MAXSC Blog

Paraphrased from Vince Lombardi

A person can be as great as he or she wants to be.

If you believe in yourself and have the courage, the determination, the dedication and the competitive drive and if you are willing to sacrifice the little things in life and pay the price for the things that are worthwhile, it can be done.

Once a person has made a commitment to a way of life, he or she puts the greatest strength in the world behind them. It’s something called “heart power”.

Once a person has made this commitment, nothing will stop him short of success.

We confide in our strength, without boasting of it; we respect that of others, without fearing it. Thomas Jefferson

Winning graciously is easy. Being dignified in the face of defeat is difficult.

Sometimes the greatest respect you can earn is by the way you respond when your opponents outplay you.

Respect isn’t a right; it is something that is earned.

Respect means never overestimating your abilities. It means never underestimating the abilities of your opponents.

For success in sports and life we must respect others.

Commitment is one of the most important attributes any athlete can possess, a promise that you make to yourself to follow through – to continue in the face of adversity, to reach your goals despite the inevitable hardships.   

Plenty of talented athletes fail because without commitment success is impossible.  Making a commitment requires being accountable. 

Take your commitment to the next level by letting others in on your goals. 

Goals determine what you’re going to be.  Julius Erving

This is true for most things we do.  Our progress in life tends to be consistent with our expectations.  If you expect or believe something - that you are a whiz kid, that you aren’t very likable, that you are a super athlete - you will set in motion many processes that make your expectations come true.   Your level of achievement will rise as your concept of yourself rises.

Think big, think positive, think success.

Most of the great coaches agree – if you make good habits, good habits will make you. Habits – good, bad, or neutral – are difficult to break. Your challenge is to determine the good habits that will make you a successful performer or athlete. Once you identify the desired habits, good training and continual reinforcement are critical for your success.

Food for thought:

I am your constant companion.
I am your greatest asset or heaviest burden.
I will push you up to success or down to disappointment.
I am at your command.
Those who are great, I have made.
Those who are failures, I have made failures
I am your servant.
Who am I?

I am a habit

Paraphrased form Mac Anderson

Belief is the thing that separates average performers from champions.  Champions talk to themselves and tell themselves “they can do it”.  Eventually they believe what they say.

What do you say to yourself?  Does your self  talk help you to achieve your goals or inhibit you from being all you can be?

The thought for this week is “I can do it”.  Make an effort to eliminate all negative thoughts and see what you can accomplish.

One chance is all you need

Jessie Owens.

Savage’s take on it:

Each time you train remember this could be that one chance when you reach your goal. You expect things to get better every time you train but some days nothing works. You feel you are getting worse. This is common and even necessary when you are trying to improve or learn a new or highly technical skill. Your body and mind are adjusting to the new demands being placed on them. This is a time when we are learning and a time when we may make a breakthrough. Think of how many times a baby, who is learning to walk, falls. If they didn’t keep trying they would never learn to walk.

If you aren’t going to go all the way, why go at all.

Joe Namath

Comments:

It is easy to feel down when things aren’t going the way you want them to. But think about how many teams go further than expected because of the will not to give up. If we are going to get involved then we need to decide that no matter how hard, no matter how long, we will give our all until we reach our goal.

Story of the week.

Arthur Ashe grew up in segregated Richmond, Virginia. His physical stature did little to indicate his future career as a professional athlete. “Skinny as a straw,” Arthur derived countless hours of pleasure reading and listening to music with his mother, Mattie. He also showed a surprising flair for tennis from the first time he picked up a racquet. At the age of six, Mattie passed away suddenly. Though heartbroken, Arthur’s memory of his beloved mother was a source of inspiration throughout his life.

Upon graduation from high school, Arthur earned a tennis scholarship to UCLA where he earned recognition for his tennis abilities on a national level, culminating with an individual and team NCAA championship in 1965. In1966 he graduated with a BA in Business Administration.

In 1963 Asne was selected to represent the United States in Davis Cup play, an honor in which he took great pride. In doing so, he also became the first African-American to be selected to play for the United States team. In actuality, Arthur Ashe was a trailblazer for African-American males in tennis every time he succeeded on the court. The relevancy of these accomplishments was not lost on Ashe. His determination to succeed despite being an outcast in a historically white sport was put to an even greater test in 1969.

