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Fierce Urgency Of Now
by Dave
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
President Obama spoke with pundit cum "journalist," Matt Lauer, and referred to discussions Obama had with Afghanistan's leader, Hamid Karzai, regarding the Karzai administration's taking steps to solve political corruption in the country. He told Lauer, "What we've been trying to emphasize is the fierce urgency of now." The phrase is one Obama frequently uses. It is one he picked up from Martin Luther King and so would seem to be effective and true. Yet, while the "fierce urgency of now" may be appropriate in certain circumstances, it is really the expression of a common human weakness. Another way to aptly and simply encompass the full meaning of the phrase is "panic." A tendency to panic is not one of the redeeming traits of human beings.
Panic may be appropriate when one is dealing with an immediate disaster like the flooding of one's basement, a leaky roof, or a fire which threatens to spread rapidly. The "fierce urgency of now" is perhaps appropriate in righting a recurrent wrong like slavery or racism. It addresses another common human weakness, a tendency to be controlled by inertia, to procrastinate. Left to their own devices, those who practiced slavery would never change their economic structure to remove it because it is too easy to live with the status quo. Racism is also easy to continue while addressing either injustice requires hard work though society is ultimately better by changing things. But panic can be your worst enemy in most endeavors. And it will definitely work against you in fastpitch softball.
The "urgency of now" is most often to blame when soldiers retreat in a disorderly fashion from the battlefield. The "urgency of now" is what causes workers to complete a project filled with glitches which take more time to fix than the original work took. The "urgency of now" is what makes people take short cuts that wind up taking longer than the long way. The "urgency of now" is what causes softball coaches to lose control of their tempers and teams or make bad early decisions with respect to player and team development.
Think of the "urgency of now" in a work setting. You've got a project which will take 3 months to complete. It doesn't so much matter whether that project is the moving of a massive pile of dirt from one spot to another 100 yards away, or constructing a spreadsheet to calculate the net present value of costs to be incurred over the next ten years related to some legislative change. Most often, it is better to take a step back and consider the steps required to complete the task properly, efficiently, and completely. That is what business leaders do. If a gaggle of workers were left to finish a task without leadership, what most often would happen is they would begin the task immediately without any regard to efficiency, without any regard to how the task might be completed well and within the time allotted.
You may disagree with me, if you must, on this most critical point but I've seen it too many times to be persuaded otherwise. As a low level manager, I've had perhaps hundreds of people work for me throughout my life. Generally, on the first day of someone's employment, they are given few tasks. The real go-getters complete their tasks very rapidly in order to prove their bona fides with the new boss. That's all well and good but it says nothing about whether the person will be successful a month or two from now. If a month from now, this same employee has a sense of the "urgency of now" about all their work, what is produced will often be sloppy, delivered without regard to priority, and generally of a very poor quality. Many important tasks just won't get done because the worker feels he or she just has to much to do. I have cleaned up too many messes made by a co-worker who had a well developed sense of "the urgency of now" to be a big fan of it.
If a group of folks has that sense of panic and they need to move the massive pile of dirt, what you get is a bunch of guys picking up a shovel full and walking the 100 yards to make the new pile. You end up moving the pile though it may take a bit longer than expected. nd you have this trail of dirt leading from one location to the other which nobody cleaned up because it will take too long and they have "the urgency of now" driving their actions. Now they claim the project is completed but the new pile of dirt is short by 10% and nobody really wants to clean up the mess.
If, instead, everyone stood back and a leader examined the size of the project, available resources, etc., usually what will happen is a much better method of attack would be developed - maybe the requisition of a dump truck and front loader - and the three month project would be accomplished in half the time. This is essentially the nature of human endeavor throughout history.
The Red Chinese have generally used an "urgency of now" approach that has cost millions of people their lives as they strove to complete great projects by using simple human labor rather than the best technology and equipment available. We see that approach taken in many Communist countries. In free, entrepreneurial societies, more thought is used and much more is accomplished more quickly. I am sorry to go on for so long about politics but I do want to belabor the point. The urgency of now is valid in only very limited circumstances. And in our sport, it is seldom advisable.
