Football's Free Agent Frenzy

It took a little longer to get another post written than I had originally planned. I had some family events and unexpected travel come up. 

As I write this, I am on the road home from Missouri.  The NFL lockout has ended, and the so called "Free Agent Frenzy" has begun. I am learning of all the player signings and potential trades from my twitter feed (shameless plug in 3... 2... 1... twitter.com/rangerfandan) whenever I happen to have service on the road. As each new transaction is reported, I can't help but wonder how the recent labor dispute has affected some people's lives.

Let me say that I am not going to take a side in the players versus the owners debate. For one thing, I have never been involved with unionized labor or collective bargaining. So, I have no knowledge or experience on which I could base an intelligent decision. Also, I personally do not think the "millionaires versus billionaires" concept that the media has fallen for truly applies.  Here's why.

To most of us, professional sports like the NFL are, or at least should be, just a game. To the thousands of individuals and their families associated with pro sports, this is their life. For the owners, their franchise has become a brand that is their largest personal investment. Its success is their success. For the players, this is their dream job. For both, this is a career that they have spent their entire lives striving to achieve. That is not something any of us would take lightly.

You see, it doesn't matter what you do or how much money you make. One of the many great things about our country is that, for the time being at least, you still have the right to try and do more and to earn more for yourself. You can improve your own life and your own family's situation.

This is why I wonder about all the deals being made this week. These guys are squeezing into one week, an off season that usually lasts for months. Many are trying to finalize deals immediately so that they can be in training camps that start this weekend. For even the lowest paid player, the amount of money in play is life altering. Their future could easily be made with this one employment choice. They could make enough money that, if they are wise stewards, can easily take care of themselves and their families for life. Personally, I hope these guys, many of whom are still young men, are able to devote the time, thought, and prayer necessary to make wise decisions.

Also, much respect/kudos/props/any other positive feedback term you can think of to the NFL and the teams that are paying out the lost salaries and wages of the staffs and employees. Those people-the ones whose retirements, kids college funds, mortgages, or even grocery and utility bills depend on NFL or team paychecks-are the ones who comparatively stood to lose the most in this labor dispute. A labor dispute that they did not initiate and in which they did not have a voice. Perhaps to them it rightfully is a bit more than just a game.

Quote: A man should make all he can, and give all he can. - Nelson Rockefeller

Scripture: A good man leaves an inheritance to his children's children, and the wealth of the sinner is stored up for the righteous. Proverbs 13:22 NASB

Don't Give Up!

"Thank you, Thank you very much. Thank you. That's the lowest I've ever seen Dick Vitale since the owner of the Detroit Pistons called him in and told him he should go into broadcasting.

The I can't tell you what an honor it is, to even be mentioned in the same breath with Arthur Ashe. This is something I certainly will treasure forever. But, as it was said on the tape, and I also don't have one of those things going with the cue cards, so I'm going to speak longer than anybody else has spoken tonight. That's the way it goes. Time is very precious to me. I don't know how much I have left and I have some things that I would like to say. Hopefully, at the end, I will have said something that will be important to other people too.

But, I can't help it. Now I'm fighting cancer, everybody knows that. People ask me all the time about how you go through your life and how's your day, and nothing is changed for me. As Dick said, I'm a very emotional and passionate man. I can't help it. That's being the son of Rocco and Angelina Valvano. It comes with the territory. We hug, we kiss, we love. When people say to me how do you get through life or each day, it's the same thing. To me, there are three things we all should do every day. We should do this every day of our lives. Number one is laugh. You should laugh every day. Number two is think. You should spend some time in thought. Number three is, you should have your emotions moved to tears, could be happiness or joy. But think about it. If you laugh, you think, and you cry, that's a full day. That's a heck of a day. You do that seven days a week, you're going to have something special.

I rode on the plane up today with Mike Krzyzewski, my good friend and wonderful coach. People don't realize he's ten times a better person than he is a coach, and we know he's a great coach. He's meant a lot to me in these last five or six months with my battle. But when I look at Mike, I think, we competed against each other as players. I coached against him for fifteen years, and I always have to think about what's important in life to me are these three things. Where you started, where you are and where you're going to be. Those are the three things that I try to do every day. When I think about getting up and giving a speech, I can't help it. I have to remember the first speech I ever gave.

