Jack’s Blog

A couple days ago I blogged about the theory of giving all kids trophies, i.e. raise their little self-esteems and justify it by claiming they’re participation awards.  Even if a kid never swung a bat, or caught or threw a ball.  That idea bothers me - as it does a whole lot of other people.  Another issue that I find irritating is the philosophy that every child needs to go to college.

As I tend to do, allow me to relate a story.  Last weekend, as my wife and I have done every weekend since the basketball season started for the Cal State Monterey Bay Otters, we traveled to watch younger son Alex play.  On afternoon prior to a game, we were at our room in the Marriott, watching, what else? - other college games on TV when the CBS station went down.  All the other channels worked, just not CBS.  A call to the front desk brought a relatively young guy up to the room.  He immediately fixed it, we thanked him and, no sooner had he walked out the door than it went blank again.

I saw him down the hall, called and he returned.  He looked at it again, thought for a moment and said he had an alternate plan.  Sure enough, presto, CBS.  I asked him if he’d gone to the local college.  His response was that he didn’t, that in fact, he hadn’t even gone to college.  “I went to electricians’ school.”  I told him wherever he went, he must have paid attention because he had no trouble fixing our problem - even if he did have to go to Plan B.  We told him how appreciative we were, I offered him a “green” thank you (which he refused) and everybody lived happily ever after (at least so far).

My point is that here is a young man who is providing necessary service, making a living, doing what he likes (maybe loves) to do and is probably pretty proud of himself.  He isn’t a drain on society and chances are, he never will be.  What’s wrong with that?  Admittedly, I don’t know whether or not our TV savior was a good math student in high school.  I regret I didn’t ask.

When I returned to classroom teaching in 2002 (my last math classroom assignment was in 1972), I saw changes at the administrative level.  One was the belief that every student should take (and pass) algebra in the eighth grade.  When the No Child Left Behind law was passed, it reeked of politics.  How many actual teachers were involved - and whose input was valued - I don’t know but I am convinced that politicians were more deeply involved than teachers.  Listen to it: No Child Left Behind.  Sounds like a vote getter.  The question we teachers posed was, “Did you really think we were leaving kids behind before you invented your Pollyanna, cockamamie law?”  Really?  The numbers said graduation rates weren’t where they needed to be, colleges were turning out inferior students (compared to other nations as well as what we’d produced in prior decades) and, damn it, we needed to do something about it!  So, how do politicians and administrators go about fixing things?

They have meetings.  Obtain data.  Come up with a catchy slogan.  Then, when it’s time to do the actual work, turn it over to the people.  If it works, take the credit; if it doesn’t, ignore it.  Unless it’s too big.  Then point fingers.

The problem in this case was the entire feel-good operation was fundamentally flawed.  And here was the main flaw.  One of my former fellow teachers - without the use of data, technology or even calling a meeting - put it better than anyone I’ve ever heard: “We don’t leave any children behind,” she said.  “Some of them choose to stay.”  And one reason (of many) is that the powers-that-be who decide what curriculum should be taught have the notion that, among other impractical beliefs, every child take and pass algebra in the eighth grade.

I had juniors in some of my classes who couldn’t pass algebra, no matter how many times they tried.  Sure, the politicians and administrators claim, Jaime Escalante got it done but the Escalantes, just as the Shakespeares, Michael Jordans, Babe Ruths, Picassos, Gates’ - you get the drift - are in short supply.  Just as the Abraham Lincolns and Geoffrey Canadas are. One reason kids have trouble with algebra is they can’t see the relevance.  While I had many examples of the crossover value between algebra and life (actually, math and life), kids at that age need more proof.  My “proof” is my electrician friend from the Marriott.  Although I didn’t ask him what grade he got, my guess is that if he went to electricians’ school, he probably went there instead of college or, as several youngsters I’ve taught, went after an attempt at college.

Many years ago I had a freshman in an algebra class who didn’t do anything in class.  No homework, didn’t study for tests.  Naturally, he was failing.  I checked his other classes and noticed he was failing nearly all of them.  One day I asked him, “If you’re not doing homework or studying, what do you do after school every day and night?”

