As a kid collecting baseball cards in the 1980s, I cared about only three things: my favorite players, my favorite team, and the cards I needed to complete the set.

Rookie cards and mint condition meant little to us. My friends and I never stuck our cards in our bike spokes, but we didn’t worry about keeping them perfect either. We rubber-banded stacks, stuffed them in our pockets, and carried them to school to show and trade.

We never considered their monetary value. The worth was in the player on the card.

The front of the card got most of the glory, of course. But I was always drawn to the back.

The Back of the Card

As a young baseball fan, I remember watching a Red Sox game one Saturday afternoon. I criticized an aging Carl Yastrzemski after he weakly popped up to the catcher to finish hitless for the day.

My dad quickly corrected me. “Yaz,” he explained, had been one of the best players in baseball for years. I was just seeing him at the very end.

Later that summer, I noticed Yastrzemski’s card as I opened a new pack Mom had just bought us in the Kmart checkout aisle. I flipped it over and saw line after line of tiny print with his yearly stats: 1961 RED SOX, 1962 RED SOX, … 1980 RED SOX.

The numbers were impressive: 40-home-run seasons, 100-RBI seasons, batting averages over .300.

But what struck me even more was the sameness. The steadiness. Twenty years that all read the same way: one uniform, one city, one story.

I did not have words for it then, but the back of Yaz’s card was teaching me something. His greatness was not only in the numbers. It was in the long attachment those numbers recorded. A life gains meaning not only from achievement, but from belonging somewhere long enough to be known, needed, and shaped by a place.

Years later, when I took my own family to a game in Boston, I was not surprised to find Yastrzemski honored with a statue outside Fenway Park.

When Stars Stayed Put

I saw only the last few years of Yaz’s career, but I grew up in an era of classic one-team greats.

George Brett. Robin Yount. Mike Schmidt.

Don Mattingly. Kirby Puckett. Alan Trammell.

Tony Gwynn. Cal Ripken.

I rooted for players whose identity was bound up with one team and one city. I never wanted them anywhere else.

Maybe that is because I already knew the sting of seeing favorites leave. My Dodgers had done it to me: first Steve Garvey, then Steve Sax, and eventually Orel Hershiser.

Maybe that is why my strongest connection to the Dodgers wasn’t with a player at all, but with longtime manager Tommy Lasorda. He liked to say, “I bleed Dodger blue, and when I die, I’m going to the big Dodger in the sky.” Coming from Lasorda, it did not sound like a marketing line. It sounded like a man describing where he belonged. His 70-plus seasons with the organization made “Dodger blue” feel less like a team color than a lifelong commitment.

Loyalty in the Lean Years

Looking back now, I have even more respect for those one-city legends.

Any relationship that spans 20 years will be tested.

Cal Ripken won a World Series and the league MVP award in only his second full season with the Orioles. But just five years later, his Baltimore team lost its first 21 games and finished dead last at 54–107.

Nearly all of those one-team greats played on last-place teams at some point, and many went long stretches without appearing in the playoffs, let alone winning a championship.

Yet they are not remembered for complaining about their circumstances, using free agency as leverage, or demanding a trade when their team fell into the cellar.

They stayed. And over time, the staying became part of the story.

The Choice to Stay

There is a player in Cleveland today who is cut from that same cloth: José Ramírez.

Ramírez grew up poor in the Dominican Republic and signed with Cleveland as an unheralded 17-year-old. At 5-foot-9, many scouts saw him as a utility infielder.

Instead, he became one of the best all-around players in baseball.

When the time came to cash in, Ramírez did something that now feels almost old-fashioned: he stayed. In 2022, he chose Cleveland when nearly everyone around baseball believed he could have made more elsewhere. Then in 2026, he chose Cleveland again, agreeing to a deal that could keep him there through 2032.

A city doesn’t forget choices like that.

Ramírez is already on his way to Cleveland legend status. It is easy to imagine his statue outside Progressive Field one day. But more than any future honor, Cleveland has become home.

When asked why he stayed, Ramírez said his family had built a life there and that he owed the city a great deal. He was grateful for the way Cleveland’s fans had stood by him—support he knew could not be taken for granted.

Where Loyalty Still Lives

Earlier this year, my son’s school honored its high school basketball coach for his 500th victory. Current and former players went down to the court for a group photo, a visible reminder of the hundreds of young men he had influenced over 22 seasons at the school.

Before taking that job, he had bounced around five different college basketball programs over 19 years, never quite settling, never staying more than six years in one place. But once he found where he belonged, it became his one story.

I looked around and saw pride on faces all over the gym.

I saw the long-time math teacher who had met the coach at a Christian retreat years earlier. He was the one who urged him to step off the college basketball carousel and take the job at an all-boys Catholic high school.

I noticed the school’s beloved geography teacher leaning against the wall in his customary sport coat, looking as if he had stepped right out of Goodbye, Mr. Chips.

There was the PE teacher who had been at the school nearly 40 years and still looked as if he could outrun any student in the mile.

I saw younger teachers in the bleachers who had only been there a couple of years but had already caught the culture, men who seemed to know they had found their place.

Reading the Back of the Card

Later that night, I pulled up the school website to read more about the coach’s career. Before long, I found myself clicking through the faculty directory, reading each bio page, the school’s version of a baseball card.

Each “card” included the year the person had joined the school: 1989, 1990, 1992, 1998, 2000, 2004. One long tenure after another.

I thought of the family-owned company where I work. When we introduce ourselves to a customer, each person usually begins by mentioning how long they have been with the company. No one planned it that way. The habit emerged naturally as more of us stayed, built something together, and began to see those years as part of the story.

Some things can only be built the slow way.

If you look around and find yourself among people who stayed, built, and belonged, you are looking at wealth the market cannot measure.

Sharing Midwestern stories of faith, family, work, and sports

On the drive home after Christmas from my mom’s, the kids and I made a pit stop in Iowa City to watch the Hawkeyes battle UCLA.

After a lap around the concourse to browse merchandise — and the requisite Carver Cones — we descended the arena steps and settled into our seats.

As the teams finished warm-ups, an intro video ran on the huge scoreboard hanging high above the court.

I got goosebumps in a packed Carver-Hawkeye Arena as highlights of my boyhood heroes flashed across the big screen, to hype music and words from new coach Ben McCollum. My kids smiled in a sea of black and gold, and it hit me how long this joy has been with me — and what God has done with it.

Looking back, I can trace a line from a boy’s love of Hawkeye basketball to my career, my city, and even my family. And I can see how that same love needed to be reordered.

At the time, it felt like sports and chance and timing. Now it looks like breadcrumbs.

A Hint of the Real Thing

Probably early pleasures were never meant to satisfy it, but only to arouse it, to suggest the real thing.

• C.S. Lewis

Growing up, baseball was my favorite. We played it nonstop each summer — on the field Dad made on our farm and on the town diamond for our small-town youth team.

I had the most success in wrestling, which unexpectedly gave me the opportunity to attend an Ivy League school.

But the sport most responsible for my move to Chicago — the city I’ve lived in for the last thirty years — was basketball.

A lot of wrestlers don’t like basketball; it’s almost a badge of honor.

But I’ll always associate basketball with our family huddling around our fireplace on winter nights, watching the Hawkeyes face off against Big Ten rivals like Bobby Knight’s Indiana Hoosiers and Gene Keady’s Purdue Boilermakers.

There was nothing else we all watched together like that — especially my mom, who got into Hawkeye basketball more than any other sport.

Losing the Signal

When I went to college out east in the early 90s, I lost my lifeline to Iowa basketball. I could no longer watch every game on the statewide network. There were no websites. No streaming. I remember being so happy once on a clear winter night, when I somehow tuned in WHO 1040 out of Des Moines from over 1,000 miles away, listening to Jim Zabel through the crackle and static.

At the end of my first semester of senior year, I had a two-week layoff between my last exam and the next round of classes. Not having enough money to fly back home or go on a trip, I stayed on campus.

By then, the college had allocated file space to each student to create their own personal website, but few students took advantage of that. With this free time, I dove into learning HTML and built my first website.

I built a Big Ten basketball site to keep tabs on the Hawkeyes. This was before conference sites, even before ESPN had a web presence.

I found a site called Satchel Sports where I could reliably download the box scores to my computer after every game. I wrote a program to update the standings and parse the data into season stats, providing the only source on the internet with up-to-the-minute Big Ten leaders in categories such as points per game, rebounds, and assists.

My friends would shake their heads and laugh a little when I rushed back to my dorm room to update the site.

Then traffic picked up. The school newspaper reached out — my Big Ten page drew more hits than any other student project, beating out a Pink Floyd fan site. Indiana All-American Alan Henderson emailed me, telling me he used my site.

As senior year wound down, a full-time job offer never came, and my nerves grew. I followed the crowd into on-campus interviews with the big accounting-and-consulting firms — Arthur Andersen, Price Waterhouse, and the rest — hoping for an offer that likely would have stuck me in New York City. But week after week, I was cut. No feedback, no second round interviews, just silence.

With the website as my calling card, I sent letters to the Big Ten office in Chicago and every other major conference — the Big East, ACC, SEC, Big 12, and Pac-10.

After flying to Chicago for a one-day interview, I eventually secured an $18,000 a year internship from the Big Ten, receiving the congratulatory offer call in my dorm room on my birthday, less than two weeks away from graduation.