I was coaching at Rutgers University, that was my first job, oh that's wonderful (reaction to applause), and I was the freshman coach. That's when freshmen played on freshman teams, and I was so fired up about my first job. I see Lou Holtz here. Coach Holtz, who doesn't like the very first job you had? The very first time you stood in the locker room to give a pep talk. That's a special place, the locker room, for a coach to give a talk. So my idol as a coach was Vince Lombardi, and I read this book called "Commitment To Excellence" by Vince Lombardi. And in the book, Lombardi talked about the fist time he spoke before his Green Bay Packers team in the locker room, and they were perennial losers. I'm reading this and Lombardi said he was thinking should it be a long talk, or a short talk? But he wanted it to be emotional, so it would be brief. So here's what I did. Normally you get in the locker room, I don't know, twenty-five minutes, a half hour before the team takes the field, you do your little x and o's, and then you give the great Knute Rockne talk. We all do. Speech number eight-four. You pull them right out, you get ready. You get your squad ready. Well, this is the first one I ever gave and I read this thing. Lombardi, what he said was he didn't go in, he waited. His team wondering, where is he? Where is this great coach? He's not there. Ten minutes he's still not there. Three minutes before they could take the field Lombardi comes in, bangs the door open, and I think you all remember what great presence he had, great presence. He walked in and he walked back and forth, like this, just walked, staring at the players. He said, "All eyes on me." I'm reading this in this book. I'm getting this picture of Lombardi before his first game and he said "Gentlemen, we will be successful this year, if you can focus on three things, and three things only. Your family, your religion and the Green Bay Packers." They knocked the walls down and the rest was history. I said, that's beautiful. I'm going to do that. Your family, your religion and Rutgers basketball. That's it. I had it. Listen, I'm twenty-one years old. The kids I'm coaching are nineteen, and I'm going to be the greatest coach in the world, the next Lombardi. I'm practicing outside of the locker room and the managers tell me you got to go in. Not yet, not yet, family, religion, Rutgers Basketball. All eyes on me. I got it, I got it. Then finally he said, three minutes, I said fine. True story. I go to knock the doors open just like Lombardi. Boom! They don't open. I almost broke my arm. Now I was down, the players were looking. Help the coach out, help him out. Now I did like Lombardi, I walked back and forth, and I was going like that with my arm getting the feeling back in it. Finally I said, "Gentlemen, all eyes on me." These kids wanted to play, they're nineteen. "Let's go," I said. "Gentlemen, we'll be successful this year if you can focus on three things, and three things only. Your family, your religion and the Green Bay Packers," I told them. I did that. I remember that. I remember where I came from.

It's so important to know where you are. I know where I am right now. How do you go from where you are to where you want to be? I think you have to have an enthusiasm for life. You have to have a dream, a goal. You have to be willing to work for it.

I talked about my family, my family's so important. People think I have courage. The courage in my family are my wife Pam, my three daughters, here, Nicole, Jamie, LeeAnn, my mom, who's right here too. That screen is flashing up there thirty seconds like I care about that screen right now, huh? I got tumors all over my body. I'm worried about some guy in the back going thirty seconds? You got a lot, hey va fa napoli, buddy. You got a lot.

I just got one last thing, I urge all of you, all of you, to enjoy your life, the precious moments you have. To spend each day with some laughter and some thought, to get you're emotions going. To be enthusiastic every day and as Ralph Waldo Emerson said, "Nothing great could be accomplished without enthusiasm," to keep your dreams alive in spite of problems whatever you have. The ability to be able to work hard for your dreams to come true, to become a reality.

