"Wayfaring Stranger"

It is Monday, and this song hits it right on the head, because it is haunting, beautifully sad, and lonesome. Listen to Emmylou Harris sing "Wayfaring Stranger".

Bill Veeck

Bill Veeck the great baseball owner was a “System” man, his own man actually.  He invented the word positive in my mind. They amputated parts of his leg sixteen times. His leg got so bad that I heard he could not use the metal prosthetic; he had to use a wood leg like a pirate. He made an ash tray in it so he could put out his cigarettes.

One day he was running through an airport, actually hobbling, when he stumbled and fell down. A young man said “Mr. Veeck do you want me to call an ambulance?”

Veeck replied, “No, I’ve broken my wooden leg, call a carpenter.” A classic story about a classic man. He was so much more then that though, he was active in the civil rights movement in the 1950’s and 1960’s. Marching in Martin Luther King Jr.’s funeral procession, he walked without a cane out of respect. Click here to read more.

Chaos

"Chaos is inherent in all compounded things. Strive on with diligence."

--Buddha

Success

What is it you fear, success or failure?

Doubt

For years now people have questioned if the chili parlor I talk about really exist? Read here to get reviews and an explanation from yelp.com. If you are looking for ambiance, do not go there. If you are looking for a dive with good chili, stop your search now.

John L. Smith

"John L. Smith has run with the bulls in Pamplona, skydived from 14,000 feet and climbed a peak of Mount Kilimanjaro. In the football world, he is known as an eccentric, whose legacy as a head coach ranges from being an innovator of the spread offense to telling his Louisville team at halftime of a bowl game that he was leaving for another job." Read more about John L. in Pete Thamel's New York Times article.

The War Zone

530 North Street 

Jesup, Iowa 50648 

(319) 827-1152

www.jesupgolf.com

Nine Hole

Distance 3,111 Yards

Par 36

Hole 1 320/286 Yard Par 4

Hole 2 465/430 Yard Par 5

Hole 3 312/283 Yard Par 4

Hole 4 170/100 Yard Par 3

Voted by many publications as one of the ten toughest holes in Iowa

Hole 5 405/325 Yard Par 4

 

Hole 6 506/448 Yard Par 5

Hole 7 205/130 Yard Par 3

Hole 8 364/327 Yard Par 4

Hole 9 364/342 Yard Par 4

Sport Of Choice

"The sport of choice for the urban poor is basketball.  The sport of choice for maintenance level employees is bowling.  The sport of choice for front-line workers is football.  The sport of choice for supervisors is baseball.  The sport of choice for middle management is tennis.  The sport of choice for corporate officers is golf.  Conclusion: The higher you are in the corporate structure, the smaller your balls become."  ~Author Unknown

Arnie's Army

"Golf is deceptively simple and endlessly complicated; it satisfies the soul and frustrates the intellect. It is at the same time rewarding and maddening - and it is without a doubt the greatest game mankind has ever invented."

--Arnold Palmer

Retirement of Pat Summit

Pat Summit the most successful D1 college basketball coach of all time, retired yesterday as the evil Alzheimer's was starting to take its toll on her. Coach Belcher the head women's basketball coach at Martin Methodist College in Pulaski, TN wrote this remembrance in his blog yesterday. Read here.

"The Dan Plan"

THE THEORY

'Talent has little to do with success. According to research conducted by Dr. K. Anders Ericsson, Professor of Psychology at Florida State University, “Elite performers engage in ‘deliberate practice’–an effortful activity designed to improve target performance.” Dr. Ericsson's studies, made popular through Malcolm Gladwell's book Outliers and Geoff Colvin's Talent is Overrated, have found that in order to excel in a field, roughly 10,000 hours of "stretching yourself beyond what you can currently do" is required. "I think you're the right astronaut for this mission," Dr. Ericsson said about The Dan Plan." What is the "Dan Plan"? Keep reading.

Dan McLaughlin is practicing “The 10,000 hour rule” and it is just that. This is the idea that it takes about 10,000 hours of deliberate practice to master a skill.

For instance, it would take 10 years of practicing 3 hours a day to become a master in your subject. It would take approximately 5 years of full-time employment to become proficient in your field. Simply work out how many hours you have already achieved and calculate how far you need to go. You should be aiming for 10000 hours.

