growing up as an only child, playing organized sports, hockey to be exact, was one of the few ways i truly had the opportunity to learn how to look after my people, to work as a unit, to support when i needed to support, and shine when i needed to shine.  protect the goalie, pass the puck, clear the crease, and oh boy does a hat-trick make you feel like a superstar.

i’m a wramblin’ wreck from georgia tech (way to cockblock on thursday!).  no, i didn’t go to gt, and no, i didn’t play college football, but i was born right across i-75/85 from gt while my father was a graduate student there and there are pictures floating around the house of me wearing yellow jacket onesies.  found my 1990 national championship commemorative coke bottle today… buuuuZZZZZZZZZZ. i was reading this article on friday morning to get set for opening weekend and it made me think of the life lessons we can carry from this fall’s college football season.  with that said, i present to you this years life lessons from college football (or the 3 cons of ’08 ncaa football):

confidence
georgia tech’s new head coach, paul johnson, has taken a lot of media flack for his option offense. it never worked on Bo Jackson’s Hit and Run for Gameboy, so why should it work against the ACC?  there’s also the argument for the option offense and it seems to have worked “(Against Jacksonville State.)”, but no matter how the jackets do this season, it takes a leader that says we can and will make this work.

johnson’s players have cited the coach’s confidence as a major factor. senior LT andrew gardner said he was “surprised at [coach's] almost defiant confidence in his own system, just the level of, ‘i don’t give a [hoot] what people think about this, it’s going to work. if you don’t want to be here, get the [heck] out.” in an NYT article gardner is quoted for saying ““[coach] is incredibly confident, the most confident coach I have been around, bordering on cocky… every day, you hear about people questioning whether this offense is going to work on this level, and I think he gets tired answering questions about it because he knows it will work.”  get ‘er done, coach!

consistency
texas is just one of those schools that makes you wish you went there.  how cool would it be to be a longhorn?  longhorns head coach mack brown’s motto for the team this year: “consistently good to be great”.  the slogan is emblazoned on orange wristbands around every coach and player’s wrists and sounds strikingly similar to aristotle’s “quality is not an act, it is a habit.”

he says it’s not just the motto for the football field… it’s for everything.  consistently good in class so the players can graduate… consistently good in the community… and every player on the team has their own personal meaning for what the motto means to them.  the general idea is when you’re consistently good you’re more prone to have those moments of greatness.  cheesey factor: high.  but apply it and it will probably do more good for you in the day-to-day than as an athlete so the cheese might not be all bad.

confrontation
east carolina’s fearless leader, skip holtz, spoke with espn’s college football live last wednesday about the tough schedules they’ve put together for themselves the last couple of years.  they have quietly taken on at least 3 BCS teams in each of the last 7 seasons during their non-conference schedules.  the ECU athletics department made a conscious decision to build their program from the inside-out, choosing to rack up wins by earning them instead of scheduling them.

kudos to the junior holtz who has built up the ECU program in to a real contender, learning from stepping up to the plate and learning from losing.  losing to the BCS teams has really helped them win in their own conference.  looks like they’re learning from winning now and maybe we’ll see a major conference invite for them pretty soon.

so maybe the confrontation is more appropriately labled stepping up to the challenge… but that would’ve ruined my theme.  great job today by ECU to take down the #17 hokies.  how are you going to know you can take on the big dawgs until you do? that was a great game to watch and i’ll certainly be watching and silently rooting for the pirates this season. other season predictions: my alma mater’s team, ucsd football, will go undefeated…

every day i walk by the security guard of a neighboring building.  his name is leon. we give our nods and say our hellos but it usually doesn’t amount to any more than that.  a couple weeks ago, leon stopped me and asked me if i had seen the beijing opening ceremonies.  the gray-haired man was almost in tears reveling in the power that sport has to bring the world together…

kobe bryant.  laker.  ’nuff said.  coach k.  duke basketball.  my problem isn’t with duke.  it’s with coach k, royal jerk.  they don’t teach you humility at church, krzyzewski?  last night i stayed up to watch the gold medal basketball game.  like he always does, kobe came up clutch.  shot after shot became a dagger in to the heart of those slant-eyed spaniards.  i asked my friends… “does this mean i have to like coach k now?”

i didn’t know whether to laugh or cringe, but the Redeem Team certainly did what they were supposed to do: show that our NBA stars are the best of the best.  worth the millions we pay them?  probably not.  but we are a pompous nation living fat of the fat of the land.  don’t the ridiculously overweight couch potatoes of america all deserve to share a piece of olympic glory.  we pay these basketball players their salaries after all.  winners by proxy?

sometime in 2005, somewhere between vienna and prague i lost my american pride… but you can’t help give a smile to america’s newest dorky heart-throb, mermaid phelps and even kobe dumping a half full water bottle over coach k.  carlos boozer has a gold medal?!  bittersweet victory indeed.