• It’s all in your head It’s all in your head By Duane Shimogawa Jr. – The Garden Island The average “Joe Six-pack” might not be able to suit up for his high school’s football or basketball squad, but there
• It’s all in your head
It’s all in your head
By Duane Shimogawa Jr. – The Garden Island
The average “Joe Six-pack” might not be able to suit up for his high school’s football or basketball squad, but there are times when the mind is so strong, that physicalities don’t even matter.
On top of that, if two individuals are built exactly the same or have similar talent, it’s upstairs where you’ll find the edge.
I’ve played with both types of athletes. However, the mentally tough players seem to be the toughest to beat.
On the other hand, the athletes who are as in shape as a pregnant cow, seem to use their brains more, because after all, that’s the only edge that they could attain.
A coach once told me that if you go into a game unsure, or thinking that you’re going to lose, then you’ve already lost the contest.
Golf is a great example of a game that’s played with the sponge that sits in our heads.
You can play the game until you’re as gray as a rain-filled cloud and you most certainly would be able to play even if your pants size equals your age.
On the flip side, you could be in shape and still suck at the game, which makes physically gifted individuals as frustrated as a horse locked in a pasture without grass.
Another coach mentioned in one of his preseason speeches to get in shape to play basketball, instead of playing basketball to get in shape.
This makes a lot of sense to me because if you’re not able to run up and down the full length of a basketball court, then you’d be better eating popcorn in the stands.
Woody Paige, the Denver-Post’s columnist said that the hardest thing in sports is to hit a baseball.
After thinking about that for awhile, I would have to agree with that because I know that I wouldn’t be able to hit a baseball that’s flying like a getaway car if my life depended on it.
However, even in baseball, you’ll see beer-bellied athletes, like John Kruk and Cecil Fielder, but were they bad players?
No, instead they hit the ball like it meant eating a steak and shrimp dinner every night.
My point is that in sports, if you have a great mind that’s strong-willed and tough as Lance Armstrong, then you could probably play anything.
Speaking of “Mr. Livestrong,” Skip Bayless, a national columnist, who appears on ESPN’s morning show, Cold Pizza, said that Armstrong’s tremendous feat of seven straight Tour de France wins, wasn’t enough to put him in the same sentences as Michael Jordan, Muhammad Ali, Babe Ruth, or Joe Montana.
Bayless mentioned that anyone would be able to do what he did and noted that Armstrong isn’t a “real” athlete, because cycling isn’t a “real” sport.
I disagree with Bayless, but not because of what he did, instead, it’s how he did it.
Fighting off cancer and just getting on with life is hard itself and to win seven Tour de France’s is nothing less than amazing and puts him up with the best sports figures ever.
