Thursday, February 19, 2015
Wednesday, February 18, 2015
Tuesday, February 17, 2015
Tuesday, February 10, 2015
Wednesday, February 4, 2015
Don't Quit
I know I posted about Russell Wilson yesterday, but I am impressed by his response to the criticism he has received after the Super Bowl and by the character he continues to exhibit. Teens, if you're looking for a role model in a professional athlete, he is a great one to emulate. Here is a recent Facebook post from Mr. Wilson.
Thank you to a good friend for passing this inspirational message along. 12's, share this with your friends and loved ones if you are already focusing on next season.#DontQuit
When things go wrong, as they sometimes will,
When the road you're trudging seems all uphill,
When the funds are low and the debts are high,
And you want to smile, but you have to sigh,
When care is pressing you down a bit-
Rest if you must, but don't you quit.
Life is queer with its twists and turns,
As every one of us sometimes learns,
And many a fellow turns about
When he might have won had he stuck it out.
Don't give up though the pace seems slow -
You may succeed with another blow.
Often the goal is nearer than
It seems to a faint and faltering man;
Often the struggler has given up
When he might have captured the victor's cup;
And he learned too late when the night came down,
How close he was to the golden crown.
Success is failure turned inside out -
The silver tint in the clouds of doubt,
And you never can tell how close you are,
It might be near when it seems afar;
So stick to the fight when you're hardest hit -
It's when things seem worst that you must not quit.
Thank you to a good friend for passing this inspirational message along. 12's, share this with your friends and loved ones if you are already focusing on next season.#DontQuit
When things go wrong, as they sometimes will,
When the road you're trudging seems all uphill,
When the funds are low and the debts are high,
And you want to smile, but you have to sigh,
When care is pressing you down a bit-
Rest if you must, but don't you quit.
Life is queer with its twists and turns,
As every one of us sometimes learns,
And many a fellow turns about
When he might have won had he stuck it out.
Don't give up though the pace seems slow -
You may succeed with another blow.
Often the goal is nearer than
It seems to a faint and faltering man;
Often the struggler has given up
When he might have captured the victor's cup;
And he learned too late when the night came down,
How close he was to the golden crown.
Success is failure turned inside out -
The silver tint in the clouds of doubt,
And you never can tell how close you are,
It might be near when it seems afar;
So stick to the fight when you're hardest hit -
It's when things seem worst that you must not quit.
Tuesday, February 3, 2015
Russell Wilson, Faith, and the Corporal Works of Mercy
As we explore the Corporal Works of Mercy with our middle schoolers, I thought it was appropriate to see how one person is visiting the sick and imprisoned at Children's Hospital in Seattle. That one person happens to be Russell Wilson, who you may know from quarterbacking the Seattle Seahawks to two straight Super Bowls and throwing a history-altering interception at the goal line on Sunday, but he proves with his faith and choices off the field that life is much bigger than football.
This article comes from ESPN.com and is authored by Kevin Van Valkenburg.
SEATTLE -- If you want to understand why Russell Wilson might go down as the most important player in the history of the Seattle Seahawks, maybe even the most important athlete to ever ply his trade in the Pacific Northwest, you can't begin with football.
It's better to start with a story of a beautiful five-pound boy, and his imperfect, broken heart.
In the months leading up to the birth of his twin sons, Seattle salesman Dave Quick daydreamed about sports the way so many young, first-time fathers do. When he closed his eyes, he could see the three of them, years from now, laughing and roughhousing in the yard. He imagined teaching the boys how to catch footballs, how to turn double plays, how to shrug it off when you skinned your knee. His parental anxieties were overwhelmed by the dual joys of anticipation and excitement.
Reality, however, is almost always more complicated than daydreams. In a series of sonograms late in his wife Kristina's pregnancy, doctors spotted a few abnormalities they said "concerned them." One of the boys -- the Quicks would name them Harrison and Franklin -- had a heart that wasn't developing properly. Sonograms, they warned the Quicks, can be part science, part guesswork, so it was difficult to say what it might mean when they were born. Doctors urged Dave and Kristina to focus on the positive, not the unknown.
But when the boys were born at Evergreen Hospital in the early morning hours of Oct. 30, the truth was obvious: Harrison was healthy, but Franklin needed to be moved, right away, to the ICU of Seattle Children's Hospital. His condition was worse than doctors initially feared. In addition to problems with his heart, his intestines hadn't properly developed. There was a chance the condition could be fatal.
The next week unfolded for the Quicks as a stress-induced, semi-sleepless blur. Surgeons went to work fixing Franklin's intestines, and sketched out a plan for how to fix his heart. Dave Quick learned to sleep, rarely for more than 10 minutes at a time, sitting in a chair next to Franklin's bed. Nurses would shuffle in and out of the room at all hours, and soon Quick lost track of where days began and nights ended. At one point, one of the nurses noticed Franklin wasn't breathing, and an army of medical personnel swarmed into the room to snake a tube down his tiny throat and bring him back to life. "I basically lost my mind," Quick says. "I went into the hallway and I more or less crumbled."
Franklin survived, and he survived a 10-hour open-heart surgery several days later, but he wasn't out of danger. The weeks and months to come would be critical. A few days later, Quick was half asleep next to his son when a stranger walked into the room. For a moment, Quick wasn't sure if he was dreaming or imagining things. But then the stranger, Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson, did something the Quicks will never forget.
He hugged them.
He told the Quicks he and his wife, Ashton, had heard about Franklin, and they'd been thinking about him a lot. They'd been praying for him every day. They just wanted to stop by and let the Quicks know they were pulling for Franklin.