In 1969 while he was basking in the international fame he had gained the previous year after winning the US Open and playing a key role on the United States winning Davis Cup team, two separate issues came to the forefront and helped shape Arthur the activist, a role he never ran from throughout his life if he believed in the cause. At a time when tennis’ popularity was growing by leaps and bounds, the amount of prize money being offered to the players, the “drawing cards,” was lagging disproportionately behind. Ashe and several other players formed what later became known as the ATP (Association of Tennis Professionals). It is from this small and visionary beginning that today’s top players enjoy the large sums of prize money for which they compete. Later that year, as the #1-ranked American and one of the best players in the world, Arthur applied for a visa to play in the South African Open, a prestigious event. His visa was denied because of the color of his skin. Arthur’s call for expulsion from South Africa from the tennis tour and Davis Cup play was quickly supported by numerous prominent individuals and organizations, both in and out of the tennis world. In effect, he raised the world’s awareness to the oppressive form of government (apartheid) of South Africa. Buoyed by Arthur Ashe’s initial efforts, blacks in South Africa slowly but surely began to see change come about in their country.

As a tennis player, Arthur Ashe was one of the most prominent players of his time; an all-out competitor who rarely beat himself. His legacy, however, will be the positive changes he helped bring about and the causes he championed, both within tennis and in society as a whole.

Comments:

Remember all those who are successful and will be successful in the future encounter difficulties along the way.  They just keep moving on believing that they can accomplish what they set out to achieve.

THE STORY FOR THIS WEEK

Jessie Owens was born September 12, 1913, in Oakville, Alabama, U.S.; he died March 31, 1980, in Phoenix, Arizona.

Jessie was an American track-and-field athlete, who set a world record in the running broad jump (also called long jump) that stood for 25 years and who won four gold medals at the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin. His four Olympic victories were a blow to Adolph Hitler’s intention to use the Games to demonstrate Aryan superiority.

As a student in a Cleveland, Ohio, high school, Owens won three events at the 1933 National Interscholastic Championships in Chicago. In one day, May 25, 1935, while competing for Ohio State University (Columbus) in a Western (later Big Ten) Conference track-and-field meet at the University of Michigan (Ann Arbor), Owens equaled the world record for the 100-yard dash (9.4 sec) and broke the world records for the 220-yard dash (20.3 sec), the 220-yard low hurdles (22.6 sec), and the long jump (8.13 metres [26.67 feet]).

Owens’s performance at the 1936 Berlin Olympics has become legend, both for his brilliant gold-medal efforts in the 100-metre run (10.3 sec, an Olympic record), the 200-metre run (20.7 sec, a world record), the long jump (8.06 metres [26.4 feet]), and the 4 100-metre relay (39.8 sec) and for events away from the track.

One popular tale that arose from Owens’s victories was that of the “snub,” the notion that Hitler refused to shake hands with Owens because he was an African American. In truth, by the second day of competition, when Owens won the 100-metre final, Hitler had decided to no longer publicly congratulate any of the athletes. The previous day the International Olympic Committee president, angry that Hitler had publicly congratulated only a few German and Finnish winners before leaving the stadium after the German competitors were eliminated from the day’s final event, insisted that the German chancellor congratulate all or none of the victors. Unaware of the situation, American papers reported the “snub,” and the myth grew over the years.

Despite the politically charged atmosphere of the Berlin Games, Owens was adored by the German public, and it was German long jumper Carl Ludwig (“Luz”) Long who aided Owens through a bad start in the long jump competition. Owens was flustered to learn that what he had thought was a practice jump had been counted as his first attempt. Unsettled, he foot-faulted the second attempt. Before Owens’s last jump, Long suggested that the American place a towel in front of the take-off board. Leaping from that point, Owens qualified for the finals, eventually beating Long (later his close friend) for the gold.

SAVAGE COMMENTS.

Would you be prepared to spend a lifetime of training for 10 seconds?

The problem is that we never know how close we are to our goals until we reach them. Jessie did not let anything stop him, even discrimination and being publicly snubbed. Another athlete who he was competing against was prepared to help him even though this athlete might lose to him and eventually did. This is the real meaning of sport and of life. Help those you can along the way. You may not win but what you gain will be immeasurable.