A glow appeared in his eye and he said, almost defiantly, “I can’t wait to get home every day.  My dad has an old Chevy in our garage and I start working on it as soon as I get home until I go to bed.”  I thought about it and said, “You must know that car pretty well.”  I’d never before seen such passion in his look.  It was like he was saying, “Go ahead, ask me something about that car.  As a matter of fact, ask me something about any car!”

I told him - and the class - that when I was in school, we’d make fun of the kids who took auto shop.  Then, one day, I was at my mechanic’s garage getting my car fixed because I knew as much about cars as he (looking at the young boy) did about algebra.  The class laughed.  He sneered.  My mechanic fixed it - and I got the bill.  $1,200!  That was when I wished I had taken auto shop in school.  I praised the boy for thoroughly understanding something so practical.

Then I made a statement that politicians and administrators would have thought blasphemous.  I told the class that no one had ever died from lack of algebra knowledge.  I looked at that boy - who was listening more intently than at any time all semester - and said, “Not everyone needs to go to college.”  I continued, “So why, then, do you need algebra?  To get a high school diploma.  My mechanic didn’t go to college.  But he graduated from high school.

“Many of you have parents who can’t help you with your algebra homework, right?”  I now had their attention.  About 75% of the heads were nodding.  “Yet, at one time, your parents could do algebra.  Which means one thing: you don’t need to know this forever.”

Studies have shown that, after being tops in education for decades, the U.S. is currently behind many countries in math (other subjects, too, but math was my area).  During my next-to-last year, one of our other algebra teachers had a student teacher who was born and raised in China.  One day at an algebra meeting we asked her why the Chinese were so proficient in math.  Her answer was, as I had read about Japan, that students were tested in their early teens and placed in one of three categories: military, vocational or college.

The reason I was given when I asked why we didn’t employ the same system was, “Oh, Jack, that would be tracking.”  So?  Isn’t it good to be on the right track?  It seems there is a strong lobby, or whatever the group is called, that believes (see my blog from 2/26) every kid should get a trophy.  The other countries are passing us by because they’re placing kids where they have the greatest chance to succeed.  Rumor has it they save a ton of money on trophies, too.  (Granted, there ought to be an “out” if a kid’s a late bloomer but how many late bloomers are there compared to those who are “miscast,” for lack of a better word?)

For example, hotels need not only outstanding electricians but gardeners, cooks, front desk clerks, order takers and food servers (aka waitresses and waiters), bus boys and girls, valet parkers, plumbers, bartenders, security personnel.  Heck, there are more non-college jobs than positions for college grads.  And that applies to so many other walks of life.

When it comes down to it, the number one goal in any person’s occupation is:

“Find something you love to do - and get somebody to pay you to do it.”

Let’s reexamine what we’re doing, identify kids’ passions and abilities, and give them the best opportunity to succeed.  For them and the country.

Full disclosure: I haven’t wrestled since fifth grade PE.  When it was my turn, I didn’t like it.  Yet, when I heard the news that, of all sports, wrestling was going to be dropped from the 2020 Olympic Games, the first thought that came to me is that wrestling has to be the sport most discriminated against.  Maybe it’s because the nature of wrestling is that the athlete requests so little.  They train in nasty conditions, ask their bodies to perform complicated moves but have to “make weight” in order to compete. And you get one shot at making weight.  Miss and you’re out.  No letters from mom, no excuses, no blaming others.

As with every sport, or for that matter, anything that involves extraordinary skill, constant, intense practice is mandatory.  People, in general, have no idea exactly how good the highly skilled “player” is.  During my time at Tennessee in the early-to-mid ’80s, coaches would get passes for grand openings with the free drinks and hors d’oeuvres.  One year several of the UT coaches went to Bennigans.  Four of us were sitting at one of those bar tables, the kind that are higher than regular restaurant tables.  We kidded each other about the weirder parts of the other’s sport.

