Clemson Memorial Stadium. 28 people in the Clemson University athletic department tested positive ... [+]
If you love the games let’s not push the players.
I love live sports. I crave the sights and sounds of competition. And I can’t stand to watch another replay of the 2017 American Cornhole League Championships. In fact, it’s been so long since I watched sports, I will need to retrain my fingers to find ESPN on the TV remote. But as we enthusiastically hope for the chance to fill up the stadiums and arenas again without the trusty masks and gloves, we must make sure we’re doing the right thing. We must make sure that our enthusiasm isn’t merely impatience.
Legendary UCLA head basketball coach John Wooden famously said, “Never mistake activity for ... [+]
Whenever I need clarity, I often find refuge in the words of my greatest mentor, Hall of Fame UCLA basketball coach John Wooden. He’s the sage I turned to whenever things were tough—he always had great quotes like this one: “Never mistake activity for achievement.”
As our efforts begin to shift towards emerging through this pandemic, we must make sure we don’t mistake action (or time) for progress. The past 100+ days will have all been for naught if we end up with an exponential increase in COVID-19 infections. I don’t have all the answers, but some places are figuring it out faster than others… And other places are finding out the hard way faster.
The desire to bring back college football pushed the NCAA into a June 8th date to allow players to return to campus. The truth is, many never left, continuing to work out. And now, in that sport alone, the rush of activity has snowballed into reports of our biggest fear. Defending national champion LSU has quarantined at least 30 of their 115 players. The players reportedly frequented a string of nightclubs near the school’s campus where the Louisiana Department of Health recently announced more than 100 positive tests for the coronavirus among patrons.
Defending national champion LSU has quarantined at least 30 of their 115 players. (Photo by Don Juan ... [+]
The Clemson Tigers—the runners-up in the National Title game reportedly had 28 people in the athletic department test positive for the coronavirus after returning to campus this month. Add another 13 players from the University of Texas, another 14 athletes at Kanas State University, 10 at Iowa State, 8 at Alabama—the list goes on and on.
In fact, the new norm at Ohio State University is that football players must sign a waiver acknowledging they may be exposed to COVID-19 and other infections, before being allowed to return to campus for workouts.
The NFL has at least 10 different teams with at least 1 player or coach testing positive including Pro Bowl running back Ezekiel Elliott of the Dallas Cowboys.
I hope that in our enthusiasm to get out and into a better place, we aren’t endangering more.
Again, I don’t know what the answer is, but I hope and pray that as we all are making choices—and each of us gets to make them—that we’re doing so with the full goal of achievement, not just activity. I imagine Coach Wooden would’ve advised us to use the current circumstance as time to meticulously focus on the details. He’d tell us to remove the wrinkles from our socks and lace our sneakers up correctly; to revisit the steps we previously skipped in our respective checklist. And then he’d reflect on each activity with a keen eye towards whether it effectively prepared us to achieve more.
Despite the recent spikes in coronavirus cases nationwide, I’m enthusiastic about emerging from this pandemic prepared with a better business, a stronger work ethic, and a series of lofty, yet attainable goals. I also refuse to let this pandemic’s inconvenience to my business model and family life push me into a space where life-changing decisions are made out of impatience. The ultimate achievement should always be that we move forward healthy… and together.