Now I look at where I am now and I know what I want to do. What I would like to be able to do is spend whatever time I have left and to give, and maybe, some hope to others. Arthur Ashe Foundation is a wonderful thing, and AIDS, the amount of money pouring in for AIDS is not enough, but is significant. But if I told you it's ten times the amount that goes in for cancer research. I also told you that five hundred thousand people will die this year of cancer. I also tell you that one in every four will be afflicted with this disease, and yet somehow, we seem to have put it in a little bit of the background. I want to bring it back on the front table. We need your help. I need your help. We need money for research. It may not save my life. It may save my children's lives. It may save someone you love. And ESPN has been so kind to support me in this endeavor and allow me to announce tonight, that with ESPN's support, which means what? Their money and their dollars and they're helping me-we are starting the Jimmy V Foundation for Cancer Research. And its motto is "Don't give up, don't ever give up." That's what I'm going to try to do every minute that I have left. I will thank God for the day and the moment I have. If you see me, smile and give me a hug. That's important to me too. But try if you can to support, whether it's AIDS or the cancer foundation, so that someone else might survive, might prosper and might actually be cured of this dreaded disease. I can't thank ESPN enough for allowing this to happen. I'm going to work as hard as I can for cancer research and hopefully, maybe, we'll have some cures and some breakthroughs. I'd like to think, I'm going to fight my brains out to be back here again next year for the Arthur Ashe recipient. I want to give it next year!

I know, I gotta go, I gotta go, and I got one last thing and I said it before, and I want to say it again. Cancer can take away all my physical abilities. It cannot touch my mind, it cannot touch my heart and it cannot touch my soul. And those three things are going to carry on forever.

I thank you and God bless you all."

Jim Valvano's ESPY acceptance speech.  To donate to cancer research, visit jimmyv.org or call 1-800-4JIMMYV

What Really Matters

The Texas Rangers got a big win last night. Derek Holland pitched a complete game, four hit shutout. Michael Young homered, and Josh Hamilton had four RBIs to help the Rangers win their fourth straight and stay one game ahead of the surging Angels in the American League West.

None of it matters. Not really.

There was a moment of silence before tonight's Ranger game. All the flags at The Ballpark are at half staff. Players from both teams are wearing black ribbons. All are kind tributes but sad reminders of the tragic death of Ranger fan Shannon Stone.

Mr. Stone, a Brownwood, Texas firefighter, was at the game with his six year old son, Cooper. A player tossed a ball to them from the field. (I know the player's name, but it is not essential to the story, and I am sure that said player would prefer to not be associated with these events forever.) In his attempt to catch the ball for Cooper, Mr. Stone lost his balance and fell over the railing in left field. He passed away on the way to the hospital.

The sports media will somehow attempt to turn this into a sports story. If Texas goes on a losing streak and misses the playoffs, writers will say that this incident affected their mindset and became a turning point in the season. If Texas continues to win, especially in the immediate future, TV anchors will say how gritty and determined they were to overcome this tragedy, even if it's more likely that Oakland's pitching staff is having as much trouble erasing the horror from their minds. Their bullpen was mere feet from where Mr. Stone fell. (As I am writing this, Texas is beating Oakland 8-4 in the ninth inning on the day after.)

I can't help but think back to my first baseball experiences with my Dad when I was around ten years old. Living out in West Texas for my whole life, there was never Major League Baseball nearby. While we have it now, there was no minor league team in town at that time. Dad was working in Fort Wayne, Indiana. When we would visit, he would take my brother and me to see the Fort Wayne Wizards play. I learned about the rules, the strategies, and the stats. I even learned how to keep a scorecard-a skill that I still practice when I attend live baseball games today. I remember the one foul ball that came our way. Dad tried to catch it, but it bounced off the heel of his hand and down four rows to another family. We never got one, but it was time spent together. It was time that was precious, especially while Dad was working in another state.

I am not even sure if the Wizards still exist. The Rangers held on to beat the A's. None of it matters. Here is what matters.

A wife has lost a husband. A six year old boy has lost a father. Brownwood has lost a hero. A fire department has lost a brother. That is what matters.

All the rest is just a game.

Scripture: Hebrews 12:1 "...let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us."

