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Simons Says

December 12, 2014

As an almost inveterate traveler – one who begins planning his next adventure to sweeten the sadness during the return trip of the current adventure – I took special note of and pleasure in this statement of Eric Simons in his book Darwin Slept Here:
“Optimism may be one of the biggest benefits of travel. When you spend all your time in a small area, trekking back and forth to work, getting all your news on the Internet, it’s easy to think the world is a lot worse off than it is. Then you get out in it, even for a short bit, and you get a summit view or find a friendly person who cares about nature just like you do, and then even when you go home, you remember: Hey, it’s not all bad. We’re really doing ok.”
When I see advertisements that promote travel as an escape, I cannot agree. For me, travel is a change from the daily routine, but it’s hardly an escape. In fact, I see more sights, hear more sounds, smell more scents and taste more flavors when I travel. I interact with countless more people – in airports, markets, parks, museums. But even moments of isolation – perhaps on a remote beach or trail – are somehow richer, more contemplative, when traveling.
It is not escape but engagement with new cultures and customs that travel causes; and it creates opportunities for personal reflection that routine obscures.
As Simons says, “Traveling connects us to the world and renews our capacity to wonder.”

Thinking of Don Quixote

October 10, 2017

The athletic transfer problem is not confined to high schools alone. Recently, the National Collegiate Athletic Association has had a work group studying the NCAA transfer rule for Division I institutions.

The problem has been of particular concern in Division I men’s basketball where more than 20 percent of scholarship players changed schools between last season and this.

The work group appeared to have narrowed its study to two options: Make every transfer student ineligible for one year; OR, Allow every transfer student immediate eligibility. And the second option seemed to have had the early momentum.

But last Wednesday, the work group announced that the proposal to grant immediate eligibility to transfer students who meet certain academic standards will not advance during the current NCAA legislative cycle. Two days later the report was corrected: there's still a chance for change by 2018-19.

Major college conference commissioners and NCAA leadership have surveyed the landscape. They see athletes arriving on their college campuses from an environment where, if they weren’t happy with a team, they changed teams.

Apparently, the non-school, travel team attitude is bigger than the NCAA may want to battle.

Yet here we are, thinking of how to wage war on athletic transfers in high schools.