"He can dunk it with his eyebrows"

Tuesday, November 20, 2012
Yesterday’s workout had left me a little sore, but feeling good about myself.  I felt I needed only a run this Tuesday evening as I began final calorie-burning plans for my Thanksgiving feasting.  It became a 40-minute run with my achilles basically pain-free.  Maybe I’ve turned the corner on that injury, though I know it means another is coming somewhere on my body and real soon.  Been there.

I went to meet with Jack’s teachers for conferences and again brought up his athleticism with his history teacher who happens to coach baseball.  I told him about Jack’s basketball skills and that “someone ought to point him out to the head basketball coach.” 

“He can throw a ball through a brick wall, too,” I said.  “I’ve got a pretty good arm still and he makes me look anemic.”

“Well…you should tell him to come out for the team,” he said.

Now…this is from a guy who has Jack in class every day.  If I ever had the opportunity to coach, I’d be the kind of guy who would be scouring the halls and gym classes looking for the next great athlete who would take my team to the state championships.  Maybe I think differently and you should just sit back and wait for who shows up, but I’d want every advantage I could possibly have…and I like nothing more than discovering talent for and in kids that had no clue.  I’d also told him how Jack could shoot the lights out with a basketball and asked him how many kids could dunk in the school without a running start.

“That would be none,” he said, but added, “though a coach would have no way of knowing a kid’s talent just seeing him in the halls.”

I suppose if I were the basketball coach of a perennially mediocre team and I saw some lean, muscular, 200-pound kid walking down the halls and towering over the rest of the class, I’d pull him aside and ask him to show up to the gym sometime after school.  That’s me…call me crazy.

Run Duration:  40 minutes.
Training Heart Rate: 140 bpm.
Calories burned during workout: 700.