Sitting next to me was Gray Simons, our wrestling coach and a former Olympic silver medal winner.  Being a wise ass, I said, “I never really understood a sport where the purpose was to stick your face in the other guy’s armpit.”  Gray chuckled, reached over and playfully grabbed the back of my neck.  Within about a second and a half he had me in a headlock and I realized that if he flexed his arms, he’d snap my neck.  All I could think of was, “How much has he had to drink?”  (That story was from my book Life’s A Joke).

The past ten years, prior to my retirement last June, I taught high school math.  Without exception, I taught a minimum of three wrestlers each year.  I would tell them about Gray (leaving out the choke hold story) as well as another silver medalist I had in class (Theory of Coaching Basketball at Fresno State) - Stephen Abas.  The more I thought about wrestling, the more positives I could see in the sport so it became a talking point.  I taught life lessons as well as algebra.  Wrestling’s positives were:  1) Accountability - it’s all on you.  You can’t blame anybody else - coach, teammates, fans (except the ref but that’s supplanted baseball as the great America past time).  2) No times out - suck it up.  3) No substitutions - suck it up.  4) Discipline - first and foremost, making weight.  With whatever the percentage of overweight (obese) people as we have in this country, wrestlers get disqualified if they are one ounce over their weight class.  And you don’t get to bring your own scale.  5) Hard work - usually early morning workouts, followed by sessions in the weight room.  And no cheating at meals or it’s all for naught.

A sport with all those positives is being eliminated from the 2020 Games?  The earliest Olympics had wrestlers as a segment of its population.  And they’re doing away with wrestling?  I remember Gray Simons leaving Tennessee to take the wrestling job at Old Dominion and me asking him why he’d take what seemed to be a lesser position.  He told me he’d heard from reliable sources that UT was going to drop wrestling.  In a year his sources proved reliable.

I was at Fresno State when rumors would swirl on an annual basis that wrestling’s head was on the chopping block.  Dennis DeLiddo, a legend in the wrestling community in this area, used to always fret the love of his life was going to be taken away.  When he was assured wrestling was safe, he felt comfortable retiring.  He did and a couple years later, wrestling was no more at Fresno State.

What always astonished me was how little it took to field a wrestling team.  Their practice facility would have been condemned - if the Fresno PD could have found it.  It was not uncommon for DeLiddo’s teams to have a match in Fresno in the morning/early afternoon, then jump into vans and drive three hours to Stanford for a night competition.  There were a limited number of athletes and the number of scholarships (I can’t recall exactly how many “equivalencies” they have, e.g. three-and-a-half scholarships? to be split among the entire squad).  In addition, the make up of the team had a great percentage of minorities and low income kids (which usually is an administrator’s dream).

Maybe it’s because they’re not entitled and the sport is so demanding that they forgot the one essential necessary for survival in today’s climate - a great lawyer.

Today’s quote is from none other than me:

“If there is any justice in the world, the 2020 Olympics will include wrestling.”

Note:  There are many jobs in broadcast journalism.  This blog encompasses the person doing play-by-play, color commentator, studio show participants, sideline reporters, anyone who has an on-air position behind a microphone.

Basically, there are two types of sports announcers.  One is the former successful player or coach who, while having no formal training or academic background in broadcasting, gives the viewer the inside look on the field of play or in the locker room.  The other group is composed of well-educated men or women who probably were the manager or writer for the school paper due to their lack of athletic ability.  Naturally, there are others in the field who don’t fall into either category.  If you’re interested in those people, this isn’t the place for you.  I only include that because it seems people are facing legal action if no such disclaimer is stated.

Listeners are usually split as far as which group they like better.  Or, because the world has become so negative, dislike less.  However, each has followers from the other’s side.  From the “non-jock” organization, many of those fans may have a favorite superstar they loved when they were growing up.  On the flip side, the ex-athlete or coach might, especially if he or she is cynical, enjoy the talking heads whose acts are based on sarcasm.

It’s difficult for anyone not to appreciate the skills and delivery of veterans Al Michaels, Bob Costas, James Brown or my favorite of all-time, Vin Scully.  Similarly, the ex-jocks/coaches who are unanimously appreciated for their knowledge of explaining the game are Doug Collins, Mike Fratello, Gary Danielson, and in his own way - and no one else has quite the “way” - Charles Barkley.