The Door That Opened in Chicago

While at the Big Ten, I started working with the owner of their computer/network company, a young guy my age named Charlie who had just sold his first website.

Before long, I was working nights and weekends with Charlie, scanning photos and typing in content as we built a site for his new customer.

After about a year of working two jobs, I realized that working with Charlie and his company was a better fit for me. Not only because of computers and the internet, but because of the fun and excitement of starting a company and building it up.

Even though I moved on from the Big Ten job, Iowa basketball is what led me to Charlie’s company, where I’ve worked for thirty years now.

Some of our biggest early customers were college sports conferences. The Big Ten site helped us land the Big East, and we kept building from there.

When the Heart Confuses Signposts for Home

You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you.

• Saint Augustine

Over time, my passion for Iowa basketball drifted into something else. I got too wound up — too invested in outcomes I couldn’t control.

I carried wins and losses around like they were my own.

In my early 30s, my real desire was a wife and family, but God had a different schedule. With no prospects in that area, I poured everything I had into work and then grasped for things outside the office I could be excited about.

Looking back, it was a way to deal with loneliness outside of work hours. Watching the games was a way to feel connected to home and childhood memories, but with an unhealthy intensity on my team winning or losing.

Mercifully, Coach Steve Alford moved on, and the Hawkeye program slipped under Todd Lickliter. The downturn all but forced me to loosen my grip.

A Love Reordered

I’ve followed Iowa basketball loosely for the past five years. This season, I’m watching regularly again — but differently.

I bought a hoop for our driveway two years ago — one of the best purchases I’ve ever made. It’s something Eric or Elizabeth can do alone, or something we can do together.

A young family moved in across the street from us a couple of years ago, and one of their boys is a basketball fanatic. He and Eric play against each other all of the time, having fun outside and improving their skills every day.

Eric wraps up his first season of basketball at school this week. The wins have been hard to come by, but I’m proud of his effort and dedication all year. He’s loved the quick progress that comes with a new sport — something he doesn’t feel as much in baseball anymore, since he’s been playing it for years.

And it all happens as Iowa basketball ushers in a new coach. Ben McCollum is from Storm Lake — about an hour from my hometown — and he was raised on the same Hawkeye teams we watched in the 80s and 90s.

Gratitude for the Trail

I pulled onto eastbound I-80 in the glow of a Hawkeye victory over UCLA.

The kids asked me what was wrong, that I sounded sick.

I laughed, explaining that I had lost my voice from yelling so much at the game.

I said, “You know, it sounds strange, but without Iowa basketball, I’m not sure I ever would have moved to Chicago. I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t be working at my company, and I probably wouldn’t have met your mom…”

Elizabeth finished my thought, “Eric and I wouldn’t be here.”

God, I can see how you used my early interest in computers and my love of sports — mixed with a farmer’s work ethic and toughness — to shape my path.

And I can see how you drew me back to you after my wife passed away.

Thank you for these joys you put in our hearts — the delights you use as breadcrumbs to lead us where you want us to serve.

Help us keep our loves ordered properly, knowing our hearts are restless until they rest in you.

And… Go Hawks!

Sharing Midwestern stories of faith, family, work, and sports

Ding!

Two days before Christmas, I was relaxing at my mom’s in Iowa when my brother’s text jolted me out of my easy chair — his son Parker had just been born.

I shouted the news to my mom, and we grinned and hollered like kids.

One week later, I drove up to South Dakota with my mom, my daughter Elizabeth, and my son Eric to see the newest member of our family.

We each took a turn holding Parker, soaking up his warmth and tenderness.

My brother and his wife set our presents aside so their daughter Eleanor could open them with us there.

Even Eleanor—four years old and surrounded by presents—barely glanced at them. All eyes were on the baby boy God had given us.

In that living room, we basked in the miracle — voices softer, smiles easier.

People talk about how an older child can be jealous of a new brother or sister. I saw the opposite.

Eleanor is already adorable, but her new brother made her even sweeter. Any time Parker let out the slightest cry, she sprang into action, singing “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” to calm him down.

Galatians 5:22-23 came to mind: “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.”

Choose Wonder

Earlier in the week, my family had been discussing each other’s “word of the year,” an idea I first heard from author/speaker Jon Gordon.

As I gently held my newborn nephew, the word “wonder” popped into my head.

It aligns with my goal to be more positive in 2026 — to focus on everyday beauty instead of living on high alert for problems.

Wonder isn’t ignoring what’s wrong. It’s making sure I don’t miss what’s good.

It’s not just noticing God’s work in nature; it’s seeing the wonder in every person I meet.

I don’t want to ignore the problems. I don’t want to stop pushing myself and others to be better.

But I pray that I will not take for granted all of the good that people do and make room for the joy in it.

Carry It Home

As we put on our coats to head out the door, Eleanor told me to hold up a second. She darted down the stairs and came back with the small turquoise gem she’d given me earlier — which I’d already managed to set down and forget.

Now it sits on the corner of my writing desk — a bright, simple reminder each morning to look for the wonder in this world and in God’s people.

Lord, let it ring at the start of each day.

Sharing Midwestern stories of faith, family, work, and sports

At 6:30 a.m., I scoured the backyard for my son’s missing basketball shoe, hidden by a knucklehead friend as a prank.

We had torn through every corner of the house the night before. In the quiet of morning, with daylight finally helping, I stepped out back — grumbling about losing a shoe before the season even started.

I looked up.

Eyes Up

Above me, a November sunrise glowed orange and pink as our oaks reached over the yard, auburn and bronze leaves fluttering down to speckle the grass. The neighbor’s golden Ginkgo stood beside a massive oak crowned in brick-red foliage.

In that light, I thought of C.S. Lewis’s Space Trilogy, where he paints Malacandra’s beauty through Dr. Ransom’s astonished first impression of the planet:

“…with the first unearthly strangeness of the bright, still, sparkling, unintelligible landscape — with needling shapes of pale green, thousands of feet high, with sheets of dazzling blue soda-water…” (Out of the Silent Planet, ch. 7)

If only we could wake up each morning as if we had just landed on Earth — and see the world each day as a child.

Through Her Eyes

When my daughter Elizabeth was a baby, my wife Kristy and I used to take her for walks around our suburban neighborhood.

On those summer evenings, the quiet streets were roofed in leaves — a cathedral of green filtering the day’s last light.

Lying flat in her stroller, Elizabeth’s green eyes tracked the canopy, taking in the colors and shapes etched in the branches overhead.

Her curiosity lifted my gaze and made me wonder what she could see that I no longer saw.

This week, that same nudge to look up had returned — I stopped to give thanks.

Small Thorn, Greater Grace

God, thank you for catching my eye with your morning glory.

Thank you for lifting my perspective up to the heavens — above the morning’s frustration.

Those memories led me to take a morning walk with Elizabeth, now a teenager — some special one-on-one time to admire the trees in full color before tomorrow’s snow blankets the neighborhood.

We found my son’s shoe later that day — in the front bushes, a foot from our porch.

God, thank you for the thorn — the missing shoe that led me out the door and back into wonder.

Sharing Midwestern stories of faith, family, work, and sports

Ryan Holiday begins his four virtue books with the same classical scene: Hercules at a crossroads.

Hercules’ first battle was not against a beast but within himself. Before him stretched two futures: one shaped by discipline and sacrifice, the other cushioned by comfort and appetite.

The image impressed John Adams so deeply that he proposed it for the nation’s seal. Adams believed a republic could survive only if its citizens chose the difficult good over the easy pleasant — not once, but daily.

In a monarchy, rule may be maintained by force. In an empire, by fear. But a republic requires self-government — and self-government requires self-restraint.

The story Adams cherished came from Xenophon’s Memorabilia, where Hercules learns that virtue offers no shortcuts, only effort and endurance. Freedom, the founders understood, would stand only if citizens governed themselves.

The Comfort of Ease

For a time, that expectation felt natural. The generation that endured the Great Depression and World War II returned home determined to build something better. They labored, sacrificed, and provided opportunities they themselves never knew. Their love expressed itself in comfort and security for their children — understandable gifts after years of hardship.

Yet prosperity brings its own test. Ease, multiplied over decades, can quietly soften the habits that hardship once formed. Convenience expands. Waiting shrinks. Comfort normalizes.

None of this is evil in itself. It simply alters the terrain. The choice remains, but the road of pleasure becomes broader, smoother, easier to mistake for harmless.

The tension shows up in ordinary moments. It is the decision to practice when no one is watching. To finish the last repetition. To speak carefully instead of impulsively. To keep a promise when breaking it would simplify the day.

Where Freedom Is Decided

Theodore Roosevelt captured this truth plainly in 1910: “Nothing in this world is worth having or worth doing unless it means effort, pain, difficulty.” He was not celebrating suffering for its own sake. He was observing that anything of real worth requires exertion.

The same principle applies to free societies. Adams wrote in 1798 that the Constitution was “made only for a moral and religious people.” He was not making a narrow religious claim. He was making a structural one: laws alone cannot preserve liberty. Character must sustain it.

The real struggle, then, is not external but interior — a quiet contest between appetite and discipline, distraction and duty, comfort and courage. Nations rise or fall on the strength of those daily decisions.

What is good is often hard — and that difficulty is not an accident.