"I think I probably experienced about 10 different emotions," Quick says. "Shock, disbelief, but most of all, pure genuine joy. For someone of his stature to do that is just amazing. For 20 minutes, he enabled us to not think about everything we were going through. He greeted us like we were family. I'd heard about these visits, that it was something he liked to do, but you see him walk through that door and you know he's the real deal. He is truth."
----------------------------
What does a star athlete really mean to the city where he plays?
It's a complicated question, and the truth is, the answer varies depending on the market and the athlete. In certain cities -- perhaps even in a majority of cities -- it means little. There is no larger bond formed with fans, no deeper resonance. And there's nothing wrong with viewing it as a business relationship, to be frank. It's just sports, after all. Some athletes you simply cheer for on Sundays, and don't think about much beyond the white lines.
But as the Seahawks prepare to play in the Super Bowl for the second time in team history this Sunday, as the franchise tries to capture the city's first major sports title since 1979, much of Seattle would like you to understand the feelings people have for their 25-year-old quarterback, Russell Carrington Wilson, are a little different.
It goes beyond his escapability, his humility or his accuracy with a football. It's what he's done with his time in just two short years, and what he represents.
"I think we've all fallen in love with the guy," says James Paxton, a Seahawks fan who dyed his goatee bright green and his mustache dark blue for the team's playoff run. "He gave us hope back."
Click here to continue reading.
This article comes from ESPN.com and is authored by Kevin Van Valkenburg.
SEATTLE -- If you want to understand why Russell Wilson might go down as the most important player in the history of the Seattle Seahawks, maybe even the most important athlete to ever ply his trade in the Pacific Northwest, you can't begin with football.
It's better to start with a story of a beautiful five-pound boy, and his imperfect, broken heart.
In the months leading up to the birth of his twin sons, Seattle salesman Dave Quick daydreamed about sports the way so many young, first-time fathers do. When he closed his eyes, he could see the three of them, years from now, laughing and roughhousing in the yard. He imagined teaching the boys how to catch footballs, how to turn double plays, how to shrug it off when you skinned your knee. His parental anxieties were overwhelmed by the dual joys of anticipation and excitement.
Reality, however, is almost always more complicated than daydreams. In a series of sonograms late in his wife Kristina's pregnancy, doctors spotted a few abnormalities they said "concerned them." One of the boys -- the Quicks would name them Harrison and Franklin -- had a heart that wasn't developing properly. Sonograms, they warned the Quicks, can be part science, part guesswork, so it was difficult to say what it might mean when they were born. Doctors urged Dave and Kristina to focus on the positive, not the unknown.
But when the boys were born at Evergreen Hospital in the early morning hours of Oct. 30, the truth was obvious: Harrison was healthy, but Franklin needed to be moved, right away, to the ICU of Seattle Children's Hospital. His condition was worse than doctors initially feared. In addition to problems with his heart, his intestines hadn't properly developed. There was a chance the condition could be fatal.
The next week unfolded for the Quicks as a stress-induced, semi-sleepless blur. Surgeons went to work fixing Franklin's intestines, and sketched out a plan for how to fix his heart. Dave Quick learned to sleep, rarely for more than 10 minutes at a time, sitting in a chair next to Franklin's bed. Nurses would shuffle in and out of the room at all hours, and soon Quick lost track of where days began and nights ended. At one point, one of the nurses noticed Franklin wasn't breathing, and an army of medical personnel swarmed into the room to snake a tube down his tiny throat and bring him back to life. "I basically lost my mind," Quick says. "I went into the hallway and I more or less crumbled."
Franklin survived, and he survived a 10-hour open-heart surgery several days later, but he wasn't out of danger. The weeks and months to come would be critical. A few days later, Quick was half asleep next to his son when a stranger walked into the room. For a moment, Quick wasn't sure if he was dreaming or imagining things. But then the stranger, Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson, did something the Quicks will never forget.
He hugged them.
He told the Quicks he and his wife, Ashton, had heard about Franklin, and they'd been thinking about him a lot. They'd been praying for him every day. They just wanted to stop by and let the Quicks know they were pulling for Franklin.
"I think I probably experienced about 10 different emotions," Quick says. "Shock, disbelief, but most of all, pure genuine joy. For someone of his stature to do that is just amazing. For 20 minutes, he enabled us to not think about everything we were going through. He greeted us like we were family. I'd heard about these visits, that it was something he liked to do, but you see him walk through that door and you know he's the real deal. He is truth."
----------------------------
What does a star athlete really mean to the city where he plays?
It's a complicated question, and the truth is, the answer varies depending on the market and the athlete. In certain cities -- perhaps even in a majority of cities -- it means little. There is no larger bond formed with fans, no deeper resonance. And there's nothing wrong with viewing it as a business relationship, to be frank. It's just sports, after all. Some athletes you simply cheer for on Sundays, and don't think about much beyond the white lines.
But as the Seahawks prepare to play in the Super Bowl for the second time in team history this Sunday, as the franchise tries to capture the city's first major sports title since 1979, much of Seattle would like you to understand the feelings people have for their 25-year-old quarterback, Russell Carrington Wilson, are a little different.
It goes beyond his escapability, his humility or his accuracy with a football. It's what he's done with his time in just two short years, and what he represents.
"I think we've all fallen in love with the guy," says James Paxton, a Seahawks fan who dyed his goatee bright green and his mustache dark blue for the team's playoff run. "He gave us hope back."
Click here to continue reading.
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