sport Tag

Hurdling Adversity: 1 Minute to Change A Life

A few years ago a friend invited me to read Mitch Albom’s book “The Five People You Meet in Heaven”. The book is about people we interact with everyday who have had profound impacts on our life.  Some we know and recognize right away and others, who may come in our lives quickly and leave just as fast, are less recognizable.

My take away from the book is that we never know the impact someone has on our life or the impact we may have on theirs.  People inspire us all the time, and in turn, we inspire others.  While we are living in this world, I believe it is important for all of us to tell those who have inspired us exactly that.

As I was reading Mr. Albom’s book, I was reminded of a story that changed my perspective in my early running days as a wide-eyed red-shirted freshman at the University of Arkansas (U of A) and a person who inspired me more than she knew.  With her few words and matter-of-fact delivery she changed the way I viewed myself, my competitors and eventually the way I lived my life.

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Her name is Jeannette Bolden.

Ms. Bolden has been the head coach at the University of California, Los Angeles for the past 18 years, but in 1985 when this story takes place, she was fresh off her Olympic gold medal win as a member of the 4×100 meter relay.

This is how the story unfolded.

I was fortunate to make the Arkansas track team’s trip to Dallas, Texas and compete in my first open indoor track and field meet with my new teammates.  The competition was the prestigious Dallas Morning News Invitation and my race was the 55m High Hurdles (HH)

The atmosphere was electric.  There were so many athletes and spectators.  There were so many track and field teams.  The track surface was wooden and nothing like I had ever seen before. It was also very bouncy.

I listened to my teammate Mike Conley about how to run sprints on the bouncy boards, as well as took advice from my hurdle training partner Fred Cleary.  But nothing really could have prepared me for this experience.

Sometimes in life we have to live in order to learn. 

Truth be told I was just nervous. Actually, I was scared.  Everyone looked so fast and experienced.  I had more than butterflies in my stomach; I felt like there were little hamsters running sprint races on a treadmill trying to catch those butterflies.

I had to get control of myself.  So, instead of succumbing to my fears of what I could not control, I decided that I would put my mind in a familiar place.  I found my mind floating back to the warm-ups I did at my old high school in Oak Park, IL.  Oak Park was a familiar point of reference for me where I had run literally hundreds of practices and races.  I did a proper warm-up and prepared myself for my first big-time collegiate race.

There is an old adage that reminds us all that, “Perfect Practice Prevents Poor Performance.”

I would run the prelims and hopefully qualify for the finals.

The clerk called the hurdlers out to the track for our race.  I am sure the other freshman hurdlers were just as nervous as I.

The indoor sprints are a sight to see.  They are run straight down the middle of the track.  Just past the finish line a section of the track, where the elevated curve would be, is removed to allow the athletes enough space to decelerate.  Well actually, in the old days, there was usually not enough space for the athletes to decelerate; they would stop abruptly by slamming full speed into a high jump landing pad conveniently place against a wall and tilted on its side.

I took a few run-throughs over the first couple of hurdles to get a good feel for the track. It was bouncy and very giving as Mike and Fred stated it would be.  I felt a bit off balance.

The starter lined us up and then called us to our marks. I dropped to my hands and I backed into my blocks.

My feet found the starting pads of the blocks and my hands rested just behind the white paint on the track surface.  I was in a couched position.  My eyes were focused straight down for the moment.

I exhaled while slowly lowering my head toward the ground.  I was in a complete relaxed position.

The starter called us to the position and I drew in a quick breath filling my lungs with the recycled air of the arena.  My backside rose into the air just above shoulder height as my shoulders rolled slightly forward.  My eyes were opened wide with determination and were now looking about 3 feet in front of me.  I was set and ready to uncoil and pounce on the first hurdle.

The gun went off and I sprang from my coiled position toward the first barrier.  I exhaled violently as I pressed my body toward the first hurdle.

All I remember about that race was getting to the first hurdle before my competitors; the rest of the race was a blur.  I crossed the finish line and slammed into the high jump mat, which sharply stopped my forward momentum.

I turned around and walked back to the finish line in my lane to receive my placing and time.  Before I could make it to the line I heard the shouts of my Arkansas teammates coming from the grand stands.  When I looked up I saw my teammates cheering for me and shouting down to me that I had won my heat!

Really?

Really!

I reached the finish line and faced the official.  He confirmed the shouts of my teammates.

I was blown away.  My first major race in college and I had just won!  I had qualified for the finals!