The Old Story Lives

Recently, as I opened Holiday’s newest book, Wisdom Takes Work, my 11-year-old son glanced over my shoulder.

“Hercules at the crossroads,” he said. “We just talked about that in English Lit.”

I smiled. The old story still lives.

That is what encourages me most. For all our modern abundance, the choice has not disappeared. Young people still recognize it. They still feel the pull between easy and worthy, immediate and enduring.

Self-government does not begin in legislatures or courts. It begins in households. It begins in the small, unseen decisions to restrain appetite, to honor commitments, to do the harder right instead of the easier pleasant.

National freedom flows downstream from personal discipline.

Hercules’ greatness began with a decision. The steep path required more — and it made more of him.

We face quieter decisions every day — in our work, our homes, our habits. The moment rarely announces itself. It feels ordinary. But the choice shapes us all the same.

Virtue remains demanding — and remains the only road that leads upward.

In a republic, the character we practice — again and again — becomes the future we inherit.

Image credit: Alamy

Sharing Midwestern stories of faith, family, work, and sports

“Is this heaven?” Shoeless Joe Jackson asks Ray Kinsella in Field of Dreams.

I’ve always loved that line. Growing up on an Iowa farm, we had our own ball field behind our house. My dad built a backstop for my brothers and me long before Kevin Costner ever heard “The Voice.” On summer evenings, Dad would hit us fly balls in his work clothes while Mom cooked supper.

To me, heaven looked a lot like baseball under the Iowa sky.

But lately, another sport has shown me a different glimpse of eternity.

From Winter Workouts to Fall Glory

When I pushed my 11-year-old son Eric to start running last February, I simply wanted to improve his conditioning for baseball.

But God always surprises us with His gifts.

This fall, as Eric moved from homeschooling to an all-boys private school, I was delighted when he announced his desire to run on the cross country team. It showed his terrific progress with running and offered up a perfect way to meet boys at his new school.

But it has been so much more.

Cross country has meant days outside in the glorious fall weather. Tourists talk about Chicago summers, but September is our best month — it’s not even close. There’s nothing like the warm sun and a light, cool breeze touching your face at the same time.

And I love the sport’s simplicity.

All you need is a decent pair of shoes — no $300 baseball bats or custom sliding mitts.

The closest thing to an umpire or referee is the official starter. There are no questionable called third strikes, no arguing about a pitcher’s balk.

While you may race over two hundred competitors, it’s ultimately you against the clock.

Everyone on the team gets a chance to run, a chance to top their personal best time. There’s no disappointment when the coach’s kid is challenging Cal Ripken’s consecutive inning streak while your son is sitting in the dugout again.

Not happy with your time? Well, it’s simple — have better habits, run every day, train harder. You can’t just show up on race day and post an incredible time without putting in the work. Whining won’t help.

Friday Night Lights

One race in particular will stay with me forever.

It was a Friday evening in late September. My son’s team had a meet high atop a hill in Chicago’s northern suburbs. It was under the lights, a rare treat in cross country, with the towering poles above the soccer fields illuminating the runners’ paths.

From our vantage point, we had a terrific view of a stunning sunset which faded into a sky of coral, topped with violet blue.

Our boys jogged their warm-ups, laughing while tossing around a football.

Parents lined the course, smiling and bonding, grateful to see our sons exercising in the autumn air instead of watching YouTube.

When the starter’s gun cracked, a wave of boys charged toward us, into the twilight. The air filled with the rhythmic pounding of feet upon the grass.

As I waited for Eric’s approach, I found myself cheering for every runner who passed. Some sprinted, some struggled, but all gave their best.

As a former wrestler, I’m not against intense competition. But there is something wonderful about cheering for every boy choosing effort over ease, discipline over distraction.

Regardless of their place, these youngsters are doing something hard. They’re in the arena, doing so in a culture that prizes comfort over challenge.

They deserve our applause.

When Eric came around the final turn, his face was flushed red with determination. I shouted encouragement as he sprinted for the finish. Moments later, he crossed the line, chest heaving, eyes shining. And, after a few minutes, a well-earned smile.

Then came my favorite part.

At this meet, any runner who achieved a personal best was invited to ring a small brass bell. Eric stepped up to the bell and gave the rope a good pull. The sound echoed across the field — a bright, joyful note of triumph.

As one boy after another took their turn, I thought of little Zuzu Bailey from It’s a Wonderful Life: “Every time a bell rings, an angel gets his wings.”

That night, it felt true.

Each ring seemed to celebrate something deeper than a time on a stopwatch. These kids were pushing through pain, overcoming fear, finishing strong. They had run the race marked out for them.

A Cloud of Witnesses

The race was over, and the boys cooled down, playing touch football again under the lights. The 8th graders teased the 6th graders as they would a younger brother, like Shoeless Joe treats Moonlight Graham on a ball diamond amidst a sea of Iowa corn. Parents lingered, talking and laughing, no one in a hurry to return to screens or schedules.

In that warm glow, surrounded by good company, I could have sworn it was heaven.

And maybe, in a way, it was.

Standing there, I thought of my wife Kristy, my dad, my grandparents — loved ones who have gone home to God. In my mind, I could almost see them lining the course of our lives, cheering us on from the sidelines.

It reminded me of the passage from Hebrews 12:

“Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus…”

Life, like cross country, isn’t easy. There are steep hills, endless stretches, and moments we wonder if we can keep going. But we don’t run alone.

Those who have gone before us — family, friends, faithful souls — stand along the route, examples for us to look in the direction of Jesus, the One who completed His race perfectly, who waits for us at the finish line.

Our Journey Home

Cross country has given Eric and me more than exercise. It’s given us glimpses of God’s design: the joy of community, the satisfaction of perseverance, and the wonder of His creation.

And while these moments can’t compare to the glory that awaits us in heaven, they whisper of it. Every finish line, every cheer, every joyful bell reminds me that heaven isn’t just something far away. Sometimes, if we’re paying attention, we can hear its echo right here on earth.

So as you run your own race today — through work, parenting, or grief — listen closely. Who’s inspiring you from above? Who needs your encouragement along their course?

Run your race with faith and joy. And when you cross your next finish line, don’t forget to ring the bell.

Sharing Midwestern stories of faith, family, work, and sports

From my favorite chair, I heard my 11-year-old son Eric playing indoor baseball with his friend in our basement.

The sound of their rising voices drifted upstairs as they argued over a rule in their made-up game.

Finally, Eric called a stalemate: "Let's ask my dad — he'll know." I heard his footsteps start up the stairs.

But his friend stopped him: "Wait, I'll just ask ChatGPT."

I chuckled at the absurdity of the boys consulting ChatGPT about a game they just invented in our basement.

But, as I settled back into reading the paper, my mind drifted to the larger ramifications of what I had witnessed.

A chill passed through my body as I realized our children may soon be going to AI for guidance on much more important questions.

Happiness Lost

This question of AI’s influence lingered as I attended Eric’s sixth-grade orientation the following week. There, his school’s headmaster addressed an even broader technological threat, sharing research from Dr. Jean Twenge about smartphones’ effect on teen happiness.

The activities most linked to happiness? Old-fashioned experiences like sleep, exercise, in-person friendships, volunteering, and religious services.

On the other side of the spectrum? You’re more likely to be depressed anytime you’re physically alone with a screen.

"We all grew up with TV and video games," the headmaster acknowledged, "but today's technology is different. More powerful. More invasive."

He paused for effect. "It's in our homes."

The Enemy Within

“In our homes” — those words haunted me.

Growing up in the 70s and 80s, our family sanctuary could only be breached by a phone call to our landline or knock on our door. Mom cooked supper as we ate together at our dining table, sharing stories from our days. Even TV brought us together in the living room instead of isolating us to separate screens.

The headmaster’s mention of home sent my mind to the book of Exodus, where God's plagues grew in potency and proximity — each judgment pressing closer to a defiant Pharaoh until it breached the inner walls of his palace.

I've spent my life embracing technology, writing my first computer program at my son's age.

I’ve built a successful 30-year career aligned with the rise of the Internet, bringing me not only financial security but a place at a company whose people have been a second family to me.

But through a parent's eyes, I now saw past the sleek packaging of technology to something more ominous — a progression as relentless as Egypt's plagues: a bloody Nile, frogs, gnats, flies, boils, locusts, and finally darkness and death.

And, once seen, I could not shake this dark vision of our modern plagues.

The Digital Swarm

Like Egypt's plagues, technology advances in waves. Days after the headmaster's warning, I witnessed another incursion in my own home.

After a childhood squabble, Eric's friend left our house in a huff. An hour later, my son called to apologize for something he said.

In simpler times, such conflicts resolved naturally through time and space. That short phone call would have been followed by a cooling-off period until their next meeting.

But technology erased that healing distance. His friend, clinging to victimhood, bombarded Eric’s Apple Watch with texts right after the call, as we headed out to church.

Every ding was a gnat biting my son’s wrist.

“Turn it off!" I snapped. "You said you were sorry. He needs to move on. Enough with these disruptions.”

These digital gnats may seem mere annoyances, but they announce a darker plague: teenagers retreating to their bedrooms, replacing human connection with glowing screens.

Dungeons of Darkness

The first video games of the late 1970s were simple and easy to play, mainly a test of reflexes. Your goal was to set a high score or beat your friend sitting next to you in your living room. These games were more like a toy you played with for an hour before you got bored and moved onto something else.

