No Regrets…A Book Update

Like you, I have felt stress in various ways.

There has been work-related stress, such as the time I waited for my mom to read my CPA exam results over the phone (yes, I lived at home for three years after college).  There was the April 14th when I showed up for work at 8AM and did not leave until 4PM the following afternoon – without a change of clothes.  I also recall the routine of checking my mailbox on a daily basis to see if the letter containing my tenure decision had been delivered.

I have felt stress in athletics.  Being down by two points and shooting a pair of free-throws with no time left on the clock.  Preparing for my final throw in the shot put at the state track meet.  Needing to throw a strike with the bases loaded and the count full in the bottom half of the final inning in a tie baseball game.

I have felt it stress my personal life.  Like the time the hospital sent my wife and I home with my son without an instruction manual. Or when I had to talk to some neighborhood fathers about their sons’ sexual comments toward my step-daughter.  Or when I called my wife-to-be to ask her out on our first date and later projectile vomited all over the hallway wall and carpet.

I’ll stop now, as you all could share similar stories, and then some.

Why am I discussing stress?  Well, recently, my wife asked me, “So, where is your stress level at these days?”  Being a numbers guy, I asked her what scale she wanted me to use.  “Well, let’s say that a one is no stress at all, and a ten is that you need to need to be admitted to the psych ward.”

I thought about it for a moment and replied, “So, what would a 12 be?”

If you have been following my blog, you probably know the reason I feel stress: my upcoming sabbatical to write a book on John Gagliardi.  If you don’t know what I am talking about or who John is, check out my blog entry from last month titled, “A Breakthrough?”

So, why is my stress level about this book so high?  On one hand, it seems that I have nothing to lose.  I get the semester off with pay to write the book, so even if no one purchases a copy, I’m no worse off financially – plus, I am sure my mom is good for at least 10 copies.  Further, I’m already tenured, so it is not like I can get fired (I don’t think so, at least) if the book is lousy.  John even asked me what would happen if I never even complete the book.  Honestly, I’m not sure - I imagine I would still have a job, but wouldn’t get any favors in the future.

Why then do I lay awake, night after night, making revisions in my head?  I guess there could be variety of answers.  Maybe it is that I am quite competitive and like to think I can do something just as well as the next person if I put my mind to it.  Or perhaps it is that I want to shut people up who tell me I can’t write a book in just one semester.  Or could it be that I am a little miffed that a peer group of faculty members ranked my sabbatical idea as one of the weakest ones they reviewed.  But no, none of those are the answer.

So, what is it?  Near the end of the semester, I joined a few other professors for a Friday afternoon pint at the campus pub.  One of them said, “Boz, I have never seen you so intense.”  I took a sip of Old Johnnie Ale, exhaled, and replied, “I believe I am embarking on the biggest project of my life.”  In other words, I firmly believe that the story of “John” is perhaps the biggest chance I will have to make a difference on a grand scale.

This project is not something I was planning during those dozens of morning sessions in John’s office.  But I came away from each interaction with a better understanding of what has made him successful.  And I wanted others to hear the stories as well.

So basically, this project just fell into my lap, and now that it has, I feel called to make the most of my opportunity to share John’s story.  I watch people, myself included, fail every day in life, and I have started to think with more frequency…if they would simply employ some of John’s principles, they wouldn’t fail.  They’d succeed and be so much happier.

If I can bring this project to life, the book could, with some luck, reach a wide audience.  And person after person could be inspired by and learn from John’s philosophies.

Given that I view this as the most important project of my life, I am giving it my all.  I flew out to California for a two hour meeting with Sports Illustrated senior writer Austin Murphy.  I have answered calls, replied to every e-mail, and met with many former players and other interested parties.  I have chatted at length with his family and yesterday, I spent a chunk of the afternoon with one of his closest friends.  Pretty much all I want to do when I talk to people is to discuss my book.  The word “John” has become somewhat of a four letter word around my wife.  I am kidding, of course.  Mainly.  Kind of.

Recently, I took on a fairly grueling endeavor.  I received contact information for 2,171 of John’s former players, going all the way back to his first St. John’s team of 1953.  I know that buried within the memories of these players are anecdotes that will help me better understand and tell the story of “John.”  Thus, about a month ago, I sent an e-mail to many of them requesting their input.  I have since received dozens of replies, and continue to receive more every day.

