In His Shoes

One of my favorite things to watch on TV is the ABC series “What Would You Do?” With hired actors and hidden cameras, the show puts unsuspecting, ordinary people into real-life moral dilemmas and captures how they react. Think “Candid Camera” with an ethical exam twist. All types of scenarios are presented, from bullying to racial discrimination to physical and emotional abuse, and it’s fascinating to see who does – and who does not – answer the call to action.

As a viewer, you can’t help but inject yourself into each situation to figure out how you would’ve reacted. This exercise typically does not go well for me, though, as more times than not my inaction would get me prosecuted under the Latham, Massachusetts “Good Samaritan Law.” But in a way, it’s good, because it serves as a wakeup call, a reminder of sorts to be more assertive whenever I have the chance to right a wrong – not just because it’s what my mother raised me to do, but because there are few things more embarrassing than sitting on your hands, only to have host John Quinones emerge from the shadows and say, “Hey, can I talk to you for a minute?”

And there’s probably not a person on the planet more familiar with that type of shame than Mike McQueary.

McQueary is the Penn State coach who, as a graduate assistant in 2002, walked into the Nittany Lions’ football complex and allegedly found Jerry Sandusky sexually abusing a young boy in the shower. Distressed and distraught, he retreated to his office and called his father.

Since the news broke about the Penn State atrocity, there has obviously been an enormous amount of outrage, and rightfully so. The whole thing goes so far beyond the typical scandals that it doesn’t really feel like it has anything to do with college athletics, because college athletics could never mean this much or impact people’s lives this deeply. With every new piece of information that is revealed, the more twisted and tragic the story becomes.

And in a case full of top-to-bottom negligence, the alleged negligence of McQueary is among the most maddening.

Forget for a second what he did – or, more accurately – didn’t do in the days, weeks, months and years after witnessing what he witnessed. Just focus on that March night almost a decade ago. In the moment of truth, face to face with one of the most horrific crimes that can be committed, he didn’t step in and try to stop it.

Instead of saving a little boy, he seemingly fled like one.

How could he have not done anything? That’s what everyone wants to know, and that was certainly what ran through my head as I read about “Victim 2” in the nauseating, mind-blowingly grotesque grand jury report on the investigation.

(While there are now rumblings from McQueary that he did step in, it’s a curious omission by the grand jury, and since their report is the lone piece of official evidence currently available, it’s the only thing we can go on at this point. That said, when it comes to this case, you never know what will come out next.)

The decision to intervene doesn’t seem like it should’ve been a decision at all. A 6’4” 220 lb. former college quarterback, McQueary was more than capable of physically breaking things up. And even if he didn’t want a physical confrontation, he could’ve done a million different things – scream, yell, flash the Bat Signal – to put an end to it.

And as a person, as a human being, don’t you have to find a way to help? When you come across a situation that is so wrong, when you know somebody – particularly a powerless child – is in need, don’t you have to do something about it? Isn’t that what anyone in their right mind would do?

Not necessarily. Just watch an episode of “What Would You Do?” and you’ll see that isn’t the case.

While there are some people who do get involved, the majority do not. They stay on the periphery, out of harm’s way, pretending to mind their own business. You can tell they’re aware of what’s going on by the way they constantly look over, and you can tell they’re conflicted by the expressions on their faces and the hushed conversations they’re having. But something is holding them back. Maybe they don’t feel it’s their place to intervene. Maybe they’re hoping someone else will take charge. Or maybe they’re afraid of getting punched in the face.

Whatever it is, they ultimately sit there and do nothing.

This lack of action shouldn’t come as a surprise, though, because – right or wrong – intervening in these types of scenarios is not our society’s standard operating procedure. If it were, as I heard one radio host say, there’d be nothing for ABC to make a show about.

Second-guessing, however, is part of our SOP. It’s become one of America’s greatest pastimes, right alongside baseball, apple pie and making celebrities out of people whose only accomplishment is having the same last name as O.J. Simpson’s lawyer.

When you’re removed from a situation, it’s easy to step back, assess all of the potential options, and rationally come to a conclusion about what should be done. You don’t have to deal with any shock or awe to your system. There are no threats to your physical or emotional wellbeing. There’s no fear of shame or embarrassment, and there’s no immediacy forced on your decision-making. More than anything, though, you aren’t restricted by your vantage point. You have perspective, a view of the big picture, that whole “seeing the forest through the trees” thing.

But things look a little differently when you’re down in it on the ground level.

A few months ago, I was on my way home after a long day, and I drove through McDonald’s to pick up something to eat. Pulling away from the second window, I noticed there were a couple of guys struggling to push their car up the driveway and into the parking lot. The car had clearly died on them, they were trying to get it out of the street, and it was obvious they needed help.