I am not one for MLB's spring training games. I try not to pay attention to baseball until late April / early May. I was reminded today of why that is advisable as I listened to interviews with pitchers on sports talk radio. One pitcher had given up many home runs in his last couple of outings. He felt he had been well prepared for the coming season. There was no sense of panic in him. He was not even slightly concerned about the home runs.
The reason the pitcher was unconcerned was because he had taken a certain approach in these appearances. In one, during the first inning, he threw one pitch, one of his better ones, over and over again. Then after that, for several innings, he threw nothing but a pitch he is working on. He may throw that pitch some during real games but for now it is purely a work in progress. When he begins throwing it, he will not throw it in the circumstances he did during pre-season games.
Another little approach he took during spring games was to speed up his normal pitching pace. When he got the ball back from the catcher, it was his goal to get it back into the catcher's mitt as quickly as possible. I'm not sure why he did this. Perhaps it was a conditioning thing. &n bsp; Perhaps his coach wants him to see first hand that speeding up the pace keeps fielders on their toes. The reason the pitcher did this is not relevant. The fact is he did this and took several other approaches which will likely be abandoned during the real season.
That is the way in which major league baseball clubs go through their paces to get ready for the long season. The clubs do not expect their pitchers to come out and throw 7 plus innings their first outing while hitting the radar gun exactly where they left off at the end of last season. They have them build up arm strength gradually, they carefully monitor pitch counts, they have them experiment with pitches, and they otherwise take steps to be effective during a very long season. It is a marathon not a sprint.
Just within the short high school softball season, we see the same kinds of approaches. Teams set up scrimmages and play games in which the senior catcher who has held the position for several years and is unquestionably the number 1 doesn't catch an inning or maybe catches just two while DPing or maybe trying a few innings at first or third. Three girls who will be starters for the team take stints at SS or 2B. Three or more pitchers might be used over the course of two games. Some newcomer to the squad plays CF because the coach likes her speed and wants to observe her instincts at a position maybe she has never played during "real game" situations. Batting orders are played with to see how kids react. A coach might have a slugger bunt with two runners aboard just to see if she can get one down. Generally it is a time of great experimentation.
Pitchers can be imposed upon to throw just this, that or those two pitches during an outing at this time of the year. Sometimes a coach might instruct a pitcher to throw n0othing but fastballs low in the zone, hoping that this will induce a lot of grounders so the coach can observe his or her fielders. A coach might call a seemingly totally inappropriate pitch in a situation just to see if maybe it might be effective in a key situation. Perhaps a coach might want his or her pitcher to always throw a ball or two on the first pitch(es) just to see how she does pitching from behind. The possibilities are endless.
Different approaches to certain plays can be tried. For example, in a 0-0 "game," a coach might want a throw to go through to second on a first and third steal attempt to see if the SS can tag the runner and make the throw to home in time. Catchers might be told to attempt to throw out a runner at third on every pitch or every other one when during the season, that might not be the way the team works. There is a litany of possible pre-season experiments a team might feel are necessary based on what the coach feels is needed to best prepare the team for battle.
As you sit watching your kid play varsity or whatever level of high school softball, you may not always agree with what you see going on. You might think to yourself, "my is is a far better outfielder than infielder, yet this coach seems to be trying her out at the middle infield when her skills there are going to doom her to failure." Maybe you like a different approach to some aspect of the game. Maybe you wish you had made your kid ready for this or that and now you are afraid she is going to fail at what the coach wants her to do. Well, it's not your call. You don't know what the coach really has in mind. Perhaps your kid is the best option this coach has at X position and it's not going to kill her to do this for a while. It is truly early right now. It is too early to judge everything. Get some patience!
Once upon a time, a father was observing his daughter's team play a game. Everyone seemed to have these powerful bats. His daughter's bat seemed dead. He decided to get a new bat for his kid no matter what it cost. He wan ted the best one he could quickly find but being ignorant of the subject, he wasn't sure where to start. The other team hit the ball hard and used some particular kind of bat. So he made his way over to their side and nonchalantly checked out the brand. What it was doesn't actually matter to the story but let's say they all had Louisville Slugger Catalysts. He went home, got on the computer, found some sporting goods store's web site and made the purchase.