Contrast that with today’s games with deep narratives and photorealistic 3D graphics, some with immersive virtual reality (VR) headsets. Online multiplayer games instantly connect you with friends but also with millions of anonymous strangers hiding behind avatars and screen names — people your children have never met and know nothing about.

My kids regularly tell me stories of friends gaming in darkened bedrooms until 3 in the morning, then stumbling through school in a daze.

In Exodus, God’s ninth plague plunged Egypt into darkness for three days, isolating each person from another.

Today's teens, hunched over glowing screens in pitch-black rooms, have fashioned their own plague of darkness — a self-imposed exile that cuts them off from family, genuine friendships, and the vibrant outside world.

The Final Plague?

They are playing with the fate of the species itself. For the first time in history, Man has got his head into the lion’s mouth.

• C.S. Lewis, That Hideous Strength

Lewis penned these prescient words in 1945, cautioning against scientific advancement without moral wisdom. Now, as artificial intelligence looms as our gravest plague, his warning proves darkly prophetic.

AI is an incredibly powerful tool, one that I find myself using more every day. If I need to look something up, I now ask ChatGPT in place of a Google search, and it quickly responds like it’s my own 24/7 personal assistant.

Don’t believe me? Take a couple of minutes to watch this video — it’s straight out of the movie Ironman.

I have used AI extensively on our last two family vacations to New York and Washington DC, utilizing it as a guide to plan our sightseeing and paths throughout the cities.

And, for anyone helping their kid learn a tough algebra concept at 9:30 at night, it’s amazing that you can take a photo of the question and have ChatGPT spit out the correct solution in seconds. Not only does it display the answer — it shows step-by-step how it got there.

But this technology isn't just changing behavior — it's reshaping our souls.

And it's accelerating at a rate that few can control, especially our children.

Lost in the Machine

The headlines tell a chilling story.

Users mourning ChatGPT's personality change like the loss of a friend.

A California teen taking his life after months of counseling from AI.

These aren't isolated incidents – they herald humanity's great surrender. Our children now turn to chatbots for life advice instead of parents and mentors. With each AI consultation, we forfeit our birthright: the accumulated wisdom of generations, passed down through human hearts and voices.

Sacred Sign

In It’s a Wonderful Life, a young George Bailey faces a dilemma while working at the pharmacy. A distraught Mr. Gower yells at him to deliver medicine that George knows is laced with poison.

Unsure of himself, George glances at the wall and spots a sign that says “Ask Dad, he knows.” He runs to the Bailey Building & Loan where he sees his father defending the common man from another attack by the miserable Mr. Potter.

That sign reminds us what’s at stake: the vital connection between generations where wisdom passes through a father’s love. Because we’re not just passing on information, we’re building trust between parent and child, strengthening family bonds.

Marking Our Doors

After hearing the presentation at my son’s school, I spent some time with Dr. Twenge’s book iGen. Her work caused me to reflect on the technology in our home.

While I deserve an A for my ban of social media and limits on video games, I see cracks in the foundation. I notice my kids reaching for devices at the first hint of boredom. I spot my teenage daughter watching YouTube Shorts — each swipe drawing her closer to joining the ranks of mindless meme-repeating zombies.

Like those ancient parents in Egypt who marked their doors with lamb's blood, we too must draw clear lines of protection:

• No unsupervised usage of ChatGPT/AI

• Dinner tables where phones stay silent

• Bedrooms that remain a refuge for rest and reflection

• Car rides where conversation flows freely

• Family board games that drown out phone dings

• Movie nights shared on one screen

For in defending these spaces, we preserve more than our children’s attention — we protect the sacred ground where wisdom nurtures our souls and love grows strong enough to resist any invasion.

Links:

• Hillsdale College Online Course: The Exodus Story

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Sharing Midwestern stories of faith, family, work, and sports

Laugh if you want, but I enjoy the Netflix series Cobra Kai. While I rooted for Daniel in the original 80s movie, my favorite character is now Daniel’s rival Johnny Lawrence.

My kids saw enough similarities between Johnny and me to buy an Eagle Fang Karate shirt for my birthday. I assume it’s because we share a respect for old school toughness, both critical of today’s soft culture of participation trophies and overprotective parenting.

But it wasn’t one of Johnny’s anti-snowflake rants that caught my recent attention.

The scene that struck a chord was a flashback to Johnny’s childhood, when his mom tells him that she is remarrying and he’s getting a new stepdad. A distraught Johnny runs to his room and pulls out a cardboard box from under his bed, items his natural father left behind.

The first thing young Johnny grabs from his box? His dad’s crinkled-up Coors can — Johnny’s own favorite beer forty years later as he struggles with a drinking problem.

Treasured Tokens

Seeing that beer can reminded me of my behavior after my dad passed away five years ago.

When I went back home for his funeral, I instinctively grabbed one of dad’s tins of Skoal chewing tobacco from his cabinet. It now sits close by in a small box of random stuff on my writing desk.

I was fortunate to never take on the dirty habit of chewing, probably because my first experience with tobacco was reminiscent of the Tilt-A-Whirl scene in The Sandlot.

But such acts reveal the primal need in sons to idolize their fathers, to hold onto anything that carries their imprint.

Even when, in Johnny’s case, there was probably a lot he didn’t want to remember.

The Weight of Example

When coach John Wooden first became a dad, a friend gave him a picture with a poem on it called A Little Fellow Follows Me, which Wooden hung on his wall and later memorized.

A careful man I want to be,

A little fellow follows me.

I do not dare to go astray,

For fear he’ll go the self‑same way.

In reading the poem’s first lines, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed, even trapped by the responsibility of being a father.

The truth is inescapable — our children are watching and copying everything we do.

Every time we scroll mindlessly on our phones during family time.

Every time we lose our patience and snap at someone.

Every time we choose the easy way instead of the right way.

The Better Road

But knowing I’m far from perfect, I like to focus more on the poem’s ending.

But after all it’s easier,

That brighter road to climb,

With little hands behind me —

To push me all the time.

And I reckon I’m a better man

Than what I used to be…

Because I have this lad at home

Who thinks the world of me.

Rather than worry about never making a mistake, I find strength in the idea of my children pushing me to be a better man. And I like to think, if I do my best and spend enough time with my kids, they will pay more attention to the good things; maybe give me a break with some of my screw-ups.

I have done that with my dad. Like all of us, he wasn’t perfect. But, I have immortalized him in my memories, focusing on all of the good things he did, the things I want to emulate.

It's one of the main reasons I write — to keep my dad's fire burning in this world, to ensure his values light the way for others.

The Greatest Honor

Last week, my kids and I rewatched Top Gun Maverick, a movie my dad (and Johnny Lawrence) would have loved.

Near the end, Tom Cruise hugs Goose's son Rooster on the carrier deck and thanks him for saving his life.

Rooster’s reply is simple but profound: "It's what my dad would’ve done."

Few movie lines hit me as hard as that one.

Not just because it's a son honoring his father's memory, but because it captures the truest measure of a father's legacy — the moment when our children face life's challenges and instinctively know the right path because we showed them the way.

Links:

• A Little Fellow Follows Me by Rev. Claude Wisdom White, Sr. (full poem)

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Sharing Midwestern stories of faith, family, work, and sports

“My heart feels like it’s going to jump out of my chest!” Eric yelled out as he stopped short of the finish line.

“What?”

“My heart! It’s never felt like that before! That’s why I stopped!”

We were running laps after his indoor baseball practice. I was frustrated with his sprints during conditioning at the end of practice. He had run near the back of the pack, with some of the slowest kids on the team.

While I don’t put heavy expectations on his performance in games, I expect effort on the things he can control, like being in good shape. I know he’s only ten, but it’s difficult to be a leader and push your teammates when you’re bringing up the rear.

So, after practice, as his teammates packed up their equipment to leave, I walked Eric up to the 200-meter track located on the second floor of the facility. We were going to run four laps together, sprinting the last 50 meters of each lap.

I couldn’t believe it when Eric quit at the end of our second lap.

I took a deep breath and paused before responding.

“OK, let’s call it a day.”

And then I couldn’t help myself.

“But you need to get yourself in better shape. This is ridiculous.”

Eric quickly turned his head, shooting daggers my way.

Walking the Line

The ride home was silent as I wrestled with doubt. Had I pushed too hard? It’s a common internal battle for me, not just regarding Eric or my daughter Elizabeth but others in my life, especially employees at work.

I’ve always had the tendency to push myself hard and then transfer those same standards onto others, sometimes unfairly. I’ve been too harsh at times, especially back in my 20’s and 30’s when I was almost wholly consumed by my job.

But in our ever softening culture, it’s difficult for me to tell anymore. I feel like I have to keep pushing or risk getting sucked down into a sinkhole of mediocrity.

I didn’t want to give Eric another “Back in my day…” lecture. I wanted something with more teeth.

The Presidential Standard

And then it hit me — I needed an objective standard.

I thought back to when I was a kid and remembered the Presidential Fitness Test, a program that President Reagan had revitalized in the early 80s.

The standardized test measured fitness in events such as pull-ups, sit-ups, shuttle run (speed/agility), sit and reach (flexibility), and the one-mile run, based on your age.