Immediately, I felt that surge of energy you get when you’re reflexively reacting, like a batter cocking his bat right before the ball leaves the pitcher’s hand. These people were in need, and I was capable of assisting them. I started to brake as I prepared to jump out to help them push.

And then I kept driving.

Instead of continuing to fuel me, that surge of energy I experienced was washed over by a wave of fears and rationalizations. What if the stalled car was a ploy to rob me? Should I really be talking to strangers? Hadn’t I already done my good deed for the day by giving that homeless guy a few bucks? I’m exhausted and tired and worn out…can’t I just go home and eat my cheeseburger before it gets cold?

Two seconds…that’s all it took for me to go from Good Samaritan to George Costanza.

And I wasn’t even dealing with anything out of the ordinary. There was nothing traumatic or threatening about the situation, nor did I have to do a double-take to fully comprehend what was going on. And yet, my mind was still racing and my insides were still churning, so much so that I virtually froze up, unable to locate logic and do the right thing. Before I knew it, I was fleeing the scene, trying to convince myself that it was okay, but knowing deep down that it was not.

I’m no scientist, but it’s been my experience that, unless you're a trained professional, your behavior in these types of predicaments is typically anything but balanced. While there may never be a more crucial time for rational reasoning and sensible judgments, they often don’t stand a chance of being heard – the stress and chaos drowns them out. It’s irrelevant what a person in their right mind would do, because you’re not working from your right mind, and you can predict and proclaim all you want about how you’d respond, but it’s impossible to know until you’re actually in the situation.

And that’s why I refuse to judge Mike McQueary for the choice he allegedly made.

I know, I know…what he walked in on was infinitely more desperate than what I encountered or what was featured on some TV show, which in turn made the consequences of his (in)actions exponentially greater, which would’ve seemingly made the call to battle that much louder.

But, in a way, all of that made the exact opposite just as possible. One second, McQueary was thinking about putting a pair of shoes away in his locker; the next he was trying to process and make sense of someone he revered perpetrating a sick, unspeakable crime, as the safety of an innocent child hung in the balance. Is it that much of a stretch to see how even the bravest person could shut down in that instance?

This isn’t about what McQueary should have done; it’s about understanding why he might’ve done what he did. Clearly, he should have stepped in and done everything he could to stop it, and he shouldn’t have backed off until the boy was safe and in protective care, and Sandusky was in police custody. That unquestionably would’ve been the right thing to do.

But the situation wasn’t that simple. And while I respect everyone's anger and frustration, I also I get how McQueary could’ve made the decisions that he made.

(What I don’t get, however, is how, after recovering from the shock of the encounter, he sat idly by when it was apparent that nothing was going to happen to Sandusky. How do you not speak up at that point? And then you continue to see Sandusky bring kids around the football complex and do nothing about it? That’s negligence I have a much harder time understanding, but that’s an entirely different story.)

Ever since all of this came to light, and the details have slowly trickled out, I’ve thought a lot about the case from every angle. I’ve thought about how the adults could stand by and let it happen, and I’ve thought about the poor kids who will forever be scarred by that inaction.

And as much as anything, I’ve thought about what it must’ve been like to be Mike McQueary on that late winter night in 2002.

Picture it…it’s a typical Friday evening, the end of a long day at the end of a long week, and you’re getting some things together before heading home, when suddenly you hear a disturbing noise in the other room. You go to check it out, having no idea what to expect, only to find that no level of expectation could possibly prepare you for what you end up seeing:

A grown man sodomizing a 10-year-old boy.

And it’s not just any man. It’s a man you’ve known and respected for over a decade, a man who’s been a pillar of your treasured community, a man who you admire and look up to and who has seemingly devoted his life to, of all things, helping children. Your brain scrambles and your stomach pretzels as you try to compute what it is that you’re witnessing.

What do you do?

Like everyone else, I’d like to think that I’d have the courage and the capacity to play the role of the hero. I’d like to think that my “fight” instinct would kick in, that I would incapacitate the man and take the kid in my arms and rush him to safety, all the while Coldplay’s “Fix You” is whaling in the background.

But I can’t say for sure. Maybe that makes me a coward, and maybe I’d have to answer to John Quinones, but it’s the truth. And honestly, there’s probably just as good of a chance that I’d do exactly what McQueary did, the same thing I still do as a 34-year-old when I’m lost and overwhelmed and in the need of guidance:

Call my father.

Red River Rationale

I’ve spent the last five years working in the Jewish communal world. There have been plenty of perks, to be sure, from free in-house health club memberships to the daily opportunity to serve perfectly reasonable parents who would never blow anything out of proportion.

But the unquestioned, undisputed best thing about my experience has been how often I haven’t had to go to work.

With a calendar filled with Jewish holidays – some of which I’ve never heard of – these organizations are constantly closing their doors in observance. And when the dates line up just right, you can end up with more four-day weekends than you know what to do with.

