I sort of knew this was going to happen – but whether pro sports is a good thing, or bad, particularly when it is underwritten by public funds and/or public bonding authority absolutely is a matter of public policy.
This all got started with our Peoplenomics.com report Wednesday. While inconclusive on the good or evil question, we did serve up a large helping of facts that range beyond just the public funding of the rich man’s clubs and preferential tax treatment to the other stuff no one talks about: Sports injuries that last a lifetime.
It’s seldom we get such articulate spokespersons come along, but two parents, different parts of the country and real leaders in their fields (real estate and law) have offered some dandy point-counterpoint.
Let’s start with the case FOR team (migrating to spectator) sports:
George,
While there are exceptions, I disagree on RJ’s comment on sports this morning. We were one of those families that encouraged sports participation. My kids sports were baseball and women’s softball. Both my son and daughter did the travel ball circuit from age 12 through high school. Some of those travels were the best times of their lives…mine too. Lifelong friends…camaraderie…etc. Those trips to tournaments from West coast to East coast and many trips in between were our family vacations and we wouldn’t trade it for the world.
RJ mentions that when his kids quit soccer, they had a chance to actually play outdoors…
?Well….so did my kids?…playing outdoors isn’t exclusive to non sports participants…enjoying free time isn’t exclusive either…our family enjoyed a lot of free time. When we traveled to tournaments, we had a chance to see parts of the country we normally wouldn’t experience…going to local ?landmarks?,? beaches, historical ?sites and amusement parks. It was both an fun eye opener and an education to boot.
?They both learned at a young age what it took to not only to play at the next level, but what it takes to be a success in anything they do too…a lesson that I wish I had at that early age…?
Both kids got to be good enough to land scholarships to college too. My son at a major D-1 school where he started 3 of 4 years and my daughter at a D-2 where she started all 4 years and broke multiple school records.
Their days in college consisted of getting up at 6am-7am to do strength and conditioning…School from 8am till noon…on the practice field from 1pm-5pm and mandatory study hall from 7-10pm…everyday from the first day of school till the last game of the season.
?…and still had time to fully enjoy the college experience. Sports and their teammates was their fraternity and sorority. Today, a few years after their graduation, they frequently get together faith those team mates for impromptu alumni weekends and trips…just as much of not more than their non sport college counterparts.
?It is important to note that being a collegiate athlete is a year round experience. My son would then be shipped to places like Wisconsin or Alaska to play up to 70 more games in the summer to hone his skills and better himself in the Collegiate summer leagues where up to 3,000 fans would watch him and dozens of other teams battle it out for a summer crown. He still talks admiringly about those days…
?My daughter was more local, but also played in the summer.?
Most of all, it’s the time management?, work ethic and dedication that has benefited them the most…In college they practice everyday in the fall to determine who the starters will be in the spring…They practice everyday in the second semester when they are not playing games. (Their season starts in February and if they make the playoffs runs thru June)
Neither played professionally. ..and didn’t necessarily want to…That wasn’t the end goal…especially for my daughter…But…here is what they got out of it… Both were highly sought after in the business world…they were good students and corporations seem to love student athletes because of their discipline, competitive nature and time management skills. Sports, their successes, experiences and travels became the ice breaker in interviews…They both understood that they got to do what 99% of every kid that picked up a bat and ball never had a chance to achieve….Play College Ball…and they took advantage of that in every job ?interview they had.
And it worked…as a result…Both of my kids and a majority of their team mates too, had multiple offers for jobs out of college.
?This scenario is played out all over the country…not just in my kids circle of friends…
My two graduated in 2012 and 2013 and have had several promotions…make outstanding money well, well above the average for the first 3 years out of college… in each of their respective positions because of what sports taught them….that is Hard Work…Winning Attitudes…and Practice (or being a constant student of their industries) makes perfect.
So to those who think that sports in America is out of control…well…don’t tell that to my kids…without sports…without that coach being in their face every day…teaching them discipline?, time management, hard work, dedication and a winning attitude?…they would not be where they are today…And they ?and the thousands of other student athletes that enter the work force every year ? would be the first to tell you that.
