Should My Son Play Football?

A lady stopped me this week and asked me "should I let me son play football?"  She went on to add "with all the injuries and concussions, I just don't know if I should let him."  Her son is really, really wanting to play football.  Flag football just isn't enough.  He wants to play "real" football.

Now, I happen to think that flag football is a great game and a great place for kids to start. It teaches fundamentals and gets kids out and moving in an activity that is downright fun.  I know.  I had two grandsons that just completed their second season.

But this little guy wants to put on the uniform and tackle somebody.  I faced a similar dilemma when my own son was growing up.  He had played T-ball and soccer but he wanted to play football.

I really wanted to hold him out until Middle School.  It wasn't that I didn't like the game available to 9 and 10 year olds, it was more about what I thought might be in store for him.  You see, he was always a big kid.  And football was a big part of our family's life and history.

I sort of knew he would play football (he did).  My hesitation to let him play wasn't about injuries but about burnout.  I was afraid that if he started so young, by the time he got to high school, he would be tired of playing football.  My game.  The game I loved.  The game that had given me so much.

So when he turned 9, I agreed to let him play.  From that point on until an injury ended his college career, he played the game that I loved.  Did he burnout?

Huh-uh.  Didn't happen.  He loved the game.  And despite a career cut short by a catastrophic injury, he still loves the game.  I asked him one time, the way his last season ended, if he would still play football.  He would prefer that it not have ended the way it did (a badly broken leg) but he has no regrets.

And I happen to believe that the good man that he has become is in no small part due to his experiences in football.  He took away all the things that team sports offer you.  He learned from the physical demands of the game.

 He was around some great men in the game.  David Ellis.  Tommy Bowden.  Tim Hammontree.  Men who demanded more of him.  Men who were more concerned with who he was as a young man than who he was as a football player.

But let me get back to this lady's question.  Would I be concerned about my grandsons playing football?  Sure.  Injuries can be devastating.  Concussions are serious business.  I've dealt with them way too much this fall.

I also know that we are much better at dealing with injuries and concussions.  Not that many years ago, if you "got your bell rung," once you seemed OK and knew where you were, back in the game you would go. 

Not now.  No way.  You are done until we can prove that you are OK.  I believe that in the long run, the way we do things now is going to result in far fewer incidences of the terrible and long term manifestations of injury.  I believe that modern sports medicine is going to mean that you recover more fully when those injuries occur. 

I believe that in a lot of aspects, football is safer.  We have athletic trainers and trained professionals at many of those games and available to most everybody.  Smarter decisions are being made.

But would I still worry if one of those grandsons plays football? Yes.  For sure.  I can't lie.  But I won't stand in the way.  How could I deny them the opportunities that I have had?  That my son has had? 

Take Care of Your Skin

I already know what my wife is going to say when she reads this.  "It's time for you to write about something besides yourself."

Just last week, I wrote about the strength training and fitness program that works for me in "Enough is Enough."  Not long ago, I bragged about my grandchildren, which are the best ever (just like yours).

But today really isn't about me.  It's about you.  It's about cancer and taking care of yourself and living long and well.  And this isn't about older people either.  It's about everybody.  More on that later.

So here's the story.  I went to the dermatologist this week.  I try and go every year.  I had a couple of places that needed to come off.  I also scheduled this blue light thing where more accurate mapping and diagnosis can be made.

I'm out in the sun a lot.  I keep a pretty good tan year round.  This time of year, I'm outside from 3 until dark-thirty all week, covering football practice.  Toss in time on the bicycle, yardwork/farmwork, and all the other outdoor stuff I do...well, you can see that I get a lot of sun exposure.

I use sunscreen all the time.  Check the desk in my training room in the MHS football stadium.  I guarantee you will find several different sunscreen containers.  During all this outdoor stuff, you will usually see a hat on my head.  I also like to wear a bandana around my neck.

Skin cancer is bad.  Melanoma is aggressive and can be fatal.  Other types of skin cancers that are untreated can become Melanoma.    It is likely that a lot of other cancers started with skin cancer and then moved elsewhere. 

Identified early and treated, most skin cancer is completely treatable.  Early identification means regular visits to the dermatologist.  I signed up quickly for that blue light thing because I have a lot of moles and dark places and because mapping of those things is a pretty inexact science.

