Whatever

A few years ago I remember witnessing a young person making a gesture of the letter "W" with her fingers and uttering "whatever" to the person she was speaking with.  She was clearly dismissing the other person's position and adding a bit of mockery to go with it.

Over the years, while involved with tennis, I have had the pleasure of meeting and working with some very fine coaches and players.  Of course, there are many reasons for participating in intercollegiate and professional athletics but two of the main reasons are for the love of competition and challenging oneself to be the best.

What, however, determines success?  There seem to be so many contributing factors.  There is talent, work ethic, desire, luck, health, support, money and the list can go on and on.  One common theme that stands out for me when I examine the top programs in the country is that of dedication. Dedication is so important to the success of the student athlete and also the coaching staff as they are asked to do many things and to achieve excellence in every one of them.  Not an easy task for sure...

On the player's plate they have their academics; attending classes, studying and so forth...socialization, physical fitness training, significant others and of course, tennis and probably even more.  That's a lot to manage for any person, not just of college age, considering that we all need to sleep a little here and there as well.  Coaches have certain other challenges.  Many positions are part-time and low paying and thus many have other jobs so as to make a living.  We have families and all the stresses and wonderment that go along with that, and yes, we need sleep too.  Often it is so easy to forget how much we are all doing and that we very well need to respect each other's contributions.

It would certainly be very easy in this climate nowadays to commit to doing the bare minimum; simply enough to get by (feel-free to insert your own political joke here).  I am pretty sure, and not to sound cocky/conceded as I respect our competition and what they bring to the table, that we could be quite successful doing far less than we currently do.  Perhaps our talent alone is enough to bring home a conference championship and rank among the nation's top 50 or so teams.  Is that enough? Should we be satisfied with that?  If so, it's time to quit or transfer.  I know that I am not ready to quit just yet and I am pretty sure that upon some reflection, our players believe in adhering to the "self actualization principle" of being all that they can be.  Honestly, if we don't push ourselves, we will never know what we are capable of.  Therefore, we do not subscribe to that "bare minimum" theory here in Clipperville.

Now, there can only be one National Champion!   So we have to do more.  If we want to display the trophy in our case, we simply have to do more.  There are many obstacles for our program to negotiate.  We are not blessed with outdoor tennis appropriate weather until mid-March and thus have less preparatory time to adapt to the elements.  We have to play the nation's best teams very early in our season on their home courts mostly.  Let's not even discuss the scholarship limitations as compared to the others at the top.  Just as I said, to compete and succeed, we simply have to do more!

Essentially, there is a choice.  Will we make the "W" gesture and say "whatever" and take the easy road or will we rather practice "WHATEVER IT TAKES" to achieve our goals?

"One who wants to do something, will find a way; one who doesn't, will find an excuse."
- Confucius

Nuff said...