In the finals the same thing happened.  The competition was a bit stiffer because it was comprised of those who advanced, yet I again went to that familiar place in my mind to shed my nervousness.  I again relaxed and when it was all over I had won the final as well!!

I was elated!

But my journey to Dallas was not finished.  After the win in the 55mHH the official proceeded to reach into his vest pocket and give me an invitation to come later and compete in the night division invitational!

Wow!  The night division invitation I thought.  I get to run again. But in reality… I had no idea what that meant.

Later, I found out that I would be competing against all the people I had emulated and idolized as a hurdler while growing up in Oak Park. I was going to be racing against my heroes Greg Foster, Renaldo Nehemiah, Tony Dees and Roger Kingdom!   Nehemiah had just returned from his stint in the NFL.  I was amazed, honored and mesmerized to be on the same track as them.

I remembered that I had a small disc camera back at the hotel.  I would bring it back so I could take some pictures of my heroes! After all I would be up close and personal with these great hurdlers and I certainly wanted to get some great shots with them.

The night fell over Dallas and the entire indoor arena changed.  There was a transformation in the atmosphere.  Though it remained electric the arena turned into all glitz and glamour.

My invitation pass allowed me to go down under the arena for my warm-up.  I was armed with my track bag, my spikes and my camera.  I saw all of my hero’s warming up.

Ooo, there’s Greg Foster – *(Click); Ooo, there’s Nehemiah (click); Ooo, there’s Roger Kingdom (click).  I began taking photos of them and tried to be very inconspicuous.  I hoped I was getting some really good shots.

After about 30 minutes the starter called all of us out of the warm up area and to our lanes for our respective heats.  I put my camera away and went over to my lane.  I don’t remember what lane I was in, but I do remember to this day the announcer’s introduction.

He was speaking in a voice that was worthy of hyping up any great prize fight.

He began his audience greeting and introduction of athletes something like this.

“Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to the Dallas Morning News Indoor Track and Field Meet.  On the track now is event number 35 the men’s 55mHH.

In LANE FOUR…”He has set the American record at this distance just last week.  He was runner-up at the 1984 Olympic Games in Los Angeles! Please welcome……Mr. Greg Foster!”

In LANE FIVE… “He is your Gold medal winner from the 1984 Games… Please welcome… Mr. Roger Kingdom.”

I was in lane 6 and prepared myself for my big introduction. After all I had just won the collegiate division earlier that day!

“In lane six… John Register, University of Arkansas.”

IN LANE SEVEN!!!

What???  I was mad. How dare the announcer disrespect me like that!  I thought in my mind, I’ll show them!

I jumped up and down to prepare my legs to run and to beat these athletes and show the announcer that he messed with the wrong one today!

The starter called us to our marks.

I placed my hands behind the white starting line just as I had done twice earlier in the day. But this time I was more anxious and a little upset.  I was not relaxed.  External thoughts were clouding my focus.

Carl Gustav Jung says this about our focus being clouded, “Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding about ourselves.”

I was about to understand things in a very definitive way!

“Set.”

When the gun went off I blasted out of blocks and looked up for the first hurdle and it was then that I realized…I was WATCHING the best hurdle race of my life!

I finished DL = Dead Last.  I barely even needed to slow down to hit the high jump stopping pad at the other end of the arena.

I returned to my lane to reluctantly get my time (which, by the way, was worse than both of my times earlier that day). I found a seat off to the side and sat down. I pulled out my camera and then put it back quickly into my bag.  I no longer felt like taking pictures.

My mood was in flux.  I was grateful for having run with the best, but I also wondered why I ran slower tonight than I had done that afternoon.

This is when Jeannette Bolden came over.  I did not recognize her. I just felt her presence in my space.

She did not ask if she could sit down beside me, she just sat down.

The conversation (I mean the butt chewing I took) went something like this:

Jeannette:  “You look a little upset.”

John: “Yeah, I didn’t do too well tonight.”

Jeannette: “I watched you from the time you got on the track until now and I knew you weren’t going to do well?

John: “Huh?”

Jeannette:  “Well, for one thing, you were taking pictures of all those hurdlers instead of getting your warm up done.  You probably thought you were down on this track with your heroes or idols?”

John: “Yep.”

Who is this lady and why was she talking to me?  That is the question that was running through my mind.

Jeannette: “The official who gave you an invitation after your 55m hurdle race this afternoon gave you that invite because they expected you to compete tonight.  And, you wasted that invitation. You should have given it to someone who was going to actually use it.