Where the debate arises is in the presentation strategy of the two groups (excluding the above and selected others), i.e. the manner in which they choose to educate, inform or entertain the listener.  It’s appallingly evident that some of the former athletes don’t do their homework, feeling they’re entitled to the job and need only to throw in an occasional comment or relate a story, however meaningful, or not, it might be.  Their feeling is they busted their butts for so many years - physically.  Nobody out there in the audience has any idea how difficult it was.  And because of that sacrifice - and commitment - they should get a pass, i.e. a great paying job (although it’s a major cut for them).  Even when told that’s not the way the world works, their response is, “It is for me.”  Read Robert Parish’s recent comments as the perfect example.

Then there’s the “new wave” of reporters, i.e. the post-Jim Rome/Keith Olberman era.  They have their own set of rules as well.  “We went to school to learn our craft, not have it bequeathed to us.”  And, with this kind, anything goes.  Many are bitter.  Maybe because they were cut from their teams, relegated to the scorebook or collecting the equipment, while the jocks got everything they wanted - including girls.  This injustice burned inside them.  The serious ones went to college to become as good at reporting the game as their prima donna friends were at playing it.  Undoubtedly, there are a good number who simply wanted a job in journalism and possessed that same work ethic their athletic friends had.  And they have the majority of fans.  Those who didn’t want the rigors of school; they just want to bitch.

As has been stated earlier, the world has turned highly cynical, for whatever reason - from pampered athletes to people buying political offices to others stealing money from and bankrupting friends to banks defrauding people while their CEOs walked away with multi-million dollar packages.  That would upset most people - and it certainly has.  People have become more concerned, not with what they don’t have but with what other people do.  Why?  How does it help?

Maybe it doesn’t but complaining feels good and if you’re good enough, you can get paid.  Except for the slackers (and it’s becoming more and more apparent who they are), it comes down to either knowledgeable people (former player/coach or not) talking their listeners: the ones who understand what’s happening and want to know more, or the guy who comes on, baring his teeth, ready to pounce on whatever story that listener - the one who thrives on other people’s misery - can complain about the rest of the day.  Even though it does no one any good.

My main man, the late John Savage’s line was:

“You don’t strengthen the weak by weakening the strong.”

Heading to Monterey to watch younger son Alex’s first college basketball game.  Then, it’s onto Stanford for a refill for my pain pump.  The blog will return on Wednesday.  The next effort for this site will be the trials and tribulations of parents taking in their son’s first college contest.  Among mother, father and son, by far, the least nervous with be the youngest.

With Texas A&M going down to Tuscaloosa and knocking off the #1 Crimson Tide, the nation now has three undefeated teams.  Should all of them win out (not at all an easy task - for any of them), the BCS brain trust will need to pick two teams to play for the national championship.  Out of those three.  Uh, . . . maybe not.  If Alabama doesn’t lose again - and not too many people feel they will, including in the SEC Championship game - the Crimson Tide will have an argument that they’re certainly one of the top two teams in the nation, independent of any other team’s record.

Their reasoning will have to do with strength of schedule, an argument they would surely win if two of the final three lost.  Or if all of them did.  It would be unimaginable that anyone would argue that Alabama isn’t the best of all the one-loss teams.  When you take into account that every team Alabama plays approaches the game as its own national championship, the fact the Red Elephants continue to win is remarkable enough on its own.  Their swagger alone may not scare opponents but their talent, execution and discipline do.

The BCS has adopted a four-team playoff but that’s not yet in effect (for this year).  Has there ever been an organization that has caused so much confusion and ill feelings - that wasn’t a union?  A playoff system results in controversy but people don’t seem to have the same feelings toward playoffs they do toward the BCS.  If next week the first of the undefeated teams loses, wouldn’t it be great to have YouTube catch the BCSers watching the remaining two teams?  They’d know the words to both fight songs.

