The Player Walkout. It is a Long Drive. Time to Change the Clocks. Aging Well? Nothing Else Matters Concerto.
- Quote of the Week: “If we nurture the dreams of children, the world will be blessed. If we destroy them, the world is doomed.” — Wess Stafford
The dreams of children can be nurtured in many ways. One example: The player introduction and player ‘walk out’ are different depending on the sport. While football and basketball have player introductions with players doing their individual runout, soccer, for the last twenty-five years or so, has players from both teams escorting a child hand-in-hand onto the field. Often, club teams and national teams often partner with an organization like UNICEF or Make a Wish Foundation, reinforcing good sports values and supporting the welfare of children worldwide.
The children are selected in a variety of ways, from local clubs or schools, winners of a local contest, or the players of clubs who are champions of youth soccer tournaments. The smiles we see on the children as they walk out with a player is priceless.
An excerpt from the Polish League’s first division, in English called Ekstraklasa:
Player escort (also called match mascot) is a child who accompanies football player entering the pitch. In Polish we call it “Dziecięca Eskorta”. Player escorts hold hands with the footballer while they walk in and stay with the player during the playing of the national anthem. The children are usually between 6 and 10 years old. In addition to assisting players, they often have duties such as carrying flags, helping the sideline ball crew and playing matches with each other.
It would be great for the NBA and NFL to introduce this tradition to their player introduction/walkouts.
Question of the Week: Here are a few answers to last week’s Question of the Week regarding your ‘hidden’ talent. As expected, some very interesting responses:
- I have the ability to decorate a home or a person –(almost always myself) –from treasures discovered at garage sales. I often receive compliments on my attire — little do they know that the outfit was under $10. Despite now being able to afford the finer things in life, I take joy out of creating beautiful things on a budget.
- My hidden talent: I can stick my fist in my mouth-literally and figuratively.
- OK since you asked it is my uncanny ability to putt one handed and to hit tennis shots behind my back.
- Private pilot and scuba divemaster…..Very senior special ops…here I come.
- I do song parodies about family and close friends.
- I was a trumpet prodigy in high school, awarded a music scholarship to a renowned music department in a prominent university. Turned it down–What do you do with a music degree?
Here is this week’s Question of the Week: You must drive from Portland, Maine to San Diego, California…over forty hours by car. You must bring three people. Who are they and why?
- To the disappointment of many, daylight savings time started at 2am this morning. Yes, I always receive comments concerning my posts that cheer on the advent of more daylight in the early evenings. Everyone has their opinion with daylight savings time – from too dark in the early mornings to too warm at night. I suppose the argument can go both ways, but to me, having daylight until 8:30PM is great in many ways.
Analysts and special advisors have advocated for the U.S. to legislate permanent daylight savings time for many reasons. Some of the reasons include the ability for children to be outdoors more often (and not staring at their phones or tablets), to reduce seasonal depression, and to cut down on the number of car accidents that occur due to time changes. Critics of permanent daylight savings time note that children would be going to school in the dark and some would have issues with alertness due to the morning darkness. For many reasons I am a proponent of daylight savings time. It is time to stop adjusting our clocks twice a year.
I like this song, reinforcing to all of us that the sun rises, providing daylight, no matter what we do.
- Dave Barry was one of two journalists who gave me inspiration to start JustMyTake over nine years ago (Peter King was the other). Barry’s uncanny ability to tell a story with wit and sarcasm always put a smile on my face. His subject matter varied, with humor as the leading edge of all his columns. I found his latest post on Substack, titled Are You Aging Well? Try These Simple Tests to Find Out. Enjoy this quick read from the one and only Dave Barry:
I am 78 and a half years old. At this stage of my life, my definition of “aging well” is “still not dead.” Nevertheless I was curious to see what trajectory I’m on, so I clicked on the article, which lists four physical tests you’re supposed to take. The first one is called the “Sitting-Rising Test.” Here’s how the Times describes it:
The goal with this assessment is to go from standing to sitting on the floor, and back up again, using the least amount of support as possible. The test is scored on a 10-point scale — five points for sitting down and five points for standing up — and you lose a point for every hand, knee or other body part you use to help yourself. Subtract a half point if you’re unsteady or lose your balance.
The Times quotes the doctor who designed this test (we’ll get to him in a moment) as saying that people in their 30s or 40s should “aim for a perfect 10” on this test, and that a person over 60 who gets an 8 is in “very good shape.”
So my goal was to get an 8, although I would have settled for a 7, or even, given my advanced age, a 6. I took the test in the privacy of my bedroom, going from standing to sitting on the floor, then back to standing again, using as few body parts as possible to help myself. I don’t mean to brag, but on my very first try, with no practice and without warming up, I scored somewhere around minus 137. There was no way I could keep track of the exact number of body parts I used to help myself get down and back up, but it was definitely most of them, including at one point, I believe, my spleen. Also if you count a bedpost as a body part, my actual score was closer to minus 138. So based on this test, my trajectory was not looking great.
- Pure Talent. Written in 1990 by band leader James Hetfield, the rock ballad (yes, Cody, a rock ballad) Nothing Else Matters from Metallica centers on contradictions of feelings, trusting and loving someone. Hetfield wrote the song about missing his girlfriend at the time.
You can find the song Nothing Else Matters on every music app. It is recognized as one of Metallica’s best known and most popular songs. I found this version of Nothing Else Matters from Russian classical pianist and opera singer Margarita Sipatova. I have never heard a Metallica song covered any better. Margarita Sipatova is Pure Talent.