She never raised her voice. She spoke to me in a very calm yet firm tone.

“Now, what you need to do is go back to Arkansas and develop those photos.  But instead of idolizing the people you want emulate, you need to put them up on a wall and draw bulls-eyes around them and come back here next year and win the whole thing!”

I was speechless.

Jeannette then got up and walked away!

That was my brief encounter with the great Jeannette Bolden.

I didn’t even know her name until Mike Conley asked me later why Ms. Bolden was speaking to me.

The entire conversation took place in less than a minute.  I never saw her again, but her words that evening have stayed with me until this day.

I pondered what she said to me on the long drive back to Arkansas.

When I returned to my dorm room I did as she suggested.  I developed the photos and put my old heroes on my walls as bulls-eyes.  I knew she was right.  I had to stop idolizing those hurdlers and realize that I was now their competitor.  If I was to compete for a spot on the Olympic Team one day I would need to reverse my thinking and not just be their competitor but also their competition.  The last person I needed to compete against was my own limited thinking about my own capabilities.  If I was down on the track with those gentlemen I deserved to be there.

Wherever you are in life, if you are in a situation where you feel either in awe of the people in your presence or you feel intimidated, don’t.  You are in the room. You deserve to be there and your voice matters.

Well, I knew that I never wanted that feeling of being unprepared in my track and field career.  And, from that point on, I was determined to be the best prepared at each meet.

The next year I was off of red-shirt status and was a full-fledged Razorback.

The team went back to the Dallas Morning News track and field meet and I again ran the 55mHH.  This time I was the runner up in the Collegiate Division.  Thank goodness the officials were taking the top two collegiate hurdlers to the night division.

Most of the same hurdlers were in the field from the prior year.  But tonight was different.  I did not bring my camera to the floor.  I did a proper warm-up.  The announcer still skipped over my name like I had taken his granddaughter’s last bottle of formula.  But, I did not care. I was there to compete.

I saw all my heroes from last year warming up and I followed their lead.  I still calmed myself by putting myself in the familiar setting of Oak Park’s field house.

The clerk of the course called us to the floor and ensured we were in our proper lanes.  I set my blocks and took a few run-throughs over the hurdles.

The starter called out for us to take our marks.

I again dropped to my hands and backed my legs up until my feet found the starting pads.

I relaxed, exhaled and lowered my head.

“Set.”

The gun went off and I roared out of the blocks and sprinted to the attack the first hurdle.  I went over it first!  I led for three hurdles and with two hurdles remaining… that is when I again saw the best hurdle race of my life!

But this time I wasn’t DL!  This time I had competed.

The famed Nehemiah was in the second heat and my time was actually faster than his!

Jeannette’s advice paid off in a way I can’t begin to repay.

There are many points that can come out of this story.  But, the one I want to leave you with is this.  People come in and out of our lives.  Some of them make profound impacts on us. They challenge us to change our perspective.

We have unique opportunities to listen to their wisdom and learn from their past experiences to better ourselves.  I have witnessed too many times the person who does not want to hear what they have done wrong because they think it will be little them in the eyes of their peers. Too often we take constructive feedback as a personal attack on our character and not as a learning opportunity.

Jeannette gave me great feedback.  She did it with a firmness that challenged me to grown.  The last thing she did was she offered me a challenge for the next year.  She just didn’t dump on me and then leave.  She offered a solution that was left up to me to implement.

Whatever her reason was for coming over to me that day and speaking those words of encouragement I am grateful for.  She impacted my life in a remarkable way.

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I wanted to tell Ms. Bolden this story for a long time and it was only last year that I mustered up enough courage to call the UCLA Women’s Track and Field office to relay it to her.  She was gracious, but I really don’t think she really remembered the story.

We often do not realize the impact we have on others.  We think our small remarks are just that. But words have the power of life and death. We have to be careful how we craft them so that they are always bringing life to people and building them up.

The point is she inspired me to believe in my talents and abilities based on the work effort that I put into my craft, and more importantly, she made me realize that I was just as important as the ones I was taking pictures of on the track.

Each one of you is valuable and has so much to offer the world!  If you are in a situation where you can offer words of comfort to someone or uplift them – Do It.

Thanks for reading!

Now, Go Forth and Inspire the World!

HOPE and PEACE Through Sport

Hope: Hope is the belief that circumstances in the future will be better.

Last year I asked the following question on Twitter, “Would you ever want to sit down and break bread with the person who hurt you or who altered your life significantly by their actions.  But, in doing so also put you on a path for redefining who you were?

