Reads For This Week -- Interconnectedness

My favorite reads this week are all in some way connected; actually better that I say they are interconnected.

Dartmouth Alumni Columnist, at 100 Years Old, Is Still Looking for New Stories WSJ January 27th 2015
Edward Gerson is a centurion who writes the alumni notes for the Dartmouth Class of 1935, and in that class there are only 3 guys left. Mr. Gerson has been writing these class notes for 14 years and as the news from classmates lessened due to death, Mr. Gerson turned his column into pulpit for his thoughts and beliefs. The impression you get from these thoughts is he is not giving up on life. In one note written recently he advised "we cannot continue to hide our heads in the sand" when it comes to corruption in our society. Or another time when he suggested a new political party whose motto is "We Listen. Enough Said." The article made me smile. Despite a handful of people left in his class, Mr. Gerson redefined his audience and look what happened next. His attempts to tell the world his thought leads to a feature in the Wall Street Journal! It is an optimistic view on life from a person who has lived fully but still wants to struggle with our world's problems from an assisted living facility in California. It is the ultimate statement to connect with each other and Never Give Up!

Which brings me to read number two.

The Shrink on the Sideline WSJ January 27 2015
I am cheering for the Seattle Seahawks this weekend. There are a whole bunch of reasons why which I might post on Sunday. But, in part, it is the recognition by the team and their coach, Pete Carroll, that relationships are important. Long before meeting Michael Gervais --  who after this article will become the guru of the moment -- Coach Carroll knew that relationships influenced game outcomes. Gervais's approach won over Carroll and now Gervais roams the locker room and sidelines of the Seattle Seahawks during game weekends. He encourages mindfulness. He encourages players to look for the root causes of personal and professional issues -- maybe a bad relationship with their Dad. But mostly, he tries to get players to be present. A present mind is undistracted by off field problems and better able to connect with teammates. Although outcomes hover over all NFL teams, the Seahawks believe that strong relationships are the central part of the process that will ultimately create the results they want. Mr. Gervais, a former competitive surfer, insures that this happens. With the Seahawks about to win their second consecutive Super Bowl -- I believe -- you can't argue with the emphasis. But once again, here is a team whose strong positive connections with each other is leading to excellence.

Which brings me to read number three.

Moonshot Medicine Will Let Us Down -- NYT -- January 29, 2015
This op-ed written by Mayo Clinic physician Michael Joyner is a critique of a line item in the Obama administrations budget. That budget in part hopes to fund research into genetic variants whose identification might save us from some sort of terrible disease and ultimately reduce health care costs too. However, Dr. Joyner argues that the science is just not their to justify the cost and that a better way to approach long term health care is to examine how we interact with our culture and society. As Dr. Joyner concludes "ultimately we all have more control over how much we exercise, eat, drink, and smoke then our genomes." I like Dr. Joyner's approach and once again how much we exercise, eat, drink and smoke have a lot to do with connecting with others and the structure of our community.

Which brings me to read number four and back on topic for what this blog mostly focuses on -- Youth Sports.

How We Got Here -- Youth Sports Today -- Vern Gambetta
My friend and mentor Vern Gambetta is in the midst of writing a book on long term athletic development. I agree with him that there is a lot to be concerned about in Youth Sports today. There is too much emphasis on club sports which has led to introduction of complicated sports skills too early in life, seasons that never end, and specialization creating athletes who are one trick ponies and vulnerable to overuse injuries. This post is an historical overview which explains how Coach Gambetta sees how we got to this point. The loss of the teacher coach -- especially the PE teacher coach -- was a big turning point.

Which brings me to my final read of the week which is actually over a year old.

In the last year, I read about the death of Jack Richards. Mr. Richards, as I knew him, was part of my life for only one school year. He was a long time teacher, coach and administrator at Phillips Academy Andover where I spent my last year of high school. He was my track coach and I was a friend of his daughters. When I reflect on why I became a teacher, I often think of Mr. Richards. I just thought he had it all figured out. He was a man of tremendous grace. A great athlete in his prime -- Captain of the Harvard University track team -- he carried that athletic grace the rest of his life. In his career besides teaching and coaching, he also served the institution as the Dean of Students, Dean of Faculty and on going dorm parent. When I knew him he was teaching, coaching, a dorm parent and Dean of Faculty. He was the quintessential triple threat plus. His obituary is here. John Richards, Teacher Coach at Phillips Academy When I read about Jack Richards life I am not only in awe of what he was able to accomplish in education but also the number of people he influenced.

Which brings me back to some reflections on the articles of this week.

The world seems like it doesn't make guys like Jack Richards anymore. Or maybe given the way schools and communities are, you just can't be a Jack Richards. Instead you have to look to a specialist. You have to hire a guy like Michael Gervais to remind you that relationships are important. Mr. Richards was a teacher, coach, administrator who could create relationships innately because he was connected to so many different worlds in his community. He taught in the classroom, he coached in the afternoon, he worked in the dorms, he interacted across disciplines as an administrator. That led to an overall understanding of the ultimate mission of the community he devoted his life to.

We are losing that. In lots of fields, if you read Coach Gambetta or Dr. Joyner's reads this week, we may have lost that sense of the connectedness of our communities.

But then there are guys like Mr. Gerson out there. At 100 years old quietly writing his Dartmouth class notes to what seems like an audience of three. As he reminds us "its time we get our heads out of the sand." Our communities are important. The era of specialization may have some strengths. But ultimately even the defending Super Bowl Champs know, you can't make true progress without understanding and appreciating each other. The power of interconnected relationships seemed to have been innately understood by the greatest generation.

Thanks for reading my rant today! Go Seahawks!