The thing is, Dan is a quitter by nature. He quit playing tennis as a kid, quit after a year of high school cross-country, isn’t entirely sure he graduated from the University of Georgia, and quit being a newspaper photographer after one year. He has started five novels as well. But he has way more passion for golf —and now the experiment has taken its own momentum. He counts only about six hours a day, six days a week as official hours, but he probably spends 50 hours a week on the “Dan Plan” if you include workouts with his personal trainer, studying golf, and entering his stats from his notebook into his computer. He already is extremely inspiring to a lot of fans who find his website. He gets several correspondence a day from people who want to replicate his act. McLaughlin has no intention of letting his fans down by not finishing his 10,000 hours.

To learn more about "The Dan Plan" click here.

Janiva Magness

Heartbreakingly beautiful, Janiva Magness sings Paul Thorne's "Things Left Undone". It brings chills to me and makes me realize that we should have no regrets, and that we should live our life to the fullest. Click here and listen.

"The 48 Laws of Power"

The 48 Laws of Power is a 1998 book by Robert Greene. The book shares elements with Niccolò Machiavelli's The Prince, and has been compared to Sun-Tzu's classic treatise The Art of War. Click here to see those "48 Laws".

James McMurty

 

I was at the Chili Parlor last night and Tom was screaming about this brilliant song writer named James McMurty. Waites kept talking about a song called "We Can't Make It Here Any More". I thought wow this is some praise from the greatest song writer of all time. Click here and listen to"We Can't Make It Here Any More".

Travel

“He who does not travel does not know the value of men.”

 – Moorish proverb

Mohammad El Akkari

"Mohammad El Akkari led Moutahed to a 173-141 victory over Bejjeh in a Division A league game on Tuesday. He scored 32 3-pointers in 59 attempts and was 40-for-69 overall from the floor. He only had one free throw." Read more from the article at Chron.com .

"The Art of War"

In Sun Tzu’s The Art of War  one of the most important parts of battle is to win the hearts and minds of the people. Sun Tzu calls it “Moral Virtue”. Doing what is right in battle. By doing what is right the people will rally to the side of the military and fight for what they believe is right. 

“The System” is “The No child left behind of basketball”. Yet for it to work you must have the people on your side. By that I mean the players, parents, and the administration must back you. To not have one of those on board will cause a break down at some point of a season filled with many battles large and small.

The second thing in The Art of War  that is remarkably similar to running the system is what Sun Tzu called the “Death Ground”. Sun Tzu believed that in order to get his soldiers to fight to their greatest ability, he had to place his soldiers in a position where they had to fight for their life. This meant that there would be no easy way out and he would get his soldiers best effort. 

So this is true in running The System”, Your players must press without a safety back so that they press with reckless abandon. To be halfway is to not be “System”, your players must commit to the press.

A third thing Sun Tzu talks about is that a sense of familial bonds ensures commitment. It identifies the leader with those he is leading in both name and spirit. He states this outright, saying that when the general “regards the troops as his beloved children, they will be willing to die for him.”

This is true in “The System” as well, by involving multiple players with playing time. By giving them key responsibilities, by making your team environment one like a family environment, you will get your team to play harder and with more passion then it ever has before. Their commitment to the team and you will become a bond that will last for a lifetime.

Sun Tzu presents the ideal war as a triumph without fighting a battle at all. Skirmishes, ambushes, and espionage are all favorable to massive confrontation. As Sun Tzu says, “One who excels at employing the military subjugates other people’s armies without engaging in battle, captures other people’s fortified cities without attacking them, and destroys other people’s states without prolonged fighting.”

“The System" with its 35-55 second lines is small skirmishes, ambushes, and a small bit of espionage as you move players around in different lines. System teams playing against stronger more physical teams would not have as much success in more traditional basketball (warfare). 

The Art of War talks about how crucial the ch’i (unorthodox) is. He talks about how there comes a certain time in every battle that you must allow your subordinates to be spontaneous and unpredictable.

This is so very true in “The System”, as you must allow your players to be play makers and breakout of the pattern and be critical thinkers on their own. Perhaps the ch’i is what allows "The System" to have the success that it does.

There are multiple other similarities between The Art of War and “The System". I urge you to take your time to read this classic. 

Oscar Pistorius

Click here to find out what happens to "bad listeners".

Baylor Bears

Baylor Bears Women's Basketball

40-0

(First college basketball team to win forty games.)