Score above the 85th percentile in each event, and you earned the coveted blue Presidential Fitness award patch. I remembered getting my patch in fifth grade, the same age as Eric.

When we got home, I searched online and found those old fitness standards from the 80s.

I dug deeper and found a chart listing the one-mile run times for 10-year-old boys by percentile, giving us more intermediate targets to shoot for.

A New Routine

Later that day, I took Eric upstairs to our workout room, showing him the chart now hanging by our treadmill. I told him that starting the next morning, I was going to wake him up early to work out with me. We would start slow at the 20th percentile (time of 12:15) and work his way up to the 85th percentile time of 7:57.

I showed him an old picture of 10-year-old me holding my Wildcats duffle bag emblazoned with the blue fitness patch — proof this goal was within reach.

I assured him that if he ran every morning, he would see big improvement within a few months.

Rising to the Challenge

We quickly discovered I had started Eric at too low a level. I was glad that Eric was good with ramping things up, that he wanted to go faster. By day four, he had advanced from the 20th percentile to the 45th percentile.

I faced some grumbling in those first mornings. I started waking up earlier to finish my own workout first, freeing me to focus entirely on Eric during his run.

After we got Eric at the right level and he realized his heart was not actually going to jump out of his chest, we decided he would move up 5 percentile points every week going forward.

Beyond the fitness gains, we enjoyed our time together, talking and sweating while blasting Johnny Lawrence 80s rock (my choice) and Johnny Cash (his choice).

Eric was less winded during his baseball practice conditioning. I could see him gain more strength and confidence on the field, a direct result of him feeling good about his progress during our morning workouts.

On his fifty-seventh morning run, Eric crossed the Presidential standard time of 7:57.

An Unexpected Gift

A couple of weeks later, I took Eric to an interview at an all-boys private Catholic school where he was applying for fall admission.

After a private chat with the admissions director, Eric headed to another room with a writing assignment while I spoke with the director.

As we jumped into our car to head home, I asked Eric about his interview, asked what he had written about.

“Well, he gave me a couple of different options… I decided to write about my hero.”

My thoughts flashed to his Yankee favorites like Derek Jeter and Aaron Judge. We had recently binge-watched Michael Jordan in The Last Dance and then went down a Kobe Bryant rabbit hole. All were possibilities.

I smiled at his minimal response and nudged him, “So, who did you write about?”

“Dad, I wrote about you.“

It caught me completely off-guard, hitting me straight in the heart. It was one of those neat, unexpected surprises that seem to happen less frequently as I get older.

Eric went on to explain how he had written about us waking up every morning the last two months to work out together, how he was proud of his new mile time.

Beyond the Milestone

As proud as I was about Eric reaching his running goal, I am happier about other recent changes I’ve seen with him.

I love how I no longer have to micromanage his daily run. With late night travel baseball games, he hasn’t been waking up as early every morning. But he makes sure to carve out time to run every day, knowing the longer he waits, the less likely it will happen that day.

And he understands that making him run isn’t punishment, but that it makes him feel better and helps him, both on and off the field.

This new discipline has spread beyond running. Now he tackles his summer reading the same way, working through a chapter of The Ranger’s Apprentice every day.

Breaking Through Barriers

For me, it was God's gentle reminder that pushing people toward their potential, while sometimes uncomfortable, could be an act of love.

Eric’s initial anger at me has long since passed, replaced by the joy of seeing him take another step toward responsibility and manhood.

But more than that, it taught me a powerful truth. We often create our own walls — physical, mental, and spiritual barriers that seem unbreakable until we test them. Just as Eric discovered his pounding heart was a signal of growth rather than danger, we all need someone to help us push past the limits we place on ourselves.

Sometimes the greatest gift we can give our children isn't comfort, but the confidence that comes from conquering something that once seemed impossible.

Links:

• Bannister: Everest on the Track - 2016 Documentary about Britain’s Roger Bannister Breaking the 4:00 Mile

• Presidential Physical Fitness Award - ClickAmericana.com

• “The Soft American” by John F. Kennedy - Sports Illustrated (December 26, 1960)

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Sharing Midwestern stories of faith, family, work, and sports

As my son Eric wraps up his third year of travel baseball, I realize I have different expectations than most dads.

Many dads focus on our sons’ performance on the field, with little tolerance for mistakes. A boy will make an error, and some dad will scream in disgust — “That can’t happen! It can’t happen!” — as he slams his hand against the chainlink fence and turns his back on the field of play.

In a perfect world, all youth baseball fields would have a huge replay board in centerfield. Whenever a dad criticizes an 11-year-old for a misplay, the scoreboard would instantly show that dad making the same error as a kid.

But there’s no past footage of us dads playing baseball. You know, because none of us made the big leagues or played at a level high enough to warrant television coverage.

So, instead, here’s a link to an hour-long YouTube compilation of atrocious errors made by major leaguers:

These are professional athletes who have practiced thousands of hours more than our sons and earn an average salary of over $5 million/year!

Yes, of course, I want my son and his teammates to play well.

But if even the pros make such mistakes, why do we obsess over every error in little league?

Maybe we’re measuring the wrong things.

The Character Index: Stats That Build Better Men

Today’s youth baseball is all about the numbers. For the past fifteen years, travel baseball teams have used an app called GameChanger that tracks the play-by-play action of every game. Within the app, you can view advanced statistical data that rivals what is available for the big leagues.

While most dads focus on batting average, strikeouts, and errors, I wish there was an app to track other important stats.

Instead of measuring the speed of a pitcher’s fastball, I wish we tracked how fast a player hustles out to his position in the field after the end of an inning. Or how quickly he sprints out of the box to first base when he is disappointed about hitting an infield pop-up, one that could easily be dropped.

Rather than knowing how many hits he had, I am more interested in a kid’s PPG (Pouts Per Game) when the umpire makes a questionable call or something else doesn’t go his way.

I would love to see a game with no MR’s (Miraculous Recoveries) on either team. I’m talking about when a player lays on the ground with an apparent injury after he fails to make a play, like when he dives late into second base after the pitcher picks him off. Rather than him getting up and taking it like a man, we all sit through a charade as one or more coaches, an umpire, and sometimes a parent will run out onto the field before the boy miraculously recovers, jumps to his feet, and sprints off the field like nothing happened.

There should be a Dugout Departure Rate (DDR) stat measuring how often a boy leaves the dugout to talk to his mom or dad during the game, usually to get a snack or some emotional support after a rough at-bat. For those scoring at home, anything higher than a zero isn’t good.

A new metric called Equipment Left Behind (ELB) could track the number of batting gloves, sliding mitts, sunglasses, water bottles, and crocs that a player leaves behind in the dugout for someone else to retrieve after the game.

Instead of slugging percentage, I would rather know the percentage of eye contact a boy has with his coach when he is delivering an important message to the team.

Beyond the games, I would love a stat showing a player's Total Balls Shagged (TBS) during team batting practice. This would measure how many balls he retrieved and put into the bucket for his coach while other kids stood around and joked in the outfield, looking like factory workers on a smoke break.

One of the most critical factors to success is showing up every day. Not just on game days but never missing a practice. Even better, not missing a morning workout at home when no one is watching, something the coach suggests but doesn’t require.

The Long Game

Let’s face it, very few of these boys will ever play college baseball, let alone the pros.

But no matter which team wins or loses, we should be rooting for all of these kids to post great numbers in these other stats.

Because I guarantee the boy who does well in these other stats will likely succeed in life.

He will be the man I want working for my company.

He will be the man I want my daughter to marry.

He will be the man I want my son to be.

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Sharing Midwestern stories of faith, family, work, and sports

Last week at my son’s baseball game, a memory stirred inside of me as I watched one of his teammates slide hard into second for a stolen base.

This boy was the leadoff hitter, the fastest on our team. That day we wore our powder blue uniforms with a logo resembling the St. Louis Cardinals, with this speed demon sporting the number 29 on his jersey.

After the game, the boy walked off the field to us parents, and I said, “Hey, great game, you looked like Vince Coleman out there today!” The youngster looked confused. I explained that Coleman was a former ballplayer known for his speed on the base paths, who wore #29 just like him.

His dad laughed and said, “Whiteyball! Those were some great Cardinal teams.” Another dad chimed in, telling the boy that Vince Coleman was one of the best base stealers of his era, stealing over 100 bags to win the 1985 Rookie of the Year.

The boy smiled and shook his head, wondering why we dads were so excited about an old player and his number.

Heroes by the Numbers

Growing up, it was a big deal for my friends and me when the coach handed out jerseys at the start of the season. We didn’t always get our first pick due to shirt sizes but hoped for a number associated with a great MLB player, like Ozzie Smith’s #1, George Brett’s #5, Cal Ripken’s #8, or Dwight Gooden’s #16.

Looking back, it was a simple way to connect with our favorite MLB stars. We couldn’t always buy the same bats, shoes, and batting gloves as the big leaguers, but we could wear their number.

But more than that, the baseball numbers were a shared language among us boys, a way for us to bond with each other.

Years later, I laughed as one of my boyhood friends, a Yankee fan, left his new phone number on my voicemail. He said something like, “Hey, give me a call, I’m at Yogi-Lou-Billy-Yogi-Mickey-Babe-Babe-Mickey-Mickey-Jeter.”

That fun message revealed how the memorized numbers had become more than baseball trivia — these numbers had remained woven into the fabric of our friendships.