Well, maybe that’s true, but good looks and physical stature matter, too. (*See “About those Missing Giants,” following this discussion)
The counterpoint is offered by a parent who says, in effect, if you think sports is bad, try band:
As for sports, what about Band? Pencil it out and band sucks way more people hours. First, there are more band members. Second, it is a full year ride, rather than a semester. But most importantly, it is the biggest time sink of all. I have a cousin whose band flew from Texas to New York for the Macy’s parade, on their own nickels. Got on the cover of the Times. Two years of fundraising and brutal practice.
Under Texas rules, highly competitive band directors are restricted to 70 hours a WEEK of the members’ time. Football allows scarcely half that time. Yes really. Both are insane numbers for a kid. So to be competitive in that world, they all raised required hours to 70, or they became also-rans. So my little cousin, who is smart enough to get into any field in any school, is up at 4:30; often she gets home from a trip at 4:30. The family schedule revolves around her need for transport at all hours. She is rarely studying during those 70 hours. She has permanent sleep deprivation, as do her parents. She is an honor student. But that’s ok. The current “AP” coursework, nationwide, is pathetically easy. Presumably so the ticket punching college bound kids can have the time and energy for multiple other contrived activities than core education. Or simple, unscripted socializing.
I won’t begin to talk about the helicopter parents who raise hundreds of thousands of dollars annually for the band, devoting easily 40 hour weeks to the projects, but you can imagine how balanced they are in their life priorities, and how normal parents fare in the Machine they call Band.
Its a very American phenomenon, as I learned traveling and living overseas. Take a hobby or avocation that is supposed to be for pleasure, and turn it into a grinding, hyper competitive grueling, extravagant ordeal. Perhaps this arises from misplaced priorities? A conflation of materialism with life purpose, and a confusion about the role of competition in a healthy, balanced life. Of course it is badly worsened by the evolution of oversized factory schools, where literally thousands of students are unable to participate in extracurricular activities due to being outspent and out competed by their fellow students. They are nobodies, by design. No wonder they sometimes turn out to be vicariously living through their offspring. Or value organized competitive entertainment over simple human interaction.
The famous Grace Commission report on education in the Reagan years began with the statement that all secondary education reform was doomed unless maximum high school size was limited to 500 students. That was the first sentence, but msm ignored that bit. Can’t have self actualizing humans infesting the hive, can we?
Gotta say, the jury is still out. And there’s a lot more data in the Peoplenomics report.
One other point (in favor of spectator sports) came from Bruce down in Ecuador who thinks “football buddies” are good – putting almost a prepping spin on it:
Spectator sports are a bonding experience. Like a smartphone, something you are not very familiar with, but an absolute must in difficult times. When the going gets tough, the un-bonded don’t survive. Those I watch football with, if they got word there was a problem at my house, they would all show up.
The military discovered this in Vietnam in figuring out why half the troops in firefights would not fire their weapons. In the civil war, there were hundreds, if not thousands of dead on both sides with (muzzle loading) rifles that contained multiple charges and bullets. In battle, their reloading gave the appearance of actually fighting, but that was not the case. It’s the reason why “seasoned” troops are a factor. They have demonstrated the ability to actually fight. For the modern usa military, they are all taught its just a video game, until they slip into PTSD.
If you think your neighbors are going to show up if they hear gunshots, think again. When is the last time you went to a funeral or wedding, band concert or high school graduation in your community?
While the football crowd has been couching out, we’ve been putting remote cameras and IR illuminators around…and doing little projects like filing out the barrel of an old Army .45 so that it would accept modern (hollow-points) instead of just b all ammo.
Given the choice between watching a first quarter where the chips are the most exciting thing, or learning from my B-i-L how to file the barrel for proper feed using the diamond bits in the Dremel, bet’cha can’t guess which one I’d opt for, can you?
About Those Missing Giants
Now, let me flip back up to our first reader-contribution of the morning – the fellow with the highly successful kids who went the full meal deal on high school sports. Well done…but we need to have a chat about size and looks.
I got the impression that these kids were above average in stature and there is a huge amount of data that says high incomes are very much correlated to a person’s height and how they hold themselves. A male who is over 6’2” and can pull off a military (or at least physically dominating) personal space is going to make oodles more money than someone who is just an everyday 5’7” schmoe.
I happen to be doing a lot of research (reading more that 5-books in a week constitutes “lots”) about the Book of Enoch, Dr. John Dee, pictured right, and all the rest of the Ethiopic Book of Enoch, the “keys” and all that.