But a whole lot better idea is prevention.  Protect your skin and it is far less likely that you will develop skin cancer.   Prevention starts at birth.  There is no age too young to be concerned about skin health.  There is no such thing as a healthy tan.  It's just unavoidable with a lot of people.  People who work outside.  People who play outside. 

And goodness gracious, don't you burn!   The trauma to your skin from that can and will come back to haunt you years later.  Just don't let it happen.

Wear sunscreen when you're outdoors.  Always.  Winter and summer.  Winter sun reflecting off of snow is just about as bad as summer sun reflecting off the beach. 

Wear a hat.  Cover yourself up.   Especially protect areas that seem to get more exposure, like your nose, the tops of your ears, and (especially for the follicly-challenged) the top of your head.

The old saying "an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure" is so true when it comes protecting your skin.  And be sure and make that annual visit to your dermatologist. 

Enough is Enough

I may be something of an anomaly.  OK...I guess I am for sure.  I get credit for a lot of things that I'm not but I am doggedly persistent in the pursuit of good health.   

I got an interesting  question this week.  It wasn't a rhetorical question either.  A fellow stopped me in our gym and asked me "when is enough enough?"

In the context of strength training, when do you quit adding weight?  When do you stop aspiring to lift more and more weight?   Do you exercise 3 days a week?  5 days a week?

When is enough (weight, exercise, dieting, healthy living...and on and on) enough?  I'll go ahead and tell you now that for me it is 7 days a week.  The pursuit of good health doesn't take a rest day.

I eat smart.  I ride my bike.  I do yoga.   I do strength training for my health and my performance (more on that in a minute).  I lift weights because as we age, we lose muscle mass rapidly unless we do something about it.

I still live an active lifestyle.  I hike, ride, paddle, and work on my small farm.  I work long hours and chase grandchildren around.   I don't see myself slowing down any time soon.  The rocking chair is definitely not calling my name.

I am determined to stay active.  65?  Yep, that's my next one.  Medicare eligible.  Doesn't mean a thing.  75?  Surely I'll still be riding my bike, maybe even whipping around these hills on my mountain bike.

I want to be one of those old guys that are described as "robust," defying their age.  I hope to prove that age is still just a number.  So I do a lot of stuff now that helps me reach that goal.   And I've been doing that stuff for most of my life.

So back to lifting weights.  Twice a week, as regular as rain, I'm in the gym.  My particular choice of strength training is CrossFit, mostly because it works for me.  It is also incredibly efficient so it fits my busy lifestyle.  But CrossFit is just a form of High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) that has lots of names and faces. It works for me. 

I do lifts now that at 40 I never thought I would do again.  Like deadlifts.  And squats.  Lots of pushups and pullups.  And that's where this thing started.  I simply do not aspire to lift heavier and heavier weights.  On days that I'm feeling really good, I might add 10 or 20 pounds but my weight amounts stay essentially the same. 

I'm not interested in building muscle mass.  Because of my time on the bicycle, I have to be real concerned with strength-to-weight ratio.  These little 120 pounders can zoom up hills while I drag 60 more pounds up the same hills, usually far behind.  And there is no doubt that the fitness level that I get from CrossFit training helps me perform on the bike. 

I'm pretty happy with where I am right now.  Bigger biceps won't do a thing for me.  It's not exactly a "maintenance" program.  As I said before, age brings muscle loss.  And yes, maybe you have to fight harder to keep what you have.  But I'm a firm believer that persistence is the key.

You can't see-saw up and down, exercising regularly for a few months then taking a few months off.  That doesn't work for anything--exercise, diet, health habits.  Not if you want to live long and stay healthy. 

As for me, I want to be healthy, happy, and riding my bicycle well into my 90's.  Stay tuned.

Thank you, Mrs. Upton

More bad news this week.  I received word that Mrs. Geraldine Upton was gone.  I've written about Mrs. Upton here a couple of times through these many years.   I actually sort of wrote the same story twice.

I was a big fan of Mrs. Upton--I considered her a friend and a guide.  I appreciated Mrs. Upton not only for what she meant to the many, many students that she impacted in her role as teacher and guidance counselor but for the impact she had on me.

She changed my attitude on race relations and role models.  To put it most simply, she taught me the importance of being able to find a place where you weren't always in the minority.  Whether it be your church, your school, your friends, your neighbors, anywhere--she taught me that everyone needs to have a place where they look around and see people that are more like them.

Now this can be about how you think, how you look, what your interests are...many different things.  Minorities can be found in lots of different places.