The Hidden Power of What We Remember

In our digital age, when facts are just a search away, we've come to dismiss memorization as obsolete, a relic of the past.

With smartphones and AI assistants ready to recall information for us, why invest the time to memorize anything?

But this view misses something crucial. Critics argue that rote memorization without understanding is hollow, and that external tools free our minds for higher thinking. Yet memorization serves purposes that digital recall can't replicate.

Along with creating a shared language among friends, committing information and wisdom to memory forms a filter through which we process the world.

It shapes our perceptions, influences our decisions, and creates a foundation for deeper understanding.

Life’s Playbook

Just as those baseball numbers created lasting connections among friends, other forms of memorized wisdom can shape entire lives and legacies.

Few embodied this truth more than legendary UCLA basketball coach John Wooden.

Learning from his father, Wooden memorized short maxims that he carried throughout his daily life, guiding his decisions.

Never lie. Never cheat. Never steal.

Don’t whine. Don’t complain. Don’t make excuses.

Be true to yourself.

Help others.

Pray for guidance and give thanks for your blessings every day.

Make each day your masterpiece.

Wooden didn’t memorize such phrases only to keep himself on the straight and narrow. This effort also gave him the uncanny ability to find just the right words when communicating a message to one of his players, whether about basketball or life.

For Wooden, memorized statements served as anchors. Players and students could recall them when facing adversity, stress, or moral choices.

Sacred Memory

John Wooden's practice of memorizing and living by these maxims showed how stored wisdom could transform himself and those around him.

This truth found new meaning in my own life earlier this year. It was triggered by an article where the author challenged readers on how many Bible verses they could recite from memory.

Though I had read devotionals for years, I’d never made a habit out of memorizing verses.

This realization led me to Norman Vincent Peale's collection of 40 favorite Bible verses, and I committed to memorizing one new verse each week while reviewing those already learned.

Halfway through the list after 20 weeks, the verses now flow smoothly from my tongue each morning. I never expected this simple habit to have such a powerful effect, to take my spiritual life to a higher level.

These verses have taken root in me, more than any devotional ever did.

I’m depending on the verses more and more for reinforcement throughout my day.

When I begin to drift off into a bad mood, I now recall Dr. Peale’s third verse and pray for God to “Renew a right spirit within me.” (Psalm 51:10).

Your Turn

What will you write on your heart? What wisdom deserves to become part of your daily thinking?

I challenge you to identify a piece of wisdom that speaks to your deepest values. It could be a quote, a Bible verse, or a common sense maxim.

Write it down. Recite it daily until it becomes embedded deep inside of you.

Whether it's #29 on a powder blue jersey or Psalm 51 etched into a morning routine, what we write on our hearts becomes the story of our lives.

The choice of what to remember — and what to become — is yours.

Links:

• 40 Powerful Spiritual Phrases That Can Change the Quality of Your Life (by Norman Vincent Peale)

• Wooden: A Lifetime of Observations and Reflections On and Off the Court (by John Wooden with Steve Jamison - filled with his favorite maxims)

• Best by Number: Who Wore What... With Distinction (The Sporting News ranking of the best players by uniform number 0-99)

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  Sharing Midwestern stories of faith, family, work, and sports

Of all the lessons I learned growing up, the one that made the biggest impression was the commitment to show up every day.

On the farm, taking care of cattle and hogs never stopped. Dad had to do the chores, whether it was 100 degrees or a windchill of -40, whether he was sick, sore, or exhausted.

And once in a while, we all had to pitch in. One summer, the cattle got out just as our family was leaving for vacation. We had to stop and help get them back in before we could go. No whining, no complaints. We just buckled down and got it done.

Wrestling With Pride

Showing up isn’t always about pushing through pain or bad weather.

One cold February day when I was in 5th grade, I told Mom I didn’t feel well enough for school. I rarely missed, so she didn’t question me.

My younger brothers boarded the bus, and Mom tucked me in on the couch before leaving for her bookkeeping job at the lumberyard.

But I wasn’t sick.

I had recently lost a wrestling match to a kid at school who nobody liked - someone who was loud and brash, someone who would cheat with a dirty move whenever he could. Someone who was the opposite of me. I felt like I should never have lost to him, that I was above him.

Practice was that afternoon, and I didn’t want to risk the shame of losing to him again.

So I stayed home, curled up on the couch watching a Big East–Big Ten basketball doubleheader on ESPN, safe from any embarrassment.

Beyond Words

But Dad wasn’t buying it.

The kitchen door opened and I heard him yell, “Hey, I need some help in the barn. Why don’t you get your clothes on and come out.”

I couldn’t believe it - but I didn’t dare question him.

Tears welled up in my eyes as I put on my work clothes, ashamed that Dad knew I was ducking something.

We spent the next couple of hours power washing the pig stalls. After that, I showered, got dressed, and he quietly drove me to school.

We never talked about it. No lecture. No pep talk. Just a clear, unspoken expectation.

I don’t remember missing another day of school or practice after that.

The Daily Choice

In the last 30 years, I can count the number of workdays I’ve missed on one hand. Sure, I have been fortunate to have good health, but a lot of it comes down to just showing up - even when you don’t feel like it.

Lou Gehrig played in an incredible 2,130 consecutive games for the Yankees. Not because he never got sick or hurt.

Author Ryan Holiday noted that X-rays of Gehrig’s hands revealed at least seventeen healed fractures - injuries he had played through during his legendary streak.

And showing up isn’t just physical.

It’s taking the tough call with an upset customer when you or your team made a mistake.

It’s stepping in during a crisis at work - or showing up for friends and family when life falls apart.

Bigger Than Baseball

Last week, my son Eric woke up with a slight fever and sore throat on opening day of baseball season. When I got home from work, he was on the couch, unsure if he should play.

I asked him if he wanted to go to the game. He nodded.

Then I said, “Do you think Lou Gehrig only got sick in the offseason? What about Cal Ripken?” I told him it wouldn’t be easy, but that sometimes you have to do hard things. You have to show up.

Eric jumped off the couch, ran upstairs, and suited up. I could tell he felt better just by taking a positive action.

During warmups, I saw him smile and laugh with his teammates, excited to wear their new uniforms and cleats after months of offseason practice. But I could tell he wasn’t quite himself.

Late in the game, his coach brought Eric in to pitch. The other team rallied and pulled ahead 3–1. Eric could have wilted, but he stayed composed on the mound. He ended the inning by fielding a tough dribbler down the line for the out.

After the game, I told him I was proud - prouder of him for showing up and losing than if he had stayed home on the couch.

That day was bigger than baseball.

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Sharing Midwestern stories of faith, family, work, and sports

Many sports fans focus on Michael's extraordinary accomplishments: his six NBA championships; his perfect 6-0 record in the Finals, winning the MVP every time; his NBA-record ten scoring titles.

Others recognize his charismatic smile in commercials or wear his iconic sneakers.

But my favorite thing about Jordan wasn’t his accolades or his commercials.

It was his will to win.

Jordan hated to lose at anything, whether it was the NBA finals, a golf match, or flipping quarters against a wall with United Center security guards.

As my son Eric and I rewatched episodes from The Last Dance documentary this weekend, the series reminded me that Michael’s main motivation wasn’t money or fame. It was pushing himself and his Chicago Bulls teammates to excellence.

Forging a Warrior

Jordan arrived in Chicago from a championship culture at the University of North Carolina, where he played under the legendary Dean Smith and won a national title with a game-winning shot as a freshman.

Even more important, Michael grew up with parents who valued hard work and brothers who were ferocious competitors.

His mother, Deloris Jordan, once said, "We always tried to share with our kids, 'Don't wait for somebody to give you something. You're strong. You're intelligent. Go out and earn it, go work for it.’”

His family taught Jordan to always give his best and try to win.

And they hated to lose.

Culture Clash

On the other hand, the Chicago Bulls weren’t exactly a team of warriors.

In the season before Jordan arrived, they finished a lowly 27-55, known more for throwing wild parties than winning basketball games.

Michael knew he had to change the mindset of the organization quickly. He vowed to make the playoffs every year, to raise the Bulls to the elite standard of the Celtics and Lakers.

And he did exactly that.

Pushing the Limits

Jordan won Rookie of the Year and dragged the Bulls to the playoffs in his first season. But in year two, he suffered the first major setback of his career, breaking his left foot in just the third game of the season.

For someone who had never missed a game before, the injury devastated him.

Unable to play, a restless Jordan convinced the Bulls to let him return to college.

Before long, Michael was back in the gym. Then back to shooting. Then back to playing — one-on-one, then two-on-two, then full-court five-on-five. All in secret. The Bulls had no clue.

When he returned to Chicago to show his remarkable progress, Jordan pleaded with Bulls management to let him play and lead them back to the playoffs.

Owner Jerry Reinsdorf pushed back hard from a business perspective. Reinsdorf didn't want to take the estimated 10% risk of Jordan reinjuring his foot before fully healing, an injury that would have likely ended Michael’s career.

It wasn't a crazy thought - such a scenario would have cost Jordan and the Bulls franchise over a billion dollars if Jordan's promising career had ended so abruptly.

But Jordan wouldn’t let it go.

In mid-March, Michael eventually wore down an exhausted Reinsdorf to a compromise where Jordan could play - but he would be limited to seven minutes per half.