However, I don’t have e-mail addresses for hundreds of his former players, and I am sure some of them need to be nudged more than once to provide their input.  Thus, I sent out a hard copy mailing to 2,170 of his former players (I excluded myself).  This mailing was done on my nickel - or on my 16,117 nickels to be exact. 

In an effort to increase the response rate, I included on each and every letter a handwritten personal note.  I started the process of writing these notes last Friday night and finally finished Wednesday morning. My wife, being the rock-star that she is worth barfing over, recruited a couple of her girlfriends to stuff envelopes into the wee hours of the night.

I believe the floodgates are about to open and that replies will begin pouring in by the dozens, if not hundreds.  I imagine having enough material to write a sequel to War and Peace.  However, I will whittle the replies down to about 200 pages and save the rest for another special project I have planned.

When I delivered the letters to the campus mail center this past Wednesday, I began to feel a great sense of relief.  I then strolled to John’s office and chatted for awhile.  By the end of our conversation, my stress was completely gone.

However, by the time I had made the eighty mile commute home, the stress had begun to return.  But that is okay, as it will remind me that I need to give all that I have to this project.  Because if I don’t, I know that I will regret it for the rest of my life.

I have one final thing to say to John’s former players who are still reading.  Whether you were a star player or a permanent fixture on the scout team, I’d love to hear from you.  You see, while this project is very intimidating, every time I hear from another one of you it lifts my spirits and reassures me that what I am doing is valuable.  And my vision on how to write the book is either affirmed or enhanced.  It is very encouraging that every single one of you has commented that this project is a great idea.  In fact, the only person who thinks it is a lousy idea is someone who never even played college football… but is about to coach it for the 64^th straight year.

Even our cats are helping with the project, they guarded the letters...

The Perfect Day

One thing I love about being a teacher is that I am constantly learning right along with my students...

This summer, about 25 students in our department are participating in an internship for college credit.  In order to receive credit, they are required to complete a variety of tasks, one of which is engaging in an online discussion forum.  Through this forum we not only discuss a variety of learning and working strategies, but also “fun” topics to get to know each other better.

The “fun” topic I initiated this past week was inspired by my favorite book, Tuesday’s with Morrie.  I asked the students to describe, in detail, their perfect day.  Most students described a day of eating their favorite foods and participating in outdoor sporting and recreational activities with their friends.  Similarly, my own reply centered around spending the day with family and friends on the beaches of Mexico. 

Just when I thought the discussion had wrapped-up, a final student piped in, “My perfect day would be with me waking up and going to work with a smile because I love my job. I would be living in a nice, warm city with my family around me and I would come home to my kids and husband who are all really happy to have me home.”

At first I read this student’s reply and thought to myself, “Wow. That is a really lame perfect day. Working? Give me a break!”

But for the rest of the day, I kept reflecting back on this student’s comments.  Eventually, I realized that she was onto something.  If we need to transplant ourselves into an unsustainable situation in order to experience our perfect day, that day really may not be perfect at all - as we may be dreading our eventual return to reality.

However, if we truly enjoy our work and relationships, every day can be perfect in its own way, as we know that tomorrow and each day after will bring more of the same. 

So instead of dreaming about escaping to our perfect day, it seems that we should rather work to achieve happiness in our every day lives.  That’s not to say I am going to cancel my next Mexican vacation, but I may look at it a bit differently.

In closing, I shared a draft of this blog entry with my student and she said, “You captured the essence of what I was trying to say better than I could have myself.”  Maybe I did, or maybe I did not, but one thing is for certain... I could not have captured it without you.

No fireworks on this 4th of July – One soldier’s story

I first met Andy back in 2001 when my family moved into our current home.  The street was full of emerging jocks, but he was always a bit out of place.  He was tall, gangly, and lacked the coordination of some of the other kids on the street.

But when the sun went down, everything changed.  The athleticism and coordination required by modern sports would give way to the cunning and strategy of Night Games - variations of Ghosts in the Graveyard, Capture the Flag, Flashlight Tag, and Airsoft.  Andy would win.  Again and again.

I sat down with him last night to chat about his interesting journey…

Even before he was out of diapers, Andy wanted to be a soldier.  The family sandbox was constantly filled with toy soldiers, and their basement played host to many battles between Lego soldiers and GI Joe figures. I asked him where he cultivated his love for the military and without hesitation, he began talking about his grandfather.  “Grandpa was a fighter pilot in the Navy.  On one of his testing missions, he lost control of his plane and needed to make an emergency landing.  At the last moment, he noticed a child in his landing path, swerved hard to the right, crashed, and died.  I heard a lot of stories about Grandpa and also admired what he did.”