In a few days, the bat came via rapid delivery. He took it out and went over the new 31 inch, drop 10 bat carefully. It was nice and new. He gave it to his daughter to bring to batting practice the next day. When he came home from work the next day, he immediately asked his daughter how the batting practice was and how she liked her new bat. "I like it fine," she said sheepishly, "but coach says I need something heavier and maybe another inch longer. Sara has a Rocketech 32 and I mostly used that. I want one of those."
The father, crushed by his abject failure, checked his bank and credit card accounts and realized that he might be able to swing another $200+ purchase in two weeks but he'd have to go for the slower ground shipping. He told his daughter, "I'll look into it but it's gonna take a couple weeks." She agreed and used sara's bat until hers finally came. Now every time the father opens up the sports equipment closet, he sees $200+ he could have found another use for.
This is the way of all human endeavor. We are always in such a rush. We almost never have patience for our daughter's softball careers to take shape. We spend money foolishly to get stuff that may never be used. We get to near-panic if the coach is using our daughter in ways we didn't anticipate or in which we think he or she might seal her doom. Most of the time, the Universe provides and things work out. But sometimes we open our mouths as we feel the urgency of now and create a much worse situation that could have been avoided had we taken a little time and stepped back.
Today, at the end of March, take a moment and step back. Relax for a moment or three. It is not time to panic, to feed your sense of "the urgency of now." See if you can see the good in things. Don't encourage your daughter to quit the high school team because your daughter is being told to throw all fastballs when she is a drop ball pitcher. Don't worry that your SS is playing CF or your CF is playing SS. This is a marathon not a sprint. Take a longer term view of things, and maybe keep your mouth closed for a few more days or weeks.
Permanent Link: Fierce Urgency Of Now
 
Broader Perspectives
by Dave
Monday, March 29, 2010
As children head to that date with destiny, college, most of us get sick when we hear or read reports of just how much a college education costs these days. Is it up to a million bucks yet? Don't tell me when it reaches that height. I don't want to know about it. I'll be in the bathroom all day vomiting. I heard a story about a girl, a softball player, who is headed off to school at the end of the summer. The reason I am discussing it today is because she was not able to take the "usual" way many softball parents think their kids will attempt. She had a broader perspective on the college issue and it looks as if it is going to work very nicely for her.
I'm not going to go chapter and verse about how this girl did what she did because that is not relevant for my discussion today. To set the stage, let me say that the girl is a fine athlete but not the greatest softball player I have seen. Don't take me the wrong way. She is quite good. But she is not at a level that would get her substantial money at a top 100 softball school.
This girl is also quite bright but she is not going to get a 100% academic deal at a top 100 academic institution. Again, don't take me the wrong way. We're not talking about a strong B average here but we're also not talking straight A+s in a full slate of honors courses. She is a good, mature, responsible student.
This girl had neither the desire nor the financing to go play 5 to 8 softball showcases across the country. She played ball on a decent A level team rather than gold. She played some smaller showcases, here and there. And at a point in time, late as it turns out, she did do a little traveling with a showcase/Gold team. But she had already made significant contacts with the college of her choice and was already more than well on their radar. Had she not played Gold ball, she would still have had the same deal but I'm getting ahead of myself.
This girl's approach was to decide what she wanted to do: the type and size of school, play or not play, etc. She then contacted the school and eventually found a way whereby the coach could watch her play. I've made it sound simple because I can't go into all the details and from 20,000 feet, this is basically what she did. She chose a D-3 school, not a softball powerhouse. And this is the direction I want to open up for your consideration.
Wikipedia tells me that there are: just under 350 D-1, about 280 D-2, and almost 450 D-3 schools, making D-3 the largest division. D-1s include the sports powerhouses with which any fan should be familiar as well as those "mid-majors" the basketball pundits talk about during their March fever, and many institutions which are not powerhouses and do not often get into the televised circuit with their athletic teams. D-2s are usually (but not always) smaller than D-1s and include public and private schools. By me, many D-3s are public institutions but in places not very far away there are a bunch of smaller private schools.