As Jordan willed the Bulls back into the playoff picture, he began to doubt the Bulls' commitment to winning when they wouldn't let him enter a key game with the Bulls behind and only seconds remaining. Michael wondered if the Bulls management wanted a lottery draft pick more than a playoff appearance.

Writer Mark Vancil captured the situation perfectly in The Last Dance: "The mistrust Michael had with management, specifically with Jerry Krause, was that Michael believed that they violated the most fundamental aspect of sport -- I would argue, the most fundamental aspect of the way Michael conducted his life. You do it at the highest level, and you do it to win all the time."

That relentless approach came with a cost.

Jordan didn’t just demand greatness from himself - he expected it from everyone around him. At times, that meant berating teammates in practice, pushing them to their limits, sometimes harshly. Not everyone could handle it.

But in Jordan’s mind, winning required nothing less.

Unleashing a Wild Dog

Despite all odds, the Bulls scraped into the playoffs with a 30-52 record.

Their reward? The top-seeded 67-15 Boston Celtics with five NBA Hall-of-Famers.

But Michael relished the challenge - "The Bulls took all the limitations off of me, and it was like unleashing a wild dog."

Jordan scored 49 points in a Game 1 loss on the road to the heavily favored Celtics.

His encore in Game 2? An NBA playoff record 63 points in a 135-131 Bulls loss, a double-overtime thriller on a nationally televised Sunday afternoon game at the Boston Garden.

Larry Bird - a man who never handed out praise lightly - watched in awe: “That wasn’t Michael Jordan out there. That was God disguised as Michael Jordan.”

The Celtics went on to sweep the Bulls, but Jordan had changed the culture.

The world saw what was coming.

Within a few years, Jordan and the Bulls would slay their dragon embodied by the Detroit Pistons and go onto become a dynasty.

A Weaker Mindset

Fast forward to today.

During the last week of December, I stumbled onto a college football bowl game while channel surfing.

Iowa State had just taken a 42-41 lead against Miami (FL) with 56 seconds left on the clock.

But as Miami’s offense took the field, I was stunned to see their star quarterback, Cam Ward, wasn’t in the game.

Why?

Because he had chosen to sit out the second half to avoid injury. NFL scouts projected him as a top draft pick in the upcoming draft, and he didn’t want to take any risks.

Ward had played great in the first half, throwing three TD passes to set a new college football record for career touchdowns. But instead of finishing what he started, he quit on his team. And his Hurricanes lost 42-41.

I was shocked, but I shouldn’t have been.

A quick search showed Miami was Ward’s third college team. He had job-hopped through the transfer portal like a Silicon Valley programmer chasing higher salaries.

Ward was more concerned about his career than winning the game for his team.

Some might argue that Ward made the smart business decision. The NFL is a cutthroat league, and an injury could cost him millions. But in Jordan’s world, that kind of thinking didn’t exist. You play to win - always.

I’m not an NFL general manager, but I’ve conducted a couple of thousand interviews for our company.

I wouldn't touch a guy like Cam Ward with a ten-foot pole.

The Daily Choice

Michael Jordan could not have comprehended such an attitude.

Because here’s the truth: Competitive drive isn’t a light switch you can flip on and off.

Blow off an optional workout? You won’t push through when the game is on the line.

Coast through practice? You’ll settle for mediocrity when it matters most.

Sit out the second half of a bowl game? You’ll watch your team lose from the sideline.

Excellence is never convenient. It’s never comfortable. It’s a daily decision.

When my son and I watched those highlights, I saw more than the gravity-defying dunks and clutch shots.

I saw a man who refused to accept anything less than greatness.

Happy Birthday, Michael

As Michael Jordan turns 62 today, let’s honor him - not just for what he has achieved, but for how he has lived.

In a world that increasingly celebrates mediocrity, let’s choose greatness.

Not just in sports - but in business, family, faith, and life.

Because every day, we have a choice:

• Every practice

• Every game

• Every meeting

• Every customer

• Every assignment

• Every test

• Every family dinner

• Every car ride

• Every conversation

• Every good morning

• Every good night

• Every prayer

Will we demand excellence from ourselves?

Or will we take the easy way out?

Michael Jordan made his choice.

Will we?

Links:

• The Last Dance (2020) - Netflix documentary

Image credit: Alamy

Sharing Midwestern stories of faith, family, work, and sports

When NBA legend Kobe Bryant announced his retirement in 2015, he didn't follow the standard convention of posting a message to his fans on social media or holding a big press conference.

No, Kobe felt compelled to write a poem to his lifelong passion, the game of basketball.

I fell in love with you.

A love so deep I gave you my all —

From my mind & body

To my spirit & soul.

But success on the court wasn’t immediate for Kobe.

Believe it or not, when he was 12, Kobe played a 25-game season without scoring a single point.

Even though he loved the game, Kobe knew he couldn't snap his fingers and magically catch those other boys overnight. So, at that young age, Kobe adopted a long-term view and started working every day to get a little better than he was the day before.

This approach would eventually become Kobe's famous "Mamba Mentality" personal philosophy - 4 AM workouts, taking a thousand specific shots daily, watching film of every game to pore over minute details that could help him and his teammates improve.

The fruits of his labor of love? Five world championships with the Los Angeles Lakers, two Olympic gold medals with Team USA, 18 all-star selections, and 33,643 points (fourth all-time, one spot ahead of his idol Michael Jordan).

Because that's the trick, right? To find that activity you love so much that you lose all sense of time when doing it. The one that inspires you to push through every obstacle to grow and improve.

You Can Lead a Horse to Water...

When I was a kid growing up in Iowa, my dad offered to store one of our school's old wrestling mats in our basement. He bought a set of weights from Sears and set up a bench where my brothers and I could lift.

I would go downstairs to wrestle and lift occasionally. But I remember using that room more to jack around playing Nerf football and baseball with my brothers and our friends than practicing my wrestling.

While some wrestlers participated in summer freestyle competitions to prepare for the upcoming season, I had no interest, choosing to play baseball instead.

I liked wrestling and did pretty well, to the point where I had the opportunity to do it in college. But I never made the Iowa state tournament, and I’m fortunate to be old enough that my college record was never documented on the Internet.

My True Passion

My true love arrived when I started computer programming in fifth grade.

My parents delivered the key piece by buying me a Commodore 64 for Christmas that year. Otherwise, I was pretty limited in computer resources while growing up on a farm in the early 1980s.

I bought a $1 book about the BASIC programming language through the Weekly Reader flyer at school.

I saw Matthew Broderick dial a modem in WarGames and had to have one. But that dream quickly died when we discovered that the nearest bulletin board systems (BBS) required long-distance calls to Des Moines and Omaha, the closest cities with even a trace of a BBS community in those early days of home computers.

My high school teacher was a woman whose primary duty was teaching home economics. She was a nice lady but was way over her head regarding computers. Most of what I learned in class was through experimentation after blazing through the day's assignment.

I remember a time in high school when I wanted to convert the wrestling game I created on our school's Apple IIe computer to run on my Commodore so I could work on it from home. There was a stretch when our small TV hooked up to my home computer wasn't working for some reason. But I didn’t want to lose any time, so I typed blindly into my Commodore for several weeks without a screen to enter as many lines of code as possible while my TV was getting fixed. Once I got my TV back in place, I could then see the screen again and go back and fix my typos and errors.

This intense love for programming carried me through a tough time in college when I was lagging behind other students smarter than me, kids who likely came from high schools with stronger computer science classes. I survived my ego and pushed through that period, sticking with computer science as my major.

And it was my combined enthusiasm for computers and sports that led me to create a popular college basketball website between the first and second semester of my senior year.

Thanks to this website, I secured my first full-time job combining technology and sports in Chicago. One year later, that position became a stepping stone to an even better fit - joining an incredible family-owned Internet company where I've proudly spent the last three decades of my career.

How Much Do You Love It?

Last summer, my 10-year-old son Eric's travel baseball team split at the end of the season. Roughly half of the boys and their dads were unhappy and thought they should be playing more or playing different positions. These families wanted to break off and create their own team. It’s common.

One of our coaches called to ask me what Eric and I wanted to do for the next season. He explained that six new boys would be coming onto the team and that these kids were better than the players leaving our team. That meant Eric might not get to play as much at shortstop or pitcher as he had the previous season.

My mind raced as I heard the choice in front of me. The boys/families staying on the team were the ones we had the closest bond with, the ones most similar to our values. But I also didn't want Eric to get pushed out of positions he loved to play.

At the time, we happened to be back at my mom’s farm in Iowa for the 4th of July. It hit me as I walked around my boyhood yard on my cell phone, staring at the surrounding corn fields where I grew up.

Without hesitation, I said, "Eric will stay on the team. We've had a blast these last two seasons. We want to be with you and this group of boys and their families. And, if Eric wants to play certain positions bad enough, he will make it happen. Looking back, I worked hard at sports as a kid, but I know that I could have worked harder at wrestling or baseball if I had really wanted it. It's always up to the individual." Our coach agreed with my assessment, echoing the same sentiment about himself.

Like my dad, I created a sweet setup for Eric in our basement where he can hit off a tee and into a net. I even bought him a Pocket Radar speed gun where he can measure his exit velocity off the tee. I put wrestling mats down and surrounded the walls with posters of his Yankee favorites like Derek Jeter and Aaron Judge. I purchased a nine-hole net that he can use to improve his pitching accuracy. We have a nice workout room upstairs with a treadmill and weights. There are numerous baseball instructional videos available on YouTube.

