Tampa Bay Times newspaper this morning. Coach Billy Donovan having worst year in his career. There’s some talk he’s been snake-bit or just plain unlucky. “I think those, to me, are kind of excuses in a lot of ways. You can sit there and say bad luck, snake-bitten, all those kind of things. I’ve never, ever believed that. I believe that you put yourself in position – maybe if you want to use the word ‘lucky’ – to be lucky..”
Time magazine this afternoon. A longevity guru, let’s give credit to 61-year-old Laura L. Carstensen, says “Oddly enough, I don’t think much about chronological age. I do think a lot about physical & psychological health. Exercise and persistently trying to solve big problems is what keeps people sharp and makes life satisfying.”
Exercise can be a big problem to be solved. Finally climbed aboard my spin bike about three in the afternoon. Turns out it’s better to listen to a (reasonably) good audiobook than to watch bad television. Merely confirms a suspicion. Am listening to Christopher Hitchens’ memoir, Hitch-22. Wife asked me about him and I told her,’intellectual windbag, might be gay.’ Well, good news, not that there’s anything wrong with that, he’s not gay. He does, however, read the text himself – sonorously – and the recording is 22 hours long. I rest my case.
Had a second gem of a thought to share. Truly. But as I write, that idea proves elusive. A fugitive.
Sports Illustrated online tonight. [Steve} Kerr always planned on coaching, but it wasn’t until two years ago, while working as a broadcaster for TNT, that he says he began preparing in earnest. That summer he attended a sports leadership conference at the Aspen Institute in Colorado and ran into Jeff Van Gundy, whose work Kerr admired.
Van Gundy told Kerr what he tells all aspiring coaches: Write down everything. Everything you’ve learned, everything you want to do. Everything you’d change. It’ll organize your thoughts. Develop your philosophy. [Italics mine. – ed.]
So Kerr created a Word file on his laptop. Wish I knew how to do that.