If two teams are left without a loss, although they may not be the two best teams in the country, they’d be the easiest two to justify for a national championship game.  After all, did the people of this nation have the two best people to vote for?  Should anyone think this isn’t at all right, recall the prophetic words of Rick Santorum:

“Just try to make the best of a bad situation.”

Someone I know very well proposed this strategy to win the presidential race (after this post, I’ll get back to sports).

Since the number one issue in this election is the economy, get some wise advisers who could put together a plan to make changes to the economy.  Make sure the plan made sense.  Then, the candidate simply states his (or her) platform as:

“My strategy is to improve the economy and here’s how I plan on doing it.  On all other issues, I agree with the president.”

Heading to UC-Santa Cruz to watch a scrimmage against younger son Alex’s Cal State Monterey Bay’s Otters.  This will be the first time to check him out in a college uniform.  Possibility of staying and enjoying a day at Sana Cruz so this blog will continue on Monday.

Election Day is around the corner and the Obama people I know think their man’s going to win, as do my Romney friends think of their guy’s chances.  That means an awful lot of people are going to be terribly disappointed.  However, this isn’t like a football game where the losers go to a local hangout, drown their sorrows in suds, sleep it off - and by Wednesday, they’re ready to start to design chants for next Saturday’s opponents.

This is a four-year loss.  That’s tougher to take.  Your opponent is now your leader and what he does - or influences others to do - has a major affect on your life.  One of the things that confuses you is that your guy has just come out and said, “Sure the campaign had its contentious moments, but it’s time for us to come together and support (the winner).  I know I am and I hope you do to.”

Wait!  You are?  And you hope we, who have been working our butts off for you, you hope we support the person you said is/was not ready for the job, insinuated he was a liar or, at the very least, a manipulator of the facts, and someone whose policy would doom America, he is the guy you’re telling us to support?

Election races are intense.  The two candidates and their parties just spent months dividing the country with ugly rhetoric about each other.  And now the guy who lost, our guy, the guy whose every word we believed in, is telling us it’s time to unify?  You mean, the same guy you’ve been badmouthing all this time?  Get behind him?

We thought if they won, our country would be in dire straights, that it would be Armageddon.  Now you’re saying everything is going to be alright?  So it turns out we can’t believe you, either.

What we need in this country is to take into account what FDR - whether you agree or disagree with him - said long ago:

“Competition has been shown to be useful up to a certain point and no further, but cooperation, which is the thing we must strive for today, begins where competition leaves off.”

Everybody in the nation was made aware in advance of Hurricane Sandy so when the eye of it hit the east coast, there weren’t too many surprises.  Not that what happened in that part of the nation wasn’t devastating, just that people were told what to expect, pulled together and, except for a few hardheaded souls, evacuated the area or followed whatever instructions their locations were given.

We’ve had countless storms and other types of misery in the past but, independent of the intensity of the tragedy, we always seem to pull together.  Sure, there will be some “anti’s” but the best way to deal with that type of person is to ignore them.  In the end our country is stronger than ever.  The reason for this is what’s known as teamwork.  Americans have a way of disagreeing on nearly any topic that comes up but when our backs are against the wall, we take care of each other.

The reason is that, deep down, the overwhelming majority of us understand teamwork solves a problem more effectively than any sort of bickering or personal agendas.  That’s not to say the personal agenda angle hasn’t been tried.  And tried.  And tried.

Yet, to my knowledge, we’ve yet to see those shenanigans used in a disaster situation.  Consider that the two presidential candidates each suspended their campaigns even though it’s so close to election day.  Obama has a job to do when he’s not campaigning so this could have been a chance for Romney to try and sneak a little more time with the voters.  Yet he didn’t - hopefully due to a feeling he had from within; possibly due to advice from the people from his campaign.  In any case, certainly a good move.

One difference that’s been going on in this country is on one hand we’re sinking to record depths while on the other we’re dealing with hurricane Sandy.  In the first instance we’re lowering the nation to an unsafe level by our own actions whereas in the second, the waters are reaching heights never-as-yet-seen-before.  Although we haven’t been able to find a way to make the waters recede, once the storm passes and the weather finally clears, we’ll find a way to get through the calamity.  There will be billions of dollars in damages that, as we’ve done in the past, we’ll acquire.  That is a major cost.  It’s pennies compared to the corruption that’s going on in the political world due to personal agendas and back room deals.