That’s exactly what has happened in 2011, as Rosh Hashanah, Sukkot and Simchat Torah have all fallen (or will fall) on Thursdays and Fridays. The lone exception is Yom Kippur, which is today. Deemed the holiest day of the year, Jews are expected to spend it in synagogue, atoning for their sins and cleansing their conscience, so that they can move forward in their lives with a clean slate.

While that may not be my idea of an ideal Saturday, it normally wouldn’t be that big of an issue. After all, I’ve screwed up plenty in the last 12 months, and I’ve got more than a day’s worth of stuff to apologize for. But the problem is that this year the holiday happens to coincide with another special occasion that also deserves my undivided attention:

Texas vs. Oklahoma.

Dating back over a century, the “Red River Rivalry” is one of the most storied series between two of the most storied programs in all of college football. It’s featured Hall of Fame coaches, Heisman Trophy winning players, and all-time great teams, and it’s important enough that fraternities and sororities feel the need to make a t-shirt about it every year.

Like any border war, there is a palpable hatred between the two sides, which contributes to one of the most electric atmospheres anywhere. Played at the neutral Cotton Bowl in Dallas, in the midst of the State Fair of Texas, the game day air is filled with obscenities and taunting and the seductive smell of corndogs. The crowd is split at the 50 yard line, leaving each horseshoe end filled with either burnt orange or crimson. From the opening kickoff, the stadium never stops shaking, as each play brings half of the fans to their feet. Even for those who aren’t fortunate enough to be there, the energy and enthusiasm are so strong that they pour through the radio or TV screen.

(Quick story: in 1995, the game ended in a tie. The ramps to get out were jammed, because everyone had stayed until the finish. Amid all of the chaos, one of my friends started the “Texas-Fight” chant, and immediately, a bunch of other Longhorn fans joined in. Well, this did not go over well with the crusty old Sooner who was right next to us. He turned to my friend and began berating him for leading a cheer for a team that hadn’t won. “That’s how STUPID you are!” he screamed over and over. And this was considered a standard interaction.)

Because UT and OU are in the same conference – and are also often near the top of the polls – there is more at stake than just the bragging rights that come from bending over your hated neighbor. There are title shots and national rankings up for grabs, and the outcome can make or break you, determining the course for the rest of your year.

In other words, it’s the Yom Kippur of each school’s season.

And while I was born a Jew, I was raised a Longhorn, and I now devote as much time to UT athletics as a rabbi does to breaking down the Talmud. Message boards, press conferences, game recaps, film analysis, recruiting videos, insider reports…you name it, I consume it. It’s a year-round obsession, and there are no holidays.

Not even for the holiest that Judaism has to offer.

So instead of being in services today, I’m going to be in my burnt orange shirt – the one that carried the Horns to the 2005 championship – living and dying with everything that happens on the Cotton Bowl floor. I realize that most people can’t understand this, that they probably think I’m crazy for putting a football game above something as important as Yom Kippur. And honestly, it’s hard to argue with them. But from the moment I discovered this scheduling conflict, I knew what my ultimate decision would be.

Still, there was an uneasiness inside me, and I was determined to figure out an argument that could justify my actions. Below is what I came up with. I don’t know if it’ll carry any weight with the Big Man upstairs, but I’m praying that He’ll at least give me a little something for the effort and find a way to show mercy on my soul…

Hunger Pangs

For the longest time, I never enjoyed watching UT games at a bar. It was just too loud, and there were too many distractions, and I couldn’t stand listening to those loud-mouthed, know-it-all fans who, in actuality, knew nothing at all. I much preferred a more controlled environment, where I could concentrate on the task at hand.

When I moved out of state a few years ago, though, I was forced to leave my couch, because the games were rarely televised locally. So I found out where the area’s alumni chapter held watch parties and gave it a shot. Much to my surprise, I kind of liked it, and I’ve been going ever since. It’s a really cool spot, with a downstairs room reserved specifically for Longhorns, and when the fight song blares after every score, you practically feel like you’re home again. The only thing better than the camaraderie – and the cowboy hat-wearing regular who high-fives the entire bar when something good happens is tough to beat – is the special Texas-flavored menu they offer, which is full of things like chili dogs and Frito Pie and discounted Shiner Bock beer.

But today, I won’t be ordering any of it.

Like Jews across the world, I’ll be fasting. It’s an integral component of Yom Kippur, a demonstration that, for one day at least, we put aside our physical needs and focus solely on our spiritual wellbeing. And while I won’t be doing it in a synagogue, I will be doing it surrounded by people stuffing their faces with some of my favorite Lone Star State delicacies.

That’s sacrifice enough, isn’t it?

