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Sounds of Silence
April 12, 2015
I write in the early morning hours for the same reason birds sing then – it’s quiet. Birds can hear their voices, and I can hear my thoughts.
It is during the uncontested moments of the day that I can try out ideas – test them on paper. Yes, on paper! My most creative and productive process still employs a legal pad, a pencil and an eraser. The physical process of writing the words, looking at them, and often erasing what doesn’t make sense to my mind or sound right to my ear as I read it aloud.
The task of written communication has become more difficult during the four decades I’ve been engaged in this enterprise. While the work has become more complex and requires more nuanced discussion, the space available for careful comment has been reduced. Pretending cleverness or profundity, texts and tweets often do more harm than good to promote creative and productive discourse.
I am rarely provided the luxury of long-form journalism in this modern age. Even a “feature” article in a prestigious national professional journal is expected to be less than 1,500 words.
Modern scribes must boil down complicated matters to brief blogs like this one, hoping in a few short paragraphs to share an insight worth reading and to suggest a response worth doing.
The insight here? Silence is golden.
The suggested response? Seek a solitary space to describe and defend what it is that you hear in that silence.
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The Most Important Decisions
October 13, 2015
During the course of contests, coaches and officials make many mistakes – not as many as spectators might think, of course – but mistakes certainly do happen. In the heat of competition, most are quickly forgotten.
Those mistakes that occur near the end of games or are caught on camera can live longer than dozens of more consequential decisions earlier in the event that might later be determined to be incorrect in the 20/20 hindsight of “Monday morning quarterbacking.” But it is extraordinarily rare that any decision during a contest defines a career, or ends it.
No, the decisions that do most to damage, detour or destroy a coaching or officiating career are those made away from the contest. A bad impulse during a social outing, indiscreet comments or conduct caught on video and sent worldwide overnight, or an inappropriate email or website search ... these are the decisions that end up defining the career.
The stakes may be higher for decisions made away from the sport by coaches and officials than the decisions they make in the athletic arena. Every week’s sports news tells me this is correct. Hundreds or even thousands of people may witness a judgment call during a contest, while millions upon millions will be exposed to poor judgment exercised away from the contest.