Fruit for Thought: the Intersection of Education, Culture, and Performance

The moment an “athlete” makes the transition and becomes a “professional athlete,” he/she has a decision to make: either they use that professional platform as a means to elevate the voices and issues of those who go unheard or they take their well compensated salary and keep their mouths shut. Many choose the latter for several reasons. 1) The fear of losing the lifestyle (contract, endorsement, notoriety, etc) for trying to go against the grain. 2) The understanding that their profession is one that celebrates exertion of the body and frowns on exaltations of the voice. 3) The awkwardness of feeling like they are not qualified enough, educated enough or expects in that field to take a stand. There might be many more reasons why I estimate 95% of athletes maintain the status quo. There are about 5% who are more concerned with uplifting and inspiring others rather than their own selfish ambitions. If you happen to be offended by me labeling professional athletes as selfish, good. I am ...

There are 72 beautiful days of summer weather I have dedicated to nothing but R&R: Road-trips & Relaxation. A 15-hour, 1080-mile trip to Colorado Springs and a half dozen times down the street (I-94) & around the corner (interstate 196 to highway 31 to M20) to Walkerville, Michigan makes for a pretty eventful summer. Being on the road and covering 2424 total miles could have been quite boring if I did not have the necessary road trip supplies. - an entertaining driving buddy to who is willing to take goofy pictures at state welcome centers? Check! - snacks and homemade lunches so we do not fall into the lure that is expensive highway restaurants? Check! - auditory stimulation? Check! The last item on that list is the most important. Without music, audio books or even the local radio stations, hours on the road will feel like days. My music is genre specific depended on the time of day. For those midday/early afternoon times when traffic is flowing, I play a little Lecrae , ...

Back to the advertising drawing board… I was going to talk about how special this NBA Finals were going to be. About how ingenious advertising by Vitamin Water and Nike got everyone excited about seeing the two best players of this generation – separated by one number – battling it out in a clash of the Gold Medal Titans. Oh, what could have been. I can say it and we will never know for sure, but the Cleveland Cavaliers/Los Angeles Lakers series would have been better than the Bulls/Celtics series I previously posted . It would have been the best series EVER. Period. End of statement. I would have been looking forward to see a match up between the former MVP and the current and youngest ever MVP in a phenomenon that would have seen its seventh occurrence in NBA’s 62-year MVP awarding history. 86-87 Season (Bird 85-86, Johnson 86-87) Celtics/ Lakers 90-91 Season ( Jordan 90-91, Johnson 89-90) Bulls /Lakers 92-93 Season ( Barkley 92-93, Jordan 91-92) Suns/ Bulls 96-97 Season ( Malon...