Step 9

As I explained here, I’m a huge fan of DVR. And when my schedule forces me to, I’m okay recording a UT game and watching it after the fact. Trying to make it back home without finding out who won is a fun challenge, and I’ll pull out every trick I can think of to ensure that happens. I’ll ignore my phone. I’ll take off my glasses if I’m near a TV (probably the only advantage to having less than perfect vision). I’ll even stick my fingers in my ears like a two-year-old if I hear somebody mention the word “football.” I’m pretty much willing to do anything.

But I am not willing to do any of it for Texas-OU.

Unless there’s a family emergency or Bruce Willis is summoning me to stave off Armageddon, I have to watch this live. I’m just too consumed by it to be useful at anything else. I can barely sleep the night before the game, much less absolve myself of all of my sins during it.

So even if I went to services, it wouldn’t do any good. I’d be an absolutely atrocious atoner. I’d atone so poorly that all of the people I’ve wronged would come looking for me like Costanza did when the recovering alcoholic gave him an insufficient apology. Next thing you know, I’d be climbing in the ice chest at Baskin Robbins, looking for Rum Raisin and trying to atone for my insufficient atoning.

Time Served

Judaism states (or, at least Wikipedia says Judaism states) that the 10 days between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur are among the most important of the entire year. It’s a time for introspection and reconciliation, when we can step back and examine our lives and make things right with ourselves, with those around us, and ultimately, with G-d. The Lord is watching throughout, taking notes, penciling in to the “Book of Life” each person’s fate – who will live, and who will die – for the coming year.

And at the end of the 10th day, the Book – and thus, our destiny – is sealed.

Given this, it seems pretty dumb to use my “closing argument” to blow off services and watch a football game. But because I knew this was going to happen, I put in my time early, going to services on three consecutive days last week.

The way I see it, I’m like that college basketball team that is dominant all season, then loses in the first round of their conference tournament, but is still deserving of a No. 1 seed in March Madness. After all, your entire resume, your full body of work should count for something, and one bad day shouldn’t be enough to erase it.

But I guess only time will tell how much the Lord has in common with the NCAA Selection Committee.

Family Ties

I attended those three services last week – two for Rosh Hashanah, one for Shabbat – at a synagogue in Chicago. I prayed. I chanted. I sang. I stood up when I was instructed to. I even listened to every single word of the rabbi’s sermon.

Of course, it helped that my brother was the one giving it.

That’s right…my brother is a rabbi. He has been for over three years now, but the shock still hasn’t worn off yet. When he initially went back to school, I wasn’t sure what to expect. I didn’t know if it was going to be a good thing or a bad thing, if he’d transform into a completely unrecognizable person, or if it would somehow negatively affect our family dynamic.

It turns out that I had nothing to worry about. My brother is still the same guy, cracking Larry David jokes and walking around in his boxer shorts. But now when he does put his pants on, he goes out and leads his flock of congregants on the path towards enlightenment.

And it’s this work that should offer me some cover here. If each Jewish family is expected to devote a certain amount of time and effort to Judaism, then the Stollers are more than hitting their quota. My brother practices it a ton, I barely practice it at all, and it all evens out perfectly, placing our bottom line right where it needs to be. Rocking that boat will only screw things up at this point.

"Our Destiny Chooses Us"

In the movie Rounders, Mike McDermott (played by Matt Damon) is a professional poker player who is torn between two diverging life paths – grinding out a living at the table, or taking the legitimate route and becoming a lawyer. Deep down, he knows that he’s a card player. It’s who he is. But he recognizes the inherent risks that come with it, and he understands that pursuing that lifestyle will also cost him the girl he loves.

Searching for guidance, he turns to his mentor, Abe Petrovsky, one of his law school professors, who at one time had also faced a similar dilemma. In the professor’s case, his parents wanted him, coincidentally, to be a rabbi, but in his heart of hearts, he believed he was destined to work with the law. So that’s what he decided to do, and subsequently, his family never spoke to him again. Hearing this, Mike asks him if, knowing what he knows now, would he still have made the same choice.

“What choice?” Petrovsky replies.

When it comes down to it, we have to stay true to who we are. Whether it’s a gambler or a lawyer or, heaven forbid, a Sooner, nothing good comes from trying to be something we aren’t. We just end up angry and resentful, wondering what might have been.

Me? I’m a Longhorn, and when Texas lines up to play Oklahoma – even on Yom Kippur – that is what’s at the center of my universe, and I’m not going to fight it. I know that may be blasphemous, and I know I might be tempting fate, and I’ll be happy to repent again next year.

In the meantime, though, I just hope the Horns aren’t the ones who end up paying for my sin.

(Note: The Longhorns did end up paying for my sin, getting blasted 55-17. I have spent each and every day since praying to Bevo in hopes of achieving atonement.)

'X' Marks the Spot

There I was, laid out on my back, gasping for air, beads of sweat pouring down my face and stinging my eyes. I attempted to get up but couldn’t. My body was somehow aching and completely numb, all at the same time. With my life flashing before me, I battled disorientation, as my mind tried to make sense of the trauma it had just been through.