Should we work as diligently on not lowering ourselves below sea level, our country would return to the power it once was.  I had a friend who told me I didn’t understand the dynamics of how the political world now worked and that strategy is no longer feasible.  I said to him, “Why don’t we give it a shot and see what turns out.  Aren’t you tired of living in such a dysfunctional mess?”

Those who know me will tell you I have no party affiliation, mainly because I haven’t found one I can trust.  The quote for today comes from a politician - New York’s mayor Michael Bloomberg.  My wish is 1) he truly believes it and 2) he can influence enough other people to follow this philosophy:

“What has changed is that people have stopped working together.”

The San Francisco Giants went up two games to none yesterday in the World Series, shutting out the Detroit Tigers, 2-0.  When Giants’ reliever Sergio Romo, who got the save, was interviewed immediately following the game, his comment was, “I could feel everyone was with us.”  He was referring to the crowd as well as the team.  Romo did acknowledge the group in the Tigers dugout who, understandably weren’t part of the Giants’ support group.  Nearly everybody believes that to be successful, it’s infinitely easier to win when everybody pulls together.

I was watching the beginning of the game at the gym, peddling away on a recumbent bike with one of three televisions above me.  The World Series was on the TV above me.  To the left was the middle of the TVs and that station was tuned into a political station, which naturally, had people talking about the presidential race.

Behind me, on a couple treadmills, were two guys, probably in their 60s, the bigger one reacting heatedly to one of the talking points on the show.  At first I just heard him (F-bombs tend to get your attention), then saw the two of them in the giant mirror that runs the length of the wall.  The bigger man was attempting to persuade his buddy about something, I’m not sure exactly what, but it was an anti-Obama item.  Everything he talked about was what the current administration had done and how they screwed it up and then lied about it.  His friend questioned him but the bigger guy shouted him down.

On the flip side, other people I know have told me they couldn’t vote for Romney for numerous reasons.  He doesn’t look or act presidential (too stiff in social situations; what he does say sounds canned).  Because of that and his lack of foreign policy experience (even though his opponent was in the same position four years ago), they say they won’t vote for him.

An outstanding social experiment would be to have ballots that had five selections: 1) Obama, 2) Romney, 3) someone else, 4) against Obama, 5) against Romney. Right now, the pundits are saying it’s a 47-47 race and each candidate’s “people” agree with that assessment.  If the experiment were implemented, my guess would be that, discounting answer #3, the other voting percentages would not be 25% a piece.  Rather, I think 4) and 5) would dominate.

Sadly, we’ve become the Divided States of America, even though were always taught:

“United we stand, divided we fall.”

Politics in America today have turned into theater, which may be appealing to the performers but does little for many of us who would like to hear what they think of the real issues and how they plan on improving the country.  So, representing this brand of individual is none other than yours truly.  Here are the (my) rules:

1) The moderator is equipped with a taser to be used as soon as one candidate a) so much as mentions the other’s name, b) refers to what my opponent’s plan is or will be and c) talks over the other, out of turn.  In other words, tell Americans about you and what electing you would mean to us.  Note: If a taser is deemed to be overly excessive, the rule shall be amended, to, rather than tase the offender, mute his/her microphone.

2) Each candidate will be allowed to bring a special adviser, whomever he or she considers an expert on the subject being discussed and whose views reflect those of the candidate.  These advisers will or will not necessarily be a current or potential Cabinet member.  The reason for this rule is simple.  The job of president is entirely too difficult for one person to do by him or herself.  The candidate will answer the question but will be allowed to confer with his or her adviser before doing so.

The nation, if not the world, has become one of specialists.  No one ought to be expected to know everything.  It is now commonplace for an honest gaffe to be recorded and YouTubed forever.  A candidate may has changed his or her opinion from years ago, yet the former version is still out there for anyone and everyone to see, hear, email, text or tweet.  Everyone’s job - especially the POTUS - is infinitely more difficult since the invention of the Internet.

