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A volcano is causing disruption and destruction in Hawaii.  People have known that some sort of eruption would come, but not when or where.  It’s like that in sports – eruptions can come, and we know they will, but we never know when or where.  This is why the “mental” part of sports is so…

Barbara Bush died last week after a long and good life.  Everyone seemed to agree that she was the “captain” of the family team, the chief motivator, and the “enforcer.”  How do you think that she reflected the tenets of the Code?  What are the values that she represented that you most admire? What is…

Let’s be clear: fighting is childish.  It means you have lost control of your emotions, which is what happens to children, not adults.  Fighting is childish: it means you believe that violence is the proper solution to a problem.  Fighting is childish: it means you believe that it makes you “a tough person.”  All of…

Phil Coyne has been an usher for the Pittsburgh Pirates for 81 years.  And now, at age 99, he has decided to retire.   Last year on his birthday the Pirates gave him a special numbered uniform – 99!  He’ll turn 100 in a couple weeks, and except for the need for a cane, he’s as…

Anyone who has ever shot a basketball has said to her or himself (or out loud) 3 – 2 – 1 and shot the ball to win the game theoretically. Notre Dame’s Arike Ogunbowale did that not once but twice to win the semi-final and then the National Championship game for her team. I doubt…

“What would you do?”    … if you broke a window and no one saw, or if you told someone you would help him or her, but then had an opportunity  to do something that was more fun – would you still help?  Here’s a true story that just happened: an Italian soccer player, David Astori,…

One of those stories that is worth repeating is what was done by Iowa basketball guard Jordan Bohannon, who missed a free throw on purpose against Midwestern so that he would remain tied with the late Chris Street for the longest streak of free throws made in school history: 34. Street died in a car…

It has always been considered poor sportsmanship to “run up the score” against a clearly inferior opponent, or to add on unnecessary points against an opponent at the end of a game when the outcome is already determined.  The recent high school basketball game in which one team beat the other by 86 points brought…

The founder of the modern Olympic games, Pierre de Coubertin, said, “The important thing in the Olympic Games is not to win, but to take part; the important thing in Life is not triumph, but the struggle; the essential thing is not to have conquered but to have fought well.”  Do you agree with this? …