Was it a nightmare? Had I been shot? Was I having a near-death experience? Was I getting my chest waxed like The 40-Year-Old Virgin?

Nope…I had just finished my first workout for P90X.

An “extreme home fitness program,” P90X promises to get you in the best shape of your life over a 90 day period by putting you through a diverse set of workouts for an hour or so a day – and it’s that “or so” that’ll get you – six days a week. You push, you pull, you lunge, you extend, and you hope you don’t vomit, all within the friendly confines of your own living room.

The evil mastermind behind the series is trainer Tony Horton, one of those perfect looking, impossibly fit dudes who sadistically finds pleasure in a burning quadriceps muscle. He’s the leader on the DVDs, instructing you what to do while also doing the workouts himself. And as you’re grinding and grunting, trying to keep your lungs from ejecting out of your esophagus, he’s smiling and laughing, making it all look so easy. The man is an absolute beast. I sometimes wonder if he has any furniture in his house, or if he just gets into a “Wall Squat” when he feels like sitting down.

I first learned of the program about a year-and-a-half ago on sports talk radio, when seemingly every show I listened to began endorsing it. The hosts were all doing the workouts, and you couldn’t flip the channel without hearing somebody going on and on about how great they felt and how much their body had been transformed.

Despite this constant bombardment, though, I never really considered doing it. Beyond the basic commitment that would cut into my “doing nothing” time, I just really don’t like working out. The straining, the sweating, the shaking…it’s not fun. And while I’ve forced myself to do a consistent routine a few days a week for some time now, I always want it to be over as quickly as possible. Honestly, if I had access to a wish-granting genie, the ability to jam all of my exercising into a Rocky-esque montage – where three minutes, some inspirational music and a Russian mountaintop is all you need to become a chiseled world champion – would be on my shortlist.

But over time, like any commercial jingle, the gospel of P90X seeped into my subconscious, growing on me the same way George endeared himself to the “Rat Hat” saleswoman who at first couldn’t stand him.

Opening me up that much more to its message was the fact that I’ve been feeling stressed and a little out of sorts lately, like something just isn’t right. And as a way to cope with all of these fears and anxieties, I’ve been breaking down and bending my self-imposed exercise and diet rules. I’ll skip a workout. I’ll go to McDonald’s. I’ll skip a workout to go to McDonald’s. And while these rebellions have initially been freeing, it never takes long for the shame and guilt to set in, leaving me to wallow in regret, as I poke my ever-softening midsection and try to figure out how to not lie when my mom inevitably asks, “Have you been taking care of yourself?”

Things finally tipped a few weeks ago when I was, of all things, going to pick up my car from the shop. The service station I use is right across the street from my office, and it sits on top of this big hill that, while annoying to go up and down, shouldn’t be anything that a seemingly healthy 33-year-old should even notice. But as I made my way up it, I found myself struggling to catch my breath.

And I was just walking.

Standing in line to pay, I was downright embarrassed, and also a little angry. Here I was, blessed with great genes and a strong metabolism, and yet I was wasting it all on Scrubs reruns and chicken nuggets. How had I gotten to this point? I knew that I was better than this, and I knew exactly what I had to do about it.

Co-stan-za!

After buying the DVDs and spending approximately 83 hours assembling my pull-up bar, the final step in my preparation was determining when I was actually going to do the workouts. An hour a day is a lot, even for someone who isn’t married, doesn’t have kids and whose to-do list often includes watching high school highlight reels of potential Texas Longhorn football prospects.

(I’ll pause here for all of the parents of young kids to shake their heads in “Time…there’s never any time” disgust).

While I’ve always had an allergy to alarm clocks, I ultimately decided that I’d wake up early and exercise before going to work. It was like playing with found time, I figured, and it’d be the perfect way to get the agony over and done with. Plus, I’ve always heard people talk about how good they feel after a pre-dawn workout, how it’s a great jumpstart to their morning, how it’s a natural high that fuels them throughout the day. Maybe I could turn into that annoying, sunshiny person who everyone else quietly can’t stand.

Well, I haven’t.

Instead of being energized and invigorated, I’m just exhausted. I walk around in a haze, and come 9pm, I’m buried in the couch, doing a dead-on impersonation of my early-to-bed mother – sitting upright, my head drifting down, down, down until it snaps back to level, as I violently pinball in and out of consciousness. Once I can finally summon the motivation to get up and go to my room, the sensation of sinking into my mattress is one of pure ecstasy.

It’s the moment that I look forward to all of my waking hours, and it would be, without a doubt, the highlight of my day, if it weren’t for one haunting realization:

The next time I’m awake, there’s another workout waiting for me.