Quote: "Create your future from you future, not from your past." Werner Erhard

There's Always Next Year

My wife and I have a running joke which says that I should have been a sportscaster. This is because I often will offer personal observations or commentary about whatever sporting event I happen to be watching. That, in and of itself, does not qualify me for a career at the worldwide leader. The joke comes from the increasingly frequent echo effect that occurs when the actual sportscaster on TV says something eerily similar to my statement, often using the exact same language. Unfortunately, my voice (and most would say my face) are not very appealing for TV or radio work. When discussing this the other day, a friend asked about the possibility of sports writing. In order to explore this intriguing possibility, I decided to do what any technologically advanced, modern writer does. I started this blog. (I am even writing my first blog post on my wife's iPad.) I don't think it will be daily to start with, but I will be attempting to post at least weekly unless inspiration hits me more often. Please feel free to give me your feedback on any and all posts. Here is my first attempt. (In reviewing this post, I realize it is rather long. It is my first attempt, and the subject matter is very dear to me. Please oblige me this time. I promise that future blogs won't be so wordy.)

The casual sports fan will not know the name Joan Dolores Kauzlarich. In fact, the most dedicated of sports fans will not know the name Joan Dolores Kauzlarich. You see, she never made it big in the sports world. She did, however, make it big in another world, my family's world. That's no small world by the way. She married Bill Kure and became Joan Kure. She was, above all, a wife, a mother, a grandmother, and a great grandmother. To me, she was Grandma.

It is a little strange for me to write like this. You see, up until this past weekend, I have never had to refer to any of my grandparents in the past tense. I will turn 30 later this year, and I am well aware of how blessed I am to have made it this far into my life and still have all four grandparents living. Sadly, Grandma passed away last Saturday morning at the age of 78. Because my grandparents live in Missouri and I have always lived in Texas, we couldn't see each other as much as we would have liked. Still, I know that she loved me, and I know that she prayed for me. Those are the two most important things a grandmother can do for a grandchild.

Before she died, Grandma helped me to start learning a great sports lesson, which has now become a great life lesson as well. Grandma was born in Chicago. She was a Bears fan, but the guys she cheered for the most were her beloved Cubs. The lesson she and "the Cubbies" (she always called them the Cubbies) taught me comes from what has become the perpetual motto of Cubs fans the world over.

There's always next year.

I have heard Grandma and my Dad, who is also a lifelong Cubs fan, say that many times during my life. Living so far from Grandma, and moving out on my own and away from Dad, I guess I had not heard that in a few years. More likely, I refused to hear it.

As my wife will attest, I am an obsessive sports fan. A few years ago, I had a subscription to a magazine whose initials spell "yes" in Spanish. When it ran out, I did not renew immediately. I told my wife that I would wait until one of my favorite teams won a title. Then I would subscribe and get that cool bundle of championship freebies they always offer at the end of each sport's season. The problem with that plan is my list of favorites: Dallas Stars hockey, Carolina Panthers football, Texas Rangers baseball, Texas A&M Aggies college football and men's basketball, and Matt Kenseth in NASCAR. Among them all, I have managed to experience ONE title in my 29+ years, the 1999 Dallas Stars. A few readers may wonder about Kenseth's Chase inducing Winston Cup. I was a Mark Martin fan at the time, and only switched to Matt when Martin semi-retired. (Strangely, Martin is still title-less as well.) Do I know how to pick 'em or what?

One title in 29 years, and I was growing increasingly agitated. Furious in fact. Then, my wife asked me (on more than one occasion) why I got so mad when one of my teams lost. Then my grandparents came to town for a visit. In spending time with the family, and talking with Grandma and Dad about sports and "the Cubbies," I heard it a few times again...there's always next year. Then Grandma passed away.

I am working harder at making that motto my outlook. I haven't learned to do it perfectly. However, here is what I have learned.

The Cubs have not won the World Series in over 100 years. There is a term that is often used to describe Cubs fans and that was more than fitting for Grandma too. Long-suffering.

I believe that Grandma is now a no-suffering Cubbies fan. She will get to see the Cubs win a title someday...I think. The difference? She can no longer be heartbroken after each year that it doesn't happen.

For the rest of us, there is not always next year. Life here really is short. Maybe I should not get so worked up when one of my teams falls short AGAIN.

After all, it is just a game.

Scripture: Phillipians 3:13-14 "...one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus" This is my favorite scripture.

Quote: "Don't cry because it's over. Smile because it happened." Dr. Seuss