Post by utchuckd on Aug 4, 2008 19:53:12 GMT -6
So one of my best friends is the sports editor of the local paper. This is his column from yesterday. I thought it was pretty good so I thought I'd share...
Rising Above the Average
By Rob Nunley
As you read this, chances are you’re an average American.
I’m willing to bet that the majority of you fine subscribers and purchasers out there come from average American families, have average American homes, average American cars and average American jobs.
Being average Americans, you probably work a 40-hour week, head home a little dirty or a little tired (or both), enjoy time with the wife and 2.5 kids, then retire to your own bed to rest up before doing it again the next day.
But imagine if your average American job went something like this:
-You wake up in a strange bed, in a strange building, hours earlier than you woke up just the week before.
-You’re greeted with a healthy breakfast, but only after you’ve run at least a mile. When you’re granted permission to eat, you have to do so with the same group of 59 or so people you spent the previous night sleeping beside.
-From breakfast to lunch, you’re forced to learn complicated maneuvers and schemes, then go through those maneuvers while your breakfast partners attempt –with all their might- to physically destroy you. Meanwhile, your bossed tell you -and everyone within a quarter-mile radius- how much you did it wrong.
-And after lunch, you do it all again. More teaching, more memorization, more critiques and more being physically assaulted by people you later embrace not only as friends and co-workers, but as a surrogate family.
But this time, you’re exhausted from your morning run and all the people trying to drive you into the ground from earlier in the day. Still, you struggle onward, stopping only when you’re allowed and running wherever you’re sent to do whatever you’re told.
By the way, did I mention you’re doing all this carrying 20 pounds of equipment, in temperatures nearing the triple digit mark? Did I mention that if you begin to falter in your job, there’s someone else ready and willing to step in and take it from you? And did I mention it’s supposed to be fun?
Not much of an average American life, is it? But it’s exactly what you go through when you’re a high school football player during camp week.
I’ve watched the Pioneers prepare for the past eight seasons, and every year I find myself impressed by those kids who forego the X-box, the TV and the air conditioning to come out for camp. They know what they’re getting into; they have to, since their predecessors have given them the horror stories about it. And yet, they still come out and give their all.
And what do we do? We sit on the sidelines and around the water coolers talking a lot about these high school athletes, and how they should’ve done this or ought to be able to do that.
But when it gets right down to brass tacks, there aren’t very many of us –especially those, like me, who are of the older and less physically-fit persuasion- who could walk a tenth of a mile in those boys’ cleats.
So I ask you, Pioneer fans, if you’re an average American, then what are these kids? You’re working your average American job, making your (hopefully) average American wage so you can support your average American family, and they’re getting beaten up, beaten down and run over just for the love of the sport they’ve chosen and the pride of representing their school.
Sure, there’s minimal glory if they win on a few Friday nights. But it’s outmatched greatly by the scorn of the so-called experts if heaven forbid they fail.
So I guess you’d have to say they’re above average, now aren’t they?
Win or lose, there’s something to admire about that. And I hope I, you and the rest of us average Americans can do exactly that once the season rolls around.
Rising Above the Average
By Rob Nunley
As you read this, chances are you’re an average American.
I’m willing to bet that the majority of you fine subscribers and purchasers out there come from average American families, have average American homes, average American cars and average American jobs.
Being average Americans, you probably work a 40-hour week, head home a little dirty or a little tired (or both), enjoy time with the wife and 2.5 kids, then retire to your own bed to rest up before doing it again the next day.
But imagine if your average American job went something like this:
-You wake up in a strange bed, in a strange building, hours earlier than you woke up just the week before.
-You’re greeted with a healthy breakfast, but only after you’ve run at least a mile. When you’re granted permission to eat, you have to do so with the same group of 59 or so people you spent the previous night sleeping beside.
-From breakfast to lunch, you’re forced to learn complicated maneuvers and schemes, then go through those maneuvers while your breakfast partners attempt –with all their might- to physically destroy you. Meanwhile, your bossed tell you -and everyone within a quarter-mile radius- how much you did it wrong.
-And after lunch, you do it all again. More teaching, more memorization, more critiques and more being physically assaulted by people you later embrace not only as friends and co-workers, but as a surrogate family.
But this time, you’re exhausted from your morning run and all the people trying to drive you into the ground from earlier in the day. Still, you struggle onward, stopping only when you’re allowed and running wherever you’re sent to do whatever you’re told.
By the way, did I mention you’re doing all this carrying 20 pounds of equipment, in temperatures nearing the triple digit mark? Did I mention that if you begin to falter in your job, there’s someone else ready and willing to step in and take it from you? And did I mention it’s supposed to be fun?
Not much of an average American life, is it? But it’s exactly what you go through when you’re a high school football player during camp week.
I’ve watched the Pioneers prepare for the past eight seasons, and every year I find myself impressed by those kids who forego the X-box, the TV and the air conditioning to come out for camp. They know what they’re getting into; they have to, since their predecessors have given them the horror stories about it. And yet, they still come out and give their all.
And what do we do? We sit on the sidelines and around the water coolers talking a lot about these high school athletes, and how they should’ve done this or ought to be able to do that.
But when it gets right down to brass tacks, there aren’t very many of us –especially those, like me, who are of the older and less physically-fit persuasion- who could walk a tenth of a mile in those boys’ cleats.
So I ask you, Pioneer fans, if you’re an average American, then what are these kids? You’re working your average American job, making your (hopefully) average American wage so you can support your average American family, and they’re getting beaten up, beaten down and run over just for the love of the sport they’ve chosen and the pride of representing their school.
Sure, there’s minimal glory if they win on a few Friday nights. But it’s outmatched greatly by the scorn of the so-called experts if heaven forbid they fail.
So I guess you’d have to say they’re above average, now aren’t they?
Win or lose, there’s something to admire about that. And I hope I, you and the rest of us average Americans can do exactly that once the season rolls around.