And these workouts are absolutely brutal, punishing every muscle you can imagine with exotic sets like “Full Supination Concentration Curls” and “Flip-Grip Twist Triceps Kickbacks.” There’s a running clock at the bottom of the screen that lets you know how much time is left, both for that particular exercise and for the entire workout. While I barely noticed it initially, now I can’t take my eyes off it, like a 5th grader looking at his watch, waiting for the Recess bell to ring. And I swear it keeps moving slower and slower with each passing routine.

Forget bull riding…do Plyometrics once, and you’ll gain a full appreciation for just how long eight seconds truly is.

I was at a wedding the weekend before last, and there was a single-person restroom right outside of the reception hall. As I was about to go in, I saw that there was a sign posted saying that the restroom was only for people who couldn’t make it down the stairs to the larger facilities. Now, I’m the last person who’d ever take a handicap parking spot or purposefully inconvenience the elderly, but I stood there for a good minute trying to rationalize to myself that the authors of the sign had “people in the first week of P90X” in mind when they wrote it.

(Then I remembered that when you’re faced with a dilemma like this, think of what Larry David would do – and do the opposite.)

Just 10 workouts into the program, I not surprisingly have little to show for my efforts. I’m not even capable of doing all of the required exercises yet, but I figure I’ll see some level of improvement eventually, if for no other reason than that I’m doing something more than I was before.

But honestly, I didn’t decide to do P90X just for the physical benefits. Like I explained here, for as long as I can remember, my life has felt like it’s out in front of me, like my present is nothing more than an inconsequential prelude to the real thing. And this “someday” quality has taken away any sense of urgency. I can sit around and watch TV all I want…the important stuff can wait for another day.

It’s like I’m standing at a crossroads and never choosing a direction.

But the time has come to change that now, and in some strange way, taking on this program is a way to get things started. It’s a first step, a shift in energy, and if I can complete something that’s this far out of my comfort zone, then…I don’t know…who knows what else I can do?

At least, that’s what I tell myself when I’m drenched in sweat, my legs convulsing and my will to live quivering as I try to hold a “Half Moon” pose in the Yoga workout. I’ve never worked so hard in my life, but I made this commitment, and as long as my body will allow me, I’m going to keep showing up, keep putting that DVD in the machine, and keep hitting play. Because, as the immortal Tony Horton would say, once you do that, there’s only one thing left to do:

Bring it.

In a New York Minute

On September 10, 2002, USA TODAY ran an article describing what life was like on that same date in 2001 – the day before the world changed forever. And when you read it, you get the sense that things weren’t all that different from the way they are today. While terrorism may have seemed like something only other countries had to worry about (there was actually a suicide bombing in Istanbul), the news was still filled with frivolous headlines about Hollywood gossip and adulterous politicians. A Gallup Poll revealed that the majority of Americans were “dissatisfied with the way things are going in the United States.”

But what’s most striking about the piece are the stories of how some of the people who would perish in the impending attacks spent their last full day on earth. Some are, not surprisingly, heartbreaking, like the woman whose dinner plans with her mother got canceled. Some are eerie, like the son who, for some unknown reason, made his weekly call to his parents on that Monday night, instead of Wednesday like he usually did. And some are, in a way, touching, like the father who was forced to stay home with his two daughters, because his wife had a meeting; or the man who stayed up late folding a load of laundry, a surprise his wife wouldn’t find until the following morning as he was on his way to the World Trade Center.

Blessed with the benefit of hindsight, though, they’re all haunting, because we know what’s coming next. And that perspective allows us to see how these everyday, seemingly trivial occurrences, decisions and inconveniences add up to make something so much more, something that should never be taken for granted:

Life.

But if we spin things forward and apply that same perspective to our own lives, we may see that that’s exactly what we’re doing. Caught up in the tunnel vision of our day-to-day, weighted down by all of the pressures and demands and responsibilities, it can be difficult to be grateful for the small things, to not get frustrated with the never-ending hassles and annoyances, to step back and appreciate the big picture. There are just too many places to go and people to see. There’s too much money to make. There’s too much to do, and too little time to do it.

And while we talk a good game about living today as if it’s our last, that’s not really what shows up for many of us. We say that our families are our priority, that the people we love are what are most important to us, yet we spend the majority of our time away from them.

We’re like the out of shape person who claims to want to be fit, but never works out.

Of course, this neglect is not always driven by greed or selfishness. Oftentimes, it’s just the opposite – we work harder and faster and longer because we care about those who are close to us, to ensure that they have everything we can possibly provide them. But in doing so, we sometimes end up missing out on those precious moments we didn’t know were significant until it’s too late.

It’s a shame that we allow it to get to that point, that it takes something disastrous – an accident, a medical diagnosis, a death – to mute the madness, to strip away all of the trivialities and shift our focus back to finding some semblance of balance in our lives.

Maybe that’s just how it is, though. Maybe it’s impossible to be in tune to the good stuff without experiencing the bad.