Each summer, Andy’s parents would send him to Aviation Challenge in Huntsville, Alabama.  Andy participated in flight and ground combat simulations.  His team rarely, if ever, lost. 

Early in his teen years, Andy came to the realization that being a fighter pilot may not be attainable as one must not be more than six feet two inches tall – and his dad and older brothers easily surpassed that height.  So, when Andy sprouted to six foot five, he decided to pursue an infantry position in the army.

I asked Andy why he chose a dangerous position like infantry.  “I always knew that I wanted to serve on the front lines.  Part of it is that I wanted to be in the action.  But also, I liked the purpose of it - maybe I’ll die someday when I am old and gray, but if not, I want to die for something…like my country.”

I slowly nodded my head in awe as Andy continued, “I realized that while I was still young, I already had lived a good life.  I grew up with a great family and friends, and if this was it, than this was it.”

Eventually, Andy was deployed.  He was stationed in Kuwait and was in the Hum-Vee that would lead and protect convoys on their way to and from bases in Iraq.  His role was to detect IED’s (bombs) and diffuse them (and their operators) so that the supply trucks could travel safely.

Of course, if they missed detecting an IED, either truck of one of the supply trucks could be blown to bits.  I asked him if this made him afraid.  “Yeah, I was afraid, but I couldn’t dwell on the fear.  If I did, I would hesitate.  And if I hesitated, I would miss things.  And if missed things, I would die.  Or even worse, one of my team members would die. 

Did that make you afraid?  “I learned to control my fear.  When I landed in Kuwait, I basically decided that I had already died.  So, living as if I were already dead made it easier to protect my team and stay calm in the face of danger.  I was all in.”  He continued, “It is similar to an athlete.  If you play like you are afraid of getting hurt, you are probably going to get hurt, or worse yet, get a teammate hurt.  But if you play with a proper amount of reckless abandon, you will be bettering not only yourself but your teammates.”

Although Andy knows four soldiers who gave their lives to the war, none of them were on his immediate team.  However, that doesn’t mean that he was immune to seeing death.  “In one of my first missions, we entered an Iraqi village and noticed two young boys fighting over a leather jacket, which was worth a good amount of money.  They couldn’t have been more than 6 or 7 years old.  A group of adults were simply standing around and watching them, making no effort to break it up.  The fight ended when one of the young boys pulled a knife out of his pocket and slit the throat of the other.”  Andy paused and continued, “That was really tough.  It was then that I realized how little many Iraqis valued life.”

Seeing things like that, did you ever lose it or break down?  “No, not really, if you mean like crying and stuff.  I mean, I once came home from a mission to find out that my grandmother had passed away and that crushed me, but I never really broke down solely from a mission.  There were a few times when I got back from a mission and raged in a fit of anger.  I would just start throwing stuff around in my tent, and I’m not even sure why.  Now, I barely remember those moments, but that must have been my way of dealing with things.”

When I asked Andy to tell me about the closest he came to death, he quieted a bit. He didn’t really want to talk about this one, and simply lifted up his shirt to show several shrapnel scars on his right side.  There is a story behind those scars, and I am not sure if I will ever know what happened. 

I probed a bit further when I asked if he was happy that he made it out alive.  Andy laughed heartily, “Oh yeah, I’m happy to still be here.  It is not like I was Lieutenant Dan from Forrest Gump, who felt his destiny was to die in a war.”

I inquired as whether his experiences resulted in any post traumatic stress.  “I have a buddy who regularly wakes up screaming from night tremors.  Fortunately, I haven’t experienced that much.  ”

So, you are okay?  “Well, the one thing that is tough on me is fireworks, not the little firecrackers, but the big and booming fireworks.  They sound like mortars.  And when I think of mortars, I think of someone firing on me.  As we approach the 4^th of July, it gets tougher, as people sometimes let off big fireworks.  There have been times when I have been sleeping, heard a big firework, and been shocked awake for ½ the night.”

I wrapped up our discussion by getting this soldier’s perspective on what he likes best about living in America.  “People always use the word freedom, but that doesn’t fully explain it.  I like that you can be anything you want to be.  Possibilities are endless.  If you want to do something badly enough, you can do it.”

So, on this 236^th birthday of the United States of America, I say “thank you” to Andy and all of the other military men and women.  And if any of my neighbors read this, please don’t set off any fireworks on our street – let’s allow our soldier to sleep in peace tonight.