I'm going to guess that you already know that, in terms of college athletic scholarship, D-1s are permitted the highest number of scholarships, D-2s have them but fewer are permitted, and D-3s do not offer any athletic money. But, not all D-1s offer the full number. Many conferences limit these further than the NCAA. It isn't just the Ivies with their prohibition of purely athletic money. Many D-1 schools themselves do not fund their athletic programs quite as much. So a D-1 school might be permitted to 12 full equivalents by the NCAA, limited to 10.5 in their conference, yet only provide 6 because of the way things work at the particular school. I am not giving actual data for a school but giving you some general principles.
Further, while D-2s have athletic scholarships, many times, their cost, particularly if they are public schools, can be far less. If a kid can qualify for both academic and financial aid, it may cost very little to attend the school regardless of any athletic money.
The same is true of D-3s, except they have zero athletic money. Sometimes the amount of academic aid at a D-3 can far exceed that offered at either a comparable D-1 or 2 school. The bottom line in all this is you want to balance the final cost of a school with your ability to meet that obligation along with the academic benefit of going there. It isn't about one school giving $20,000 athletic, $3,000 academic and $3,000 needs based aid vs. another giving $5,000, $2,000, and $2,000. If the big spender costs $20,000 more than the smaller school, you are still ahead of the game going to the latter, assuming the educations are comparable.
I watched some of the D-3 WCWS last year because it was held within driving distance of my home. It is impossible to compare the level of play within the 3 divisions without making a bunch of caveats, qualifying everything I say, and listing too many schools at differing levels within each division. Let just say that, at the WCWS level - the top 8 schools at each division, D-2 and D-3 is not all that similar to D-1. However, at lower quality levels of D-1, many of those teams do not remotely compare to the WCWS teams either. Someone once suggested to me that the best D-3 schools can fairly easily beat the worst D-1 schools. I don't know that this is true so I won't even bother. I'll give you something better than that sort of comparison. Who really cares?
Oh, if you want to be on TV, I suppose you might prefer a D-1 school, perhaps in the PAC-10, SEC, Big Ten, etc. I know many of those schools have their games broadcast on ESPN, Fox Sports Network, a conference cable channel or some such. Heck, it would be nice for one's friends to be able to watch a kid play some games via the cable or satellite hook-up. But what's the likelihood of that ever actually happening? And what real difference is it going to make to anyone's life?
The fact is, getting a quality college education at an institution well suited for the student trumps any other consideration. It is not as if playing top 25 D-1, assuming one is able to get there and make the starting team, is going to open other doors later in life. There are no million dollar signing bonuses and salaries for professional softball players, unless you add up every player currently on a roster! I do n0ot begrudge a girl for dreaming about one day playing softball as a first career after college. But she will not be able to make a living at just that. She will certainly enjoy playing if she is actually that good but it isn't a means by which to make her way in the world.
Heck, there are a million other ways to make a life in softball which do not require an on-TV experience. A kid go become a teacher and eventually find a coaching slot for a high school or middle school team. She could hang around her college, obtain her masters, and help out with softball team coaching as a volunteer assistant in order to build a coaching resume. She could try to get a job with an equipment manufacturer. There are many ways to skin the cat but not very many careers are otherwise available to even the kid who gets a clutch base hit in the D-1 WCWS aired live on ESPN. The college education is the more important consideration than the quality of softball team one would like to play for.
Let me be clear that many D-1 schools, even the softball powerhouses do, in fact, provide marvelous educational experiences. But athletes can be precluded from pursuing certain majors due to the rigorous training, practice and game schedules. D-1s often play in conferences which require significant travel. They also play the largest amount of games. I do not have first hand information about the rigors of training schedules at each school in each division, but I am sure some D-2s and 3s have extreme training throughout the year. There is no question that some D-1s are not like the others - do little real travel and do not put the girls through a training vise. And some of the "lower" divisions do travel quite a bit. But, in general, in the grand scheme of things, one is more likely to find a school with a less rigorous training and travel schedule while providing a superior educational experience in the "lower" divisions.