So while September 11th will always live on as a time of great tragedy, as a symbol of heroism and bravery, of compassion and the American spirit, maybe it can also serve as a reference point for just how fragile our lives really are. Everything can change, just like that. One minute, our lives are about bank accounts and traffic and deadlines; the next they’re about…well…lord knows what. And by simply carrying that horrific day with us, we will no longer need any more misfortune to remind us about what truly matters.

Because really, for all we know, any day could be our own September 10th.

Swing Thoughts

I know I’m probably alone in saying this, but The Replacements is one of my favorite sports movies. While I recognize its absurdities (the placekicker smokes while lining up a field goal), its inaccuracies (why do they call timeout after a kickoff to stop the clock?) and its inability to decide on whether it's slapstick or serious, it’s still got a likeable story with a bunch of good messages about confidence, redemption and the game day advantages of having a sideline full of strippers.

(And if that’s not enough, it’s got an all-star “Hey, that’s so-and-so” cast, featuring Mikey from Swingers as a cop-turned-maniacal linebacker, Roy from The Office as a deaf, sure-handed tight end, and Tim and Billy Riggins’ future Friday Night Lights love interest as a hot cheerleader who can break down a zone defense.)

What sticks with me the most from the movie, though, is the scene in which the new replacement players are engaged in a team-building exercise where everyone has to open up about what they’re afraid of. When it comes around to Shane Falco, the quarterback and unquestioned leader, he gives a surprising response: quicksand.

“You’re playing, and you think everything is going fine,” Falco explains. “Then one thing goes wrong. And then another. And another. You try to fight back, but the harder you fight, the deeper you sink. Until you can’t move…you can’t breathe…because you’re in over your head. Like quicksand.”

It was a revealing confession, one that we can all probably identify with on some level. But I’d bet that there’s not another quarterback out there who can identify with it more than the University of Texas’ Garrett Gilbert.

Gilbert, like Falco, has always had star potential. A five-star recruit and national high school player of the year, he was blessed with all of the physical skills in the world, but since he arrived on campus, he’s seemed to struggle with a sort of emotional block that has kept him from performing up to his true capabilities.

In 2010, his first as the Longhorns’ starter, he suffered through a brutal campaign, throwing the second-most interceptions in the country and becoming public enemy number two among the UT message board crowd (Offensive Coordinator Greg Davis took the undisputed top spot).

And this past Saturday night, in Texas’ season-opening win against Rice, Gilbert got off to another uneven start.

While he did some nice things early on, like hitting a beautiful deep ball to set up the Horns’ first score, watching him, as a fan, still felt a lot like it did last year. Not only was he forcing some throws and struggling with his accuracy, he looked tight and anxious, seemingly pressing to make something happen. You could sense the tension through the computer screen (I was forced to watch an illegal online feed, because I’m not one of the seven people who get The Longhorn Network). There was no flow, no fun, and you wondered if a face-mask-grabbing disaster was coming every time he dropped back.

And eventually, it (almost) did. On a critical third down early in the second half, as he was about to get sacked, Gilbert inexplicably tried to lateral to his running back, who was trailing the play. The ball went bouncing towards the Texas end zone, the perfect opportunity for a defensive scoop-and-score, but UT fortunately recovered it.

It was a cardinal sin mistake, a play you wouldn’t expect out of a high school freshman – much less a college junior – and it appeared there was a chance that Gilbert could get benched. The word all offseason was how the starting quarterback would be on a short leash, and with the offense sputtering, this seemed to be as good of an opening as any to sit him down.

But I hadn’t given up on Gilbert just yet, and I was hoping the coaches hadn’t, either. Not just because I blindly support anyone in burnt orange, and not just because I thought he was still the best option at quarterback, but for a far more personal reason:

He reminds me a lot of myself.

Several years ago, when I was attempting to play golf competitively, I battled my share of difficult times, just like Gilbert has. Thankfully, I didn’t have a bunch of rabid fanatics depending on me to make their Saturdays, though, because if I had, I’d probably be locked up in a straightjacket somewhere, staring off into space like David Puddy.

For me, my internal expectations gave me more than enough to talk about with my therapist.

I was uncompromisingly hard on myself, and it got to the point where I dreaded going out to practice, because I knew what awaited. Instead of just concentrating on consistently improving, I was trying to qualify for the PGA Tour with every swing of the club. Each shot carried with it this far-reaching, core-shaking conclusion – if it wasn’t good, then I wasn’t good – and, sad as it is to admit, it turned the golf course into my own, private torture chamber.

I’d get up on the tee, and I’d be immediately drawn to all of the deep, dark places where my golf ball could end up. It was all I saw, and it flooded my mind with a million negative thoughts about how I wasn’t aimed properly or that I didn’t have the right club or that I was going to reenact Tip Cup’s performance on the U.S. Open driving range. The tension was utterly crippling, and despite telling myself that it wasn’t the end of the world if I were to hit a bad shot, it didn’t really matter. What mattered was that I believed that it would be the end of the world, and then when I hit it crooked, it felt like the end of the world. Each negative outcome would feed the next, and I couldn’t figure out how to break out of the cycle.

