Showing posts with label keeping on. Show all posts
Showing posts with label keeping on. Show all posts

Tuesday, April 06, 2010

Bold Basketball

Last night's national college men's (NCAA) championship was a contest in which neither side backed down or got rattled or gave less than a terrific performance.

An underdog team went up against a school that has won the title several times, but not in quite a few years.

An aging super-star coach competed against a young rising star coach.

Duke versus Butler reached mythic proportions.

Duke won, (my alma mater, as it happens) but only by a two-point basket and the game was still undecided in the last 13 seconds. And all involved played their parts with gumption (which is to say, a combo of dignity and fire.)

It was exciting and lovely to see, if you like basketball, as most people in my home state of North Carolina do.



Add to del.icio.us - Stumble It! - Subscribe to this feed - Digg it


Thursday, April 09, 2009

Dealing with Bad Publicity

A fellow I know just got a blast of highly personal, heavily negative national publicity. It's the kind of scrutiny of a person that borders on inhuman, every aspect of his life touched on.

It must take big-time courage to show up at work, at lunch, at the gym, or wherever, after that kind of exposure. I'm not even going to say who or where the article was, so as not to further spread the stories. The fact that the writer said some good things doesn't really help a lot; it gives an air of credibility and balance and makes the watching of the man seem more unrelenting.

Unless you've sponsored a genocide, or at least committed a crime, I don't think this kind of treatment is warranted. Some arguable business decisions don't merit such an attack.

And I am someone who has spent decades as a reporter writing for magazines and newspapers, and who relishes reading the trashiest of gossip publications. So maybe I have a double standard for people I know and like. Or maybe I have a double standard for movie stars and other people. Likely both are true. Even so, this particularly brutal extreme close-up shocks me. I wouldn't want my own life treated this way. There aren't many people, if any, who'd look spotless in that kind of light.

Again: the guy is super-bold to keep showing up and making the effort.



If you like this post, please bookmark it on del.icio.us, share it on StumbleUpon, vote for it on Digg. Thanks so much.