I won’t spoil all the surprises, but the long and short of it is that Enoch was removed from the Bible by the early Catholic Church by many researchers because it revealed too much about how the hierarchy of ultimate Reality really worked.
No point in putting in a freely useable public highway when you can put in a toll road.
So fast forward to Enoch 5 and what’s there?
]The short version of (alleged historical events) is that Earth is a “manufactured place” and that a race of Watchers/Fallen Angels was supposed to be keeping an eye on things but they went into heat and started to intermarry with Earth women.
Well, one thing led to another, and next thing you know, there’s a race of Giants around and they have to be wiped out, so God sends the Flood and so on.
Why mention all of this? I mean other than the obvious – which is that the Watchers were supposed to be “watching us” (not screwing the babes) and so down at a DNA kind of level we’re programmed into fearing/following “big.”
But the capper to how all this research comes along is a story out last week about how the Smithsonian destroyed oodles of Giants (Watcher) remains in the early part of the last century.
You absolutely need to be up on this stuff as it’s way more important than passing trivialities of day to day politics and money, all predictably crooked at this late hour on the historical side of things.
A US Supreme Court ruling has forced the Smithsonian institution to release classified papers dating from the early 1900?s that proves the organization was involved in a major historical cover up of evidence showing giants human remains in the tens of thousands had been uncovered all across America and were ordered to be destroyed by high level administrators to protect the mainstream chronology of human evolution at the time. –
So what we begin to see it that the effort to cover up Giants was continuing (and may even be continuing now – we have no clue).
But there’s one other enticing thing that emerges from the study of Dee, Enoch, and all the rest of it: The supposed “Language of the Angels” which fascinated Dee and a fellow researcher of his back in the day.
While “angels” (some of which look like gray aliens, almost identically) are supposed to help humans along, they prefer to do it in the “Language of the Angels.”
So now you know why the work of Chris Tyreman and the crew up at The Chronicle Project is so near and dear to may heart: Although the original “language of Angels” may have been destroyed when languages were messed up for trying to build the Tower of Babel, at least some of the language likely survived into the earliest of Jewish language but from there has degraded with use over space and time. Such that contemporary Yiddish may have only bits and pieces of the original language.
But attempt to reconstruct the original meanings and begin working with unseen forces? Well, you can sign up for the free Chronicle Project newsletters as they come out…but I expect once you get into the chase on this stuff you’ll begin to see how important the rediscovery of even bits and pieces of the Ultimate Language could be.
One other research point: The language is not entirely spoken, apparently. Which is why a synthesis of both the reconstructed Self-Defining-Hebrew (SDH) is so important:
When married to ancient (well-proven) Yoga body positions (that open pathways to other worlds/energies), the SDH, particularly those parts with related body position information, may be a new and highly productive path to getting back in touch with The Ones who put us here in the first place.
So take Enochian calls, the language discoveries in SDH and marry it with Yoga generally and things like the Hand Mudras in particular. My research points to a concept that most pure linguistics may have missed: The vital possibility (if not probability) that when Babel went down, it wasn’t just a spoken language that was dispersed. But rather a spoken, written, gesticulated, and prostrated series of communication elements as well.
Starting from Dee, then, the eventual path to reconstruction should open – slowly – and woe be to they who don’t understand the purifications and critical symbology that must be followed.
Seem to me that there are really many P’s in “prayer” which could explain why it doesn’t work too dependably for most people: Position, Place, Preparation, Posture…all kinds of things likely matter. For not miss this points might be like walking up to a person, turning 90-degrees away from them and speaking to a wall. We simply haven’t gone through the meticulous effort to perform and research the multiplicity of sounds, symbols, settings, signs, sigils, and stretches that could get us past the Babel Problem.
In B-school this would be called a multivariate problem. Marry each of the variables and cross-tab the results.
There…that oughta give you something to think about over the weekend. Please have your papers in by Sunday evening…
Parting Thought
Reader Don challenges my wordifications!
Google doesn’t think pechewzelwhacker is a word.
If you’re a man, you have one. Google is a company. Companies don’t have them. They hire them.
Seriously, it’s an old firehouse term…with more flare and substance that the crudities of today.
Write when you break-even…
George george@ure.net