What will Eric do with all of this? I know he still loves baseball, no matter what he does. But it's ultimately up to him how far he takes it.

While I don't have any aspirations of Eric becoming a major league baseball player, I am constantly on the lookout for that activity that will spark a passion that will last a lifetime. I want to provide him the opportunity to help foster that love the way my parents did when they bought me a Commodore 64 when I was ten.

Links:

• “Dear Basketball” - Kobe Bryant’s retirement poem, later turned into an Oscar-winning short film (5-minute video)

• Kobe Bryant interview at USC (1-hour video)

• Kobe Bryant interview with Lewis Howes (45-minute video)

• Dolphin Tale (2011) - Terrific movie, amazing true story about a kid finding his passion

• October Sky (1999) - Another great movie about this subject, a true story about Homer Hickam, a West Virginia coal miner’s son who grew up to become a NASA engineer

Image credit: Alamy

Sharing Midwestern stories of faith, family, work, and sports

Note: I’m resending this article from January 2024 after we had a couple days of subzero temperatures in Chicago this week.

Ten days after writing about how we should embrace our Midwestern winters, God has certainly given us one! Here in Chicago, as in much of the Midwest, we have received over a foot of snow with several days of windchills in the -20s and below.

Last Friday morning, snow started coming down during the morning commute. I noticed our nearly empty parking lot as I pulled up to our office building. There are offices and cubicles on my floor to seat over 40 people. That day, only four of us were there, all long-time employees: our owner, our head of marketing, a sales team lead, and me.

Earlier in the week, I saw the remote work emails start streaming in from our people. The requests began as a trickle on Tuesday, based on wild forecasts ranging from 1 inch to 15 inches. The pace increased on Wednesday and Thursday, peaking on Friday morning when the first flakes fell. So, I shouldn’t have been surprised that so few of us drove into the office that day.

Our owner came into my office and told me about a meeting with one of our younger programmers earlier that morning. He wondered if the employee would show up at the office since it had snowed. When the young man entered his office, our owner smiled and said, “Well, you passed the first test.” They proceeded to have a terrific conversation, with the first-year programmer getting more time with the owner than he typically would have.

Hearing the story, I told our owner, “And you will always remember that he came into the office on a snow day - when most others didn’t.”

I understand that people live different distances from the office. For some, it probably made no sense to come in that day. But, if you are a young, single employee who chose to stay home in your pajamas - well, you missed a golden opportunity to show how much you cared about the company and your job.

In the last month, I have been reading Ryan Holiday’s Discipline is Destiny, hearing tales of such heroes as Marcus Aurelius, George Washington, and Lou Gehrig.

In his Meditations, Marcus Aurelius wrote about struggling to get out of bed, asking himself, “Is this what I was created for? To huddle under the blankets and stay warm?”

Gehrig played in an incredible 2,130 consecutive games for the Yankees. Was it because he never got injured or sick? No. Holiday wrote that Gehrig’s hands were X-rayed once, and doctors found at least seventeen healed fractures that he had played through during his streak.

I’m grateful I grew up seeing my dad work through adverse conditions on our Iowa farm. My mom wrote me earlier this week about the blizzard of 1975, the first year we moved out to the farm. She and I watched from our living room window as Dad walked to our barn to do hog chores. He wouldn’t get past the edge of our yard before we lost sight of him because of the blowing snow.

Will a person ever achieve greatness when they can’t even muster enough spirit to drive in a heated vehicle to work in a comfortable office?

What are we teaching our children when they see such behavior? When they see us too lazy or too scared to leave our house? Or when school is canceled 3 or 4 days in a row because of cold temperatures?

We should think of such things the next time we want to take the easy way out.

We must do our part and stiffen our spines to stop this ever-quickening descent into a culture of softness.

Image credit: Shutterstock

Sharing Midwestern stories of faith, family, work, and sports

“The Herdmans are absolutely the worst kids in the history of the world.”

That’s the opening line from The Best Christmas Pageant Ever, a new movie sure to be a Christmas season favorite for years to come.

It’s a funny, entertaining movie that features the Herdmans, a family of six unruly children whose parents are never around. The family’s ringleader is the oldest child Imogene, a tough, brash, 12-year-old girl who smokes cigars.

The chaos begins when she and her siblings unexpectedly appear at church one Sunday for free snacks but end up hijacking the leading roles in the Christmas program.

It’s a movie that sneaks up on you and touches your heart, especially near the end.

Three Terrific Lessons

Upon watching the movie again last week, three lessons drew my attention as we enter 2025.

Seeking God

Set in a small Midwestern town in the 1970s/1980s, the movie had me longing for a time I was lucky enough to grow up in. It was an era before smartphones, the Internet, and video games. Families ate supper together with food prepared by a stay-at-home mom. The only way someone from the outside could disrupt a family’s inner sanctum at night was through a phone call to your landline or a knock on your front door.

In a scene reminiscent of that era, Imogene leads her younger brothers and sisters to the library for the first time in their lives, on a quest to find out more about the Christmas story. Imogene barks instructions to her rowdy siblings around a big table while they all page through a stack of books. Imogene commandeers a girl outside their family, the story’s narrator, to help them use the card catalog in their Internet-less search.

As the narrator girl says, “I’d had plenty of homework assignments where I had to go to the library, but I don’t think I was ever as interested in anything as Imogene was in the Christmas story.”

May we all show such enthusiasm and be as curious as Imogene, especially about God and Jesus and how He wants us to live.

Deep Giving

During rehearsals, the Herdmans badger the first-time pageant director, the narrator girl’s mom, with probing questions about the Christmas story. The Herdmans lashed out in outrage when they heard the wise men merely brought “cheap oils and perfume” (frankincense and myrrh) for baby Jesus.

This fury leads to the Herdmans improvising a different gift from the wise men during the pageant, a present that was much more meaningful to them.

Their thoughtful gift put a lump in my throat and made me reflect on my giving to God and Jesus.

What do I give that comes close to the sacrifice made by the Herdmans? A family of kids from a home in disarray? A group of kids growing up with far fewer blessings than I have enjoyed?

Learning From Everyone

At the start of the movie, the townspeople rejoiced that the Herdmans didn’t belong to the church, that it was their one sanctuary from their misconduct. When Imogene and the gang seized control of the Christmas pageant, the people immediately plotted to kick the family out of the play and the church altogether.

But as the pageant director reminded her daughter, “The whole point of the story is that Jesus was born for the Herdmans as much as he was for us.”

The Herdmans lied. They stole. They beat up little kids. They took the Lord’s name in vain. They did one horrible thing after another.

The troublesome family did many things that one should never imitate.

But in the end, the townspeople acknowledged that having the Herdmans in the pageant was a blessing, that the wild bunch warmed their hearts and brought them an understanding of the Christmas story that had previously eluded them.

Links:

• The Best Christmas Pageant Ever (2024)

Image credit: Alamy

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Sharing Midwestern stories of faith, family, work, and sports

"How did you let Eric become a Yankee fan?!"

My friend's question made me laugh as I looked down at my son dressed in his full Aaron Judge Yankees uniform at Halloween last year. "I don't know… It just happened." I then got defensive. "Yeah, I don't know - I grew up rooting against the Yankees."

Yankee Haters

My favorite team as a kid was the Los Angeles Dodgers - Steve Sax, Fernando Valenzuela, and Orel Hershiser, led by the colorful Tommy Lasorda. My younger brother loved George Brett and the Kansas City Royals.

Both our teams battled the Yankees in those early years. This included the Dodgers victory in the 1981 World Series, the Royals sweep in the 1980 ALCS, and the infamous pine tar game featuring George Brett.

We grew up rooting against the likes of showboat slugger Reggie Jackson, intimidating closer Goose Gossage, hot-tempered manager Billy Martin, and owner George Steinbrenner’s fat checkbook.

Although the Yankees went through an uncharacteristic dry spell in the '80s and early '90s, the Yankees rebuilt their farm system and regained their historical winning ways in the mid-90s during the Derek Jeter era, taking the World Series four times in five years.

Our family disliked the Yanks so much that we cheered for the Arizona Diamondbacks in the 2001 World Series, only a few weeks after 9/11. Each October, we found ourselves as new fans of random teams like the Angels, Marlins, and Red Sox - anyone who could knock off New York.

So, yes, this was a valid question - why is my son wearing pinstripes?

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Derek Jeter

I searched my journal for answers.

I then pulled up my Amazon order history. The smoking gun was my purchase of The Contract by Derek Jeter in May 2021. This children's book was the first in a series based on Jeter's childhood in Kalamazoo, Michigan.

The Jeter books described little league baseball in great detail right as Eric was starting his first season of house league ball. The books contained terrific lessons. Jeter's parents spoke to Derek about the importance of working hard at school, not just sports. The books mirrored our family values.

Down the Rabbit Hole of Yankees History

I found an old DVD chronicling baseball's all-century team. I dug up a personal DVD player and gave it to Eric. He wore out that video, watching highlights and memorizing facts about baseball's greatest legends. Of course, that all-century team is chock-full of Yankees - Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Joe DiMaggio, Yogi Berra, and Mickey Mantle.