When I had two legs and was a soldier in the U.S. Army I was on the All-Army Track & Field Team.  I had the fortunate experience to qualify for two Olympic Trials.  I competed once in the 110m high hurdles and once in the 400m hurdles.  It was an incredible experience to be ranked as high as 25th in the 110’s and 17th in the 400’s.  It meant I had met the Olympic standard.

Another incredible experience I had was making the Armed Forces Track & Field Team and competing in the World Military Championships, also known as  CISM.  These games, which are for military members only, are hosted in various countries one year prior to the next Olympic/Paralympic Games.

According to Wikipedia, “The International Military Sports Council (IMSC) or Conseil International du Sport Militaire (CISM), established 1948, is one of the largest multidisciplinary organizations in the world. It was founded on 18 February 1948 with Belgium, Denmark, France, Luxembourg and the Netherlands, as its first five members, today, it is the second largest sports body in the world after the IOC, and organizes various sporting events, including the Military World Games and World Military Cup for the armed forces of our 133 member countries.”

The cool thing about CISM is that soldiers who may previously have met on the battle field, now meet in friendship on the sports playing field.  Sports becomes the platform for healing the scars of war.  The CISM motto is, “friendship through sport.”  A motto that profoundly resonates with me.

When I was in Lido di Ostia, Rome, the competition location where the military CISM took place, I was amazed, awestruck, and even stupefied that countries that had fought wars against each other were marching into Opening Ceremony together for a competition on the playing field of sport.  Later,  I saw the same countries breaking bread and eating breakfast or dinner with each other.  I was inspired to say the least.

According to the United Nations Website on Sport for Development and Peace, “Sport has a unique power to attract, mobilize and inspire. By its very nature sport is about participation. It is about inclusion and citizenship. It stands for human values such as respect for the opponent, acceptance of binding rules, teamwork and fairness.”

All one has to do let a soccer ball loose on a field throughout most of  the world and people from all walks of life will come running to play the game.  It does not matter their social status, their class, race, ethnicity, gender or age, they come to play.

But can sport be the platform for larger issues such as war.  CISM seems to have a perspective on this topic that I find fascinating.  Putting teams together that compete in friendship is far better than competing for the high ground against an enemy using live rounds.

Having fought with the U.S. Army during Operation Desert Storm and against the Iraqi Army, I don’t know what my mental state would be if I were to meet up with one of the Republican Guard who might have killed one of my battle buddies.  When my CISM experience happened the Gulf War had not yet kicked off.  So, I can only speculate on what my reactions might have been.

Yet, I do know that soldiers who are engaged in battle fight for their comrades to come home.  They share a common bond of being in the fight together. It is a unique bond of brother and sisterhood that only those who have been in any battle can truly attest too.  And, if a person ever served in a combat zone they (we) do not come back the same.  It does not matter whether that person was in serious skirmishes, a large battle or was out on patrol; war just changes a persons perspective on life.

When I ended my term of service from both the Military and the Civilian sector of the United States Army I found myself in a unique opportunity.  I was  in a place where I would be able to help other injured veterans (as I was helped); overcome their mental, physical and spiritual state after an injury through the use of sport.

This program which started out with a small sports clinic at Walter Reed Army Medical  Center has grown into a vibrant and robust platform for injured military veterans to utilize sport as part of their rehabilitation.

It was then that I thought back to my time at CISM in Lido di Ostia, Rome, and the motto, “Friendship through sport.”  Sports is a powerful platform for bringing people together from all walks of life.  I began to think that with the current conflict / war that was happening in Iraq and Afghanistan, would there be a place for sport in the future to allow healing to come to these warring nations?

Now, I don’t believe that sport in of itself has the power to do it. I just believe it can be used as a tool or platform to enhance the opportunity for change.  It is up to us to change and that change comes from being inspired.

George Bernard Shaw say this about change,

“The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man.”

There are three platforms I believe work to bring solidarity and change.

The first one I have been discussing is sport.

Sport just has a way of creating a safe environment for opposing ideas to be vetted.  Every team wants to be the victor and yet they play (generally within a set of rules).  It is also platform to bring about many social changes.

I think about how China’s doors were re-opened to west by a simple game of ping pong.  Or, how South Africa came into a better state of solidarity after the oppressive rule of Apartheid through World Cup Football (soccer to U.S. folks) as was depicted in the movie “Invictus.”

