Competition

It's amazing to me how my life has changed in sixty-four years. Beginning somewhere around kindergarten my story began with sports. My parent's bought their first television in 1953. I have a somewhat shaky memory of watching UCLA and one of the Michigan teams in the January 1, 1954 Rose Bowl. It's kind of freaky but I sat on the basement stairs for the last two minutes of the game chewing my fingernails to the nub. I couldn't bear watching my beloved Bruins lose; not normal behavior for your typical second grader. Might be a clue as to why I wet the bed for so long.
I'm not going to belabor you with my sports history. Please know, my entire life, up to age forty-two, was one of competition, kicking ass and taking no prisoners. I could make a game out of anything, anywhere, anytime. It wouldn't matter if it was an accordian contest, looking for nightcrawlers or playing with rubber duckies in the bath tub; everything was competition and sports except-------somewhere along the way I lost it.
Last night I watched the last six minutes of the Super Bowl. I like Peyton Manning. He's a good quarterback. But, even more so, I really like him in TV commercials. He is very, very funny. The Colts lost. Too bad. Ho-hum.
Those six minutes of last nights Super Bowl happened to be the first time I'd seen that much of a Super Bowl extravaganza since watching the 1986 Chicago Bears. I really don't recall many game highlights from that team. They defeated New England. Wasn't that the team?
Baseball has always been my favorite sport. I played the game fairly well and around 1969 gave up on the Braves when they moved to Atlanta and became a die-hard Chicago Cubs fan. When we lived in Iowa, twenty-one years ago, I saw every game the Cubbies played on television, if possible. If I didn't watch I listened on WGN radio. Not today. I couldn't tell you eight players on their team.
I'm an Iowa Hawkeye football and basketball fan. I'm also a fan of Iowa State University, Coe College, Drake, Northern Iowa and every other division III team in the state. I actually watched an Iowa women's basketball game yesterday. For those who know me well and read this they'd think I was ready for the rubber room or there was an alien in my body. Why do I think this way? Because these schools represent the state of my birth. It's not because I live and die for their sports teams.
I crave golf--absolutely love the game. It's my cocaine. Do you know, for me, the best thing about golf? It's being with others who appreciate the game and it's traditions. It's the camaraderie of a shared experience; enjoying each others company and the beauty of a well manicured field. Like Bing Crosby, I want to meet my Maker on a golf course. I also care about golf because it's success or failure depends on my ability to perform; mine alone. That's one of the reasons I left high school coaching after twenty years. With a wife at home and three kids getting ready to attend college my ability to buy a loaf of bread depended on a sixteen year old putting a round piece of leather through a metal ring. Coaching kids got to be a struggle. Quoting Coach Bob Knight; "My number one job was to keep the six kids who hated me away from the other six who hadn't made up their minds yet". Maybe that's why I got into sales. It was intense competition but the onus for success was on me.
Good wife, warm bed, excellent friends and great golf: As my good buddy, Keith, from Wisconsin says, "It's the way God meant it to be".