Maybe it's how someone dresses or the purple in their hair or simply that they talk with an accent not found much around here. 

Take the kid (or the adult) that is into computer games.  If that is all that they are interested in, on some level that has to be OK.   But others might see them as different and as such they become a bit of a minority.  If they have a place to go where others have the same interests, they often find a home.

Who knows, they may go on to invent all sorts of things and become a billionaire and all. 

Now before you jump on me for minimizing the concept of being a minority, let me tell you that I know with absolute certainty that racial minorities are the most discriminated against segment of our population.  And that inequities and prejudice are still around us.

But what Mrs. Upton taught me was that we need to put ourselves in the shoes of others, to see the world from someone else's perspective.  Too often, when you look around and everyone around you is different from you, you feel you have nowhere to go.

A community, a group where you aren't in the minority becomes a safe haven, a comfort zone if you will.  I'm certainly not advocating  that anyone isolate themselves in that zone.  We have to live in the real world.  We have to deal with the world on its terms.  But isn't it nice to be home every once in a while?

The other thing Mrs. Upton taught me was the importance of role models.  Everyone needs someone to look up to, someone to admire and emulate.  Not long ago I talked about looking next door for your heroes.  Same thing for your role models.

But when those role models don't exist, what do you do?   We all have a responsibility to be THAT role model, to be THAT person.   You never know who might be looking at you wishing "I want to be just like him."

Know what it is like to live in a world where everyone seems different from you.  And BE the role model that you might not have had. 

Thank you Mrs. Upton.

Making a Life

It dawned on me the other day.  We (I) have to take time to do some things because they are good for us.

I'm not talking about diet and exercise.  Goodness knows I've talked about that plenty (although I don't intend on shutting up on those topics anytime soon--not with the recent announcement that America has hit an all time high for percentage of people with obesity).

No, I'm talking about the little things in life.  Little things that make a life.

A buddy of mine had told me about taking his lunch hour and going home and reading on his back porch during a driving rain.   I stopped to think--I can't remember the last time I read a good book.  I guess it was when I was on vacation.  I usually manage to read there.

And sitting watching the rain?  That was probably on vacation too.  Maybe waiting on the rain to stop so I could head to the beach.

I think everybody needs to stop and watch the rain.   Maybe ponder life's meaning.  At the very least think about what your own life means.

It just doesn't seem to happen for me.  You see, I work all the time.  It's football season so my job runs to about 60 hours a week.  And we've done a major renovation on our house which is still not completely finished.  Add in the short amount of time that I've got to do yardwork/farmwork and you can see that when I say I work all the time, it really is pretty true.

I'm not whining.  I choose all this.  But I do realize my shortcomings--the mistakes I make every day.  And I understand the choices that I make and the consequences on my life and my health.

But I know with absolute certainly that I (we) need to take the time to read good books.  And have long conversations.  Take long walks.  Listen to good music.

There have been a lot of great traveling exhibits at the Knoxville Museum of Art.  It seems like I always have these great plans to visit KMA yet I can remember only once in a long time that I have actually followed through on those plans.  And it was closed that day.

We need to sleep in every once in a while.  I do it occasionally but sleep is not one of my vices.  I'm getting a bit more than I used to but I'm still up at 4 most mornings.  Even on vacation, I'm usually up, maybe paddleboarded a bit, swam some laps, and still back to the condo before anybody else in the family gets up. 

We need to tell the people in our lives that we love them or, if the words are too difficult for you to say out loud, show them.  At least tell them that you appreciate them.  They might be gone tomorrow.

Go for a ride, call an old friend, do something completely out of your comfort zone.  Promise yourself that today you're going to do it.  Don't be so busy making a living that you fail to make a life.

Handling Adversity

Down by 10 and your best scorer just fouled out.  What do you do?  Trailing by two touchdowns late in the game and your quarterback goes down with an injury.  How do you respond?

Do you concede defeat?   Do you give up?  Or do you respond by playing harder, by giving more of yourself? 

What do you do when faced with adversity?  How do you behave?  When things go wrong, how do you respond?

The high school football game that I most remember from my own playing days was one that we lost.  A close game, back and forth.  Our best defensive player went out with an injury early in the game.  We messed up the coverage and allowed a punt return for a touchdown.