Sir Ludwig Gutteman first introduced the idea of using sport as a tool for rehabilitation back in 1948.  He is considered the founder of the Paralympic movement. His idea was that sport (the sport of Wheelchair basketball) was perfect for getting soldiers who suffered spinal cord injuries in WWII to advance in life based on the competitiveness of this sport platform.

The second platform for uniting people is music.  Music is a part of every culture. People who play in bands or in orchestras can play anywhere in the world and with anybody who knows how to read music. Even if a person does not know how to read music, they generally can hum a tune on key.

The final platform that brings people together is food.  People have to eat and conversations are always better, or worse, when food is around.

Think about it, when you go out to a new location whether abroad or in the close proximity to where you live, how do you usually describe that location?  Many of us say, “The food was great.” And then the conversation goes on from there.  Food is the third element that brings us together.  Why? Because everyone has to eat!

Check out the “World Peace Festival” that happened on October 1st 2011 in Hawaii.

Now, getting back to CISM.

My thought was similar about the end state of how sports could shape a world. My hypothesis is that the Olympic and Paralympic Games are the closest venues to peace on earth that the world has.

All countries compete under the banner of peace.

Other people exploit this sport banner to advance their own social causes.  They do this because their social cause gets greater attention when focused on an event that draws so many global viewers.

Visa even has a commercial on right now called, “Go World”, which celebrates the commonality of sport in all of us.

So, if the Olympic and Paralympic Games are close to peace on earth, then CISM gets more at the root of countries that have fought against each other and builds a bridge for them to dialogue.

This might be a scenario.  A soldier injured by a roadside bomb or his counterpart, who was also injured in a similar fight on the same battlefield.  Both heal in their respective countries with sport as the mechanism.  They both grow strong and understand that the disability is not in their physical condition, but rather the limitations that only their minds hold for them.

They attend their countries respective sports camps and make the Paralympic team (Games for athletes with physical disabilities and visual impairments).  The CISM games, which comes one year prior to the Paralympic Games hosts and event and these two athletes are competing for their respective counteries.

The two athletes march into the stadium under their nations flag and eventually meet up on the field of play.  They engage in dialogue and discover that they share a commonality:  they were both in the same fight, and both were injured on the same day in the same location.

Later they find themselves breaking bread over dinner and they are able to talk about their experiences with each other through hand gestures, facial expressions and other non-verbal forms of communication.

The physical scars are still visible, yet healed, but the internal wounds are still fresh. And still they are able to talk about their lives to each other and eventually come to a mutual soldiers respect, that the battle is over so the healing can begin.

Some people might be reading and find this as a hard concept to grasp.  Breaking bread with your enemy is very hard and I don’t suggest this blog to be flipped.  But there are examples of solidarity that resonate in this space of soldiers returning to where they once fought to make amends with the damage that was done both physically and emotionally.

The concept of soldiers going back and making peace in the areas they fought is not new.  Soldiers still go back to France and recount the days of WWII and Normandy landing.

Vietnam veterans go back to Vietnam and make amends for the harshness of war that happened so long ago. In our minds we are decades removed, but for many, that experience is still being lived by the minds of those who fought it.

One of the most heroic of all revisits is the story of Lou Zamparini.  You have got to read this guys story. There is a movie coming out about his life as well. This guy went back to make amends with people who used to beat him senseless while he was a prisoner of war!

For the past seven years I have been softly pursuing a gathering of injured veterans like this. A chance for true healing to begin.  The war is over.  The scars remain.  And, scars can heal.  I believe sport has the power to heal some of those scars.  And, it won’t hurt to have some good music and better food to go along with healing process.

Three weeks ago a giant step was taken to make this vision a reality.

So, I ask the question again, “Would you ever want to sit down and break bread with the person who hurt you the most?  Who altered your life and through their actions gave you a new you?”

If soldiers can do it, it begs the question to us all, can we make the first step towards amends with those in our lives who have hurt us the most?

I would enjoy the opportunity to hear your thoughts and opinions on this topic.  Let me know what you think. And, stay tuned, because big dreams may just become giant realities in 2012!

Inspiration from 2008 Olympian and Silver Medalist Emily Silver

Emily Silver (on Twitter @Emily_Silver) never says quit. It is just not in her vocabulary!

At the 2008 Summer Olympics, Silver earned a silver medal swimming in the heats of the 4×100 m freestyle.  But little did she know it was a long painful journey to reach the pool deck on that day.

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Her story of hurdling adversity, like many of us, are filled with highs, lows and everything in between.