3)  There should be a gallery of people who have used dishonest methods in the past to attain personal fame, power or fortune.  Should candidates find it necessary to use any such person in their campaign, it should be duly noted and the candidate should disclose his or her reason for wanting to be associated with such an individual.  This is not negative campaigning as the agenda of each of these people has been exposed and we should see them for what they are - people who will win at any cost.  There shouldn’t be any room for such people in politics.  Examples are Michael Moore, Karl Rove and hundreds of others - on both sides.

4) Each candidate must explain how he or she plans to work with members of the opposing party.  Once again, there is to be no speaking over the opponent.  In this one case there will be an exception and each candidate will have a limited amount of time (two minutes?) to explain why his or her opponent’s “across-the-aisle” techniques won’t succeed but there needs to be evidence why the methods won’t work .

Why, you might ask, would I, someone who admittedly knows next-to-nothing about politics - and cares just a smidgen less - would decide to come up with something like the above?  The recent negativity in campaigning is, or at least out to be, embarrassing to all Americans - and outlawed.  Plus, it’s hard to blog on something every day!  Seriously, if selecting a leader is vital - and it is - how important is picking someone to lead the country for the next four years?  Seemingly, the overwhelming majority of our citizens aren’t happy with the direction our nation is headed in so many areas - educationally, economically, taking care of our seniors, younger folks being able to take care of themselves, the use of our military, . . .  whatever!   We have a chance to improve it but only if we change our attitudes.

As best selling author John Maxwell says:

“It’s not our conditions that determine our choices; it’s our choices that determine our conditions.”

One positive thing about coaching is the relationships you make.  When Larry Shyatt, currently the head basketball coach at the University of Wyoming, and I first met, we were assistant coaches at Cleveland State University and Robert Morris College, respectively.  The year was 1976.

Fourteen job changes later (seven a piece), we reunited for dinner and, naturally, some BS.  Shy let me know he was going to be in the Fresno area Wednesday night to recruit (what else would a college coach be doing at this time of the year?)  I picked him up at the airport around 3:30 and we caught up on old times as he freshened up in his hotel room.

His appointment was in a town about 45 minutes away.  The conversation turned to the presidential race and he had some strong opinions (shocking, huh, a coach with strong opinions).  Without revealing which side he’s on, allow me to throw in my two cents.

“Have you noticed,” I began, “that when you ask someone which side he or she is for in this election, the first two or three comments they make has to do with something they don’t like about the other side?”  Example: “How can anyone be for Obama when he said he was going to curb unemployment and get us out of debt and now unemployment is worse than ever and we’re three times as much in debt?”  The flip side: “With what he did at Bain and him wanting to give tax breaks to the wealthy, how can anyone vote for Romney?”  Politics have come down to which guy is less worse.

I wondered aloud, “What if the Republicans won this election and the Democrats treated the Republicans the same way the GOP treated the Dems when they got in four years ago?”  Obviously, that plan wouldn’t work.  Yet, maybe then - maybe then - someone would realize the current actions by both parties isn’t working.  And it never will.  Realistically, there’s too much money to be made in the political game but until politicians and their strategists start treating this country like a team with everybody working together, I don’t think we’ve got a chance to prosper.

Right now, the number one strategy when it comes to winning an election is negative campaigning.  The reason is simple: it works.  Most people would rather drag their opponents down than prove their own worth.  It’s easier.  And more fun.  My solution (yes, I know it’s unrealistic) would be to have candidates wired and as soon as one of them says something negative, they would get shocked.  The only way a candidate would be allowed to speak is if he or she made points about their platforms only.

It was great having dinner and spending a good part of the evening with my man, Larry Shyatt.  He and I used to discuss negative recruiting and we each felt if the only way you could get a kid was by wiping out other schools, you’d probably wind up losing him at some point - the point when he realized the fabric you were made of.

As Woodrow Wilson said:

“Friendship is the only cement that will hold the world together.”