With the best efforts of both teams--it came down to the last seconds of the game.  Probably the better team won.  I don't know.  I do believe I gave it my very best effort.  It was likely my personal best game in high school and the best game for my team.  (BTW, the team we were playing was MHS, who won the state championship a few games later.)

The bottom line is that in most games adversity is going to happen.  Somebody misses an easy shot on goal.  A fumble or interception.  A double fault.  Missing a gimme putt.

How you respond tells a lot about the strength of your character, about your integrity. 

A lot of it depends on your mindset, how you approached the game.  I've seen teams that take the field or court with a confidence in themselves, in their ability as a team or as an individual to respond to adversity, that nothing can shake them.

They might fall behind early.  Those bad things might happen.  But they fight through it.  Sometimes it brings out the best in them.

Your level of commitment has a lot to do with it.  How committed are you?   How determined are you?  Are you willing to sacrifice for what is best for the team?

I played defensive tackle for most of one game in high school.   We had injuries to our first four defensive tackles.  We were behind in a game and as a linebacker, our defensive tackles were getting me killed.   I went to my coach and asked him to let me play tackle. 

He did. Now keep in mind that I was a little bigger than I am now, but not much.  And lined up across from me was an offensive lineman headed to the University of Kentucky.  I have no memory of really how I did.  Oh, in my mind, I think I did fine but true memories fade. 

I do know that we were behind in that game but made a comeback and made it a great game.  And I don't know what part I might have played in that comeback other than the fact that I was willing to give up my natural spot (linebacker) to try and help the team.  I'd like to think that was my shining moment.

The bottom line is that when adversity comes your way, in life and in sports, don't you quit.  Keep fighting.  Allow it to become YOUR shining moment.

John Greenleaf Whittier's poem Don't Quit says it best.  "And many a failure comes about when he might have won had he stuck it out."

Who are your heroes?

We've had plenty of opportunity to find heroes lately.  I'm betting that only a tiny bit of the heroism displayed during the recent shooting in Las Vegas has come out.  People helping people during all the hurricane activity we've had has been all over the news.

If you ask a youngster who their heroes are, you are likely to get  a sports star.  Maybe a few movie stars or rock stars but sports will dominate the list.

When I was growing up, during the dawn of the Space Age, it might have been an astronaut.  I thought John Glenn must be the coolest guy ever.  I liked The Beatles but I didn't want to be them.  And I never saw them as heroic.

So, what is the definition of hero? To answer that question,  I did what everyone does...I Googled the term.  Google says " a person who is admired or idealized for courage, outstanding achievements, or noble qualities."  Wikipedia describes a hero as (and I paraphrase here) " is a person...who, in the face of danger, combats adversity through feats of ingenuity, bravery, or strength, often sacrificing their own personal concerns for a greater good.

Going Old School, Webster's said "a person admired for achievements and noble qualities." 

So who fits those definitions?  Astronaut Scott Kelly maybe.   Not only has he been to space multiple times, when his wife, Congresswoman Gabby Giffords was shot, he was there for her.  I heard Kelly speak one time and wanted to run out and change the world.

Once upon a time, I thought Lance Armstrong was heroic.  Beat cancer.  Won the Tour de France over and over.  Established the Livestrong Foundation (for which I dutifully wore the yellow arm band).

Then we found out the truth about him.  And we find out that maybe he isn't really a very nice person either.  He did accomplish more for cancer research than just about anybody and he did win bike races in an era when everyone was cheating just like him but heroic?  Not anymore.  Not to me anyway.

Who are your heroes?  Who do you admire the most?  Who do you see as being all those things that we attribute to being heroic?

I'm going to jump to my real point here.  I believe that you need to look for your heroes right here, where you live.  Not on TV.  Not in the movies.  Not on the basketball court or football field. 

 Look for someone that you know, someone that you  have looked in the eyes and seen who they really are.   Someone that has walked the walk and you've seen them do it.

The neighbor that changes your neighborhood.  The law enforcement officer that is out there every day making the world safer and better.  The fireman that runs into a burning house to save a child, putting their own life at risk.  Soldiers defending our country and the defenseless around the world.

The public servant or political office holder that stands up for what is right, even when it isn't popular or politically expedient (maybe especially so).  The family that takes in children that don't have many options.

Admire the person who took a bullet for somebody else.  Or dragged others to safety.  They deserve our praise and admiration.  But I think we need heroes that we can reach out and touch.   Everyday heroes that do the right thing, day in and day out, even when no one is watching.

So...who are your heroes?