When you’re constantly worried about screwing up, you have very little chance of performing. Driven by fear, your natural ability is muted, and you become so consumed with all that can go wrong that any success you experience happens almost by accident.

One afternoon, I was out playing, and on the first hole, I hit a really nice approach shot about five feet from the flagstick. But as I lined up the birdie putt, I had absolutely no confidence that I was going to make it. The fears of failure, of success, of the gopher from Caddyshack jumping out of the hole and kicking me in the crotch swirled through my head, suffocating me with anxiety. I tried to shut it out by visualizing a positive image, but ultimately, it was no use. I could only see the golf ball finishing above ground.

And sure enough, that’s exactly where it came to rest.

Staring at my disobedient Titleist, I didn't know what to do. Why did I keep doing this to myself? Why was I giving in to such a ridiculous thought pattern? When was it going to register that playing out of fear and worry and caution was guaranteeing the negative results from which I was trying to protect myself?

As I walked to the next hole, though, I felt this anger swell up inside. But for once, it wasn’t a debilitating anger…it was an “I’m not going to put up with this anymore” fire, and it allowed me to see things more clearly. Maybe I was going mental, or maybe I’d just hit rock bottom, but whatever it was, I was a different person when I stepped on the tee box.

Golfers are often taught to focus on one thought as they prepare to hit a shot. Typically, it’s some sort of technical key, a trigger to help them execute a particular move in their swing, like “Rotate your hips” or “Stay down through the ball.” But as I stood over my next shot, armed with this newfound determination, I decided it was time that I go with something a little less sophisticated and a lot more primal:

F*** it.

What if I made a terrible swing? F*** it. What if I put it in that impossibly deep bunker? F*** it. What if I banana ball it through that kitchen window? F*** it. Just hit it. No strings attached. No deep, lasting effects. No nothing. The ball is going to go where it’s going to go, and wherever it ends up, we’ll go find it and hit it again.

Not surprisingly, I flushed it right where I was looking, and this time, it was no accident. For the first time in a long while, my swing had some authority to it. It had acceleration. It had power. It had command.

And more than anything, it had freedom.

When I got to the green, I decided to take things a step further – for the rest of the round, I was going to putt with my eyes closed. I’d read about tour players doing this to get back in touch with their feel, but for me, it was more about disassociating from what could go wrong. If I couldn’t see it, I wouldn’t worry about it. I could just concentrate on what I could control – my putting stroke – and trust that the golf ball could find its own way through the great unknown.

I won’t bore you with the shot-by-shot – I know that most people can’t stand to watch golf on TV, much less read about it – but I played the next 10 holes in three under par. That won’t win you much, but it was the easiest, most care-free stretch of my life. My swing wasn’t a model of perfection, nor was I in the “zone”…it was just that I had finally gotten out of my own way, giving my true talent the chance to take effect. Because I literally did not care what happened, I was able to focus on the process of what I wanted to achieve instead of being obsessed with the results. And with my mind uncluttered, my body could perform.

Naturally, once it registered that I had something going, I immediately wanted to protect it, and my old demons began wreaking their usual havoc again. But even though my back nine scorecard was littered with bogeys, I left the golf course knowing that I’d found the answer.

When things aren’t going well, our instincts obviously tell us to do whatever we can to fix them. We want to feel like we have control, so we dig in deeper, and we fight harder, and we scream louder, regardless of where it gets us. But the trick is really to do just the opposite - to relax, to let it go, to try not to try.

And if I could give Garrett Gilbert one piece of advice, that’s exactly what I’d tell him.

After making that head-scratching lateral, Gilbert was fortunately given another shot to redeem himself. Facing a pivotal point in his UT career, he responded admirably by leading the Horns on consecutive touchdown drives of 72, 99 and 94 yards. By no means was he perfect, and there was still plenty of room for improvement, but he did seem to settle down some, flashing the ability that had gotten him tagged just a year ago as the Next Big Thing.

The jury is still out on whether or not he can uphold the recent quarterback tradition that was established by the genius of Vince Young and Colt McCoy, but I still think he’s got a shot. Because beyond his improved second half production, I was most encouraged by something else that I saw the other night, something you won’t find in the game film or on the stat sheet.

Texas had just scored one of their final TDs, and the camera caught Gilbert on the sideline, reacting to the play. Jumping up and down, smiling, celebrating with his teammates, it seemed as if the pressure valve was finally loosening for him. He was happy. He was light. He was just a kid again, playing a game that was supposed to be fun.

And in that moment, even if just for a second, you could almost see his head poking out from underneath the quicksand.