing toward competitive while still claiming to be a recreational league.  Kids who just want to play and learn the game will be shunned if they don't show their talent quickly.  Boy does that suck.

I think there should be competitive leagues.  And I think there should be recreational leagues.  And I don't think you should mix the two.  No false advertising.  If you want to play competitive then knock yourself out.  If you want to play recreational, then sign up.  But don't say one and do the other.

I have half an inkling to call the commissioner and tell him how I feel.  Should I?  Right now that seems like it would be pushing a rope up hill.  The overwhelming majority of parents at least on my team are pushing more competitiveness.  And the kids, where do they stand?  I'm not sure whether they like it or not.  I know the kids that suck don't.  And kids like my son Luke, who I consider to be an average to better-than-average player?  He wants to play with everybody.  And, as he was instructed by his coach last year (me)

"If a kid is open, pass him the ball!"  I don't care whether he catches it, or whether he scores.  The only way he'll continue to try is if he has the opportunity.  We'll win as a team, and we'll lose as one.

Draw your own conclusions from my story, but it planted one of my feet very firmly on the "it's a game and you play the game to learn life lessons" side of the line.  The other foot?  Oh, it's still on the "competition is good and winning is more fun than losing" side of the line.

But my competitiveness is waning in my old age, like most everything else.  Some would say that for me it's a welcome change.

What has sports in America come to?

There were a couple events the past week that magnified how disappointing the idea of sport in our country has become. The first was the baseball playoff game between the St. Louis Cardinals and the Atlanta Braves and a disputed infield fly call. The second and more severe was the Kansas City Chief game yesterday when the crowd cheered when their quarterback was injured.

There are two veins of interest with this topic, the first is fan behavior. I think fan behavior towards sports is despicable. To ever openly cheer for anyone being injured is embarrassing, and unfortunately this isn’t the first time. Read the link above with one teammates comments. As for the baseball game, hundreds of fans throwing beer and soda bottles onto the field in protest is unnecessary at the least and dangerous at worst. In terms of a personal example, Sheila and I have season tickets to Iowa football and we sit two rows from a guy that complains about every play, good or bad. If it is a bad play, the player is a piece of s*!t or the coach is an idiot. If it is a good play, then why doesn’t the coaching staff do that all the time those idiots! What do we make of a society where the importance of sports has transcended the importance of civility?

The second vein is the impact on children. How many stories have you read about brawls at kid’s soccer games, physical altercations between parents and umpires at little league games? Is winning that important? Is success in sports more important that pure decency towards others? What are we teaching our children with a win at all cost mentality?

Now having two children of my own, I at times think about and hope they don’t play sports. It feels hypocritical to have these thoughts when sports were a central part of my childhood and responsible for so many learning opportunities for me. Yet, I grew up in a different time and place (wow I feel old) and I’m not sure my children can have that same experience anymore. If they do pursue sports, I hope it is in a sport, if it exists, that teaches both competition and rules of engagement as well as the idea of winning. I hope that my children can learn the value of teamwork, doing your best, and enjoying and “the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat”.