I know of one D-1 school which in years past, did not have much off-season training and what little there was, was not policed strictly. Many of the players did whatever they felt like, including skipping training almost completely, without any measure of punishment. Players were not in any way deprived of that good ole college life. The team was pretty bad. And, most importantly, the academic side of things was not much better.
By contrast, I have heard here and there about kids who went off to what amounted to better schools academically speaking, worked regularly and pretty darn hard at both athletics and academics, but had great times and loved the non-D1 institutions they attended.
It is also of particular importance to note that one girl's father told me that she had been interested in a very good academic D-1 school, and they interested in her, but she could not pursue the major she wanted due to the game schedule. At a D-3, she was able to both pursue that major and play softball. The coaches noted to her before she came that several girls on the team were also in that major and she could talk to them about how they balanced athletics with their academics, if she liked. She did and was happily convinced to go to the D-3 school. I should add that both the D-1 and D-3 schools she was considering were top of the line in her chosen major. Both had wonderful reputations and great facilities for the major. But, for whatever reason, the D-3's athletic facilities were actually better than the D-1s! Her decision was a no brainer.
The girl I mentioned first in this piece, the one headed to school next year, chose her D-3 school for reasons to which I am not privy. But I can tell you that the school has an excellent academic rep. She will major in her chosen field. She'll play softball which she is not yet willing to give up! The school is quite small which perfectly suited to her personality. I envy her, not merely because she is young, beautiful, and headed to her very first year of college soon but because she is getting just about a perfect start in life!
You know, this is a D-3 school and it probably occurs to you that D-3s do not have athletic scholarships, like I said above. I told you she did not have the financial resources to play top level ball. How is she gonna afford the tuition? The fact of the matter is the girl's recruitment included some help in obtaining money. She will get about half her costs covered. If I'm not mistaken, that is before she gets any local scholarship money or loans and things of that sort. So, her family can swing it.
A mistake that many people make is assuming that the absence of athletic money means certain schools will cost more than those that give fulls and partials. That is by no means true. Even the Ivies spend significant amounts of money to recruit athletes. It just isn't in the form of athletic scholarship money. Some D-1s and many 2s and 3s (probably more 3s) give out all kinds of aid that is not directly tied into sports recruiting but which is more available to recruits. I know of an Ivy League athlete who pays less than the cost of a junior college. Some D-3 athletes pay nothing because they have a nice marriage of athletic and academic ability.
Additionally, I should tell you that even many D-1s do not recruit purely on the basis of one's athletic prowess. Some D-1s are less interested in batting average and ERA than they are in GPA, ACT, and SAT. Some D-1s may be an outstanding softball recruit's absolute first choice but her academics do not meet the measure of what that school is looking for. All schools are very interested in grades because they demonstrate seriousness and maturity. But some schools, including D-1s, are more interested in their softball roster's grades in their school than they are about the team's winning percentage.
I suspect that parents as well as children know most of the very successful athletic schools. I'd be willing to bet that certain schools are more well known to students because their peers talk about them. Parents may, at least initially, fall victim to the televised game syndrome in which they first think of the very well known schools. All potential college students and their parents need to do more research into the vast number of schools, their academic reputations, and all that they have to offer. The fact that you have never heard of a school means almost nothing. I'd bet that I can rattle off some schools which are either generally great academically or outstanding for certain majors which you have never heard the names of before. You need to look at the entire list of colleges within the geographic area you desire. You need to consider what they do and do not offer. You need to understand where you might be standing on the date of your graduation, as well as the time between then and now.
If you go to a D-2 or 3, you will not ever play in the D-1 WCWS. Just a few of these players will ever make it onto ESPN. Most will never see more than hand-held digital or web cams at their games. Some won't even see those. But at the end of days, college days, none of that is going to matter. If a girl wants to play ball in college, then she should work hard to play ball. If a girl wants to get a college education, she should work hard academically. If she really wants both, she should work hard at both and broaden her perspectives to not merely pursue and consider only the schools whose names are most familiar.Labels: college, showcase
Permanent Link: Broader Perspectives
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