You see, after Emily qualified for Beijing in the 100m freestyle and secured a spot on the 4x100m relay at the U.S. Swim Trials she was confronted with a choice. Should she scratch from 50m Freestyle  which was her next event?  She already had accomplished her Olympic dream. A dream that began when she was only 7 years old.  Her finish in the 100 Freestyle had placed her on the team.  Or should she just go ahead and swim it.

She basked in the solace of knowing that her dream had just been realized.  Yet, there was still one more race to go.

Her coach thought that she should swim the 50 meters. After all she did make the qualifying standard and therefore earned a lane in the 50m Prelims

Emily’s final decision was to move forward and swim the 50m Free.

She lined up in her lane for the big race!

2008 Prelims 50m Freestyle

“5o meter Freestyle… Step Up” the starters voice cracked through the still air of the natatorium.

It was the 12 heat of 12 in the Omaha indoor pool.

The 50m freestyle is just a pure sprint.  Like the 100m in track and field, the winner of this race gets bragging rights as the fastest swimmer in the United States.

Emil y stepped up the short ladder to the starting block and shook her arms free.  She adjusted her goggles one last time.  She was in the lane 3 just next  Dara Torres in lane 4 who would later become the oldest swimmer in U.S. History to compete for the Olympic Team.

“Take your mark.” The voice of the starter was low and matter of fact.

She bent over and grabbed the front of the block below her allowing herself to rock slightly backward in order to position herself properly to rocket into the pool.

“Beep” the tone went off an Emily sprung from the platform.  Her lean and muscular 5’11” frame broke the water surface and she slipped below in a perfect streamline (a swimmer’s body position which allows such a shape for moving through the water with the least amount of resistance) and resurfaced with a thunderous kick  while symmetrically churning her arms in rhythmic cadence as she drew near to the end of race.

When she touched the wall with her hand, she looked up and saw that she was in the top of the field and would advance to the semi finals.  She had finished 12th and was 1.07 sec behind Lara Jackson who was the fastest qualifier posting an American Record in the process.

2008 Semi-Finals 50m Freestyle

In the semi’s Emily drew lane one.

The same sequence happened in the semi’s.  The starter called the ladies to their mark and when all were ready, he commanded set, and then the tone sounded.

Emily again went smooth into the water and churned a wake as if she had an outboard motor strapped to the end of her feet.  She pressed herself to make it to the finals. Maybe this would be the day!

She neared the wall and pressed her body forward, head down, goggles down, hand outstretched for the touch against the timing pad!  She extended and when her hand hit the wall she felt excruciating pain.

She had not qualified for the finals.  She finished 12th overall.

She was rushed to the doctors off and told the worst possible news.  She touched the wall on her finish in such a way that her hand broke in two places.

What goes through a persons mind.

She just had the highest of highs making the Olympic Team on the 4x100m Fr Relay.  Her dream realized!  And now, devastation. With just a few short months before the games she has a broken hand.

What did she do?

Well I caught up with this remarkable young lady at Reach the Peak, a program sponsored by the United States Olympic Committee to help potential athletes prepare for the next games, and got her perspective on what she did to get herself ready for the 2008 Olympics Games in Beijing after breaking her hand.

Take a listen to our quick 3:00 min interview to hear the rest of the story!

Enjoy the clip

Paralympian Matt Stutzman aka The Armless Archer (What?)

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Matt Stutzman can change a tire with his bare feet in under 30 seconds!  No Joke!

So what inspires this young rising Paralympian?

Well I caught up with Matt at the TeamUSA BP event in Naperville and asked him.

Check out today’s inspirational clip at http://youtu.be/VznESBXR0Dw.

Lesson from a Wind Miller at a Windmill in Holland

I was in Holland a few weeks ago and had the opportunity to speak with a real life windmiller.

I thought that wind mills in Holland were used for grinding grain or creating some type of power. Boy was I way off base.

The lowest lands in Holland sit about 4 meter below sea level and each of the windmills was used to pump the water out and into dykes.  In 1633 there were about 52 windmills in the region that moved, on a good day, 1000 liters of water every second to pump the water out of fields!

I was inspired by this just because of the sheer ingenuity of the process.  I also learned that each mill had a family that lived inside the windmill at all times because they never knew when the wind was going to come and they had to be ready to turn the sails in the direction of the wind.

Well instead of letting me bore you with these details and writing this out, why don’t I just introduce you to Fred who operates a mill that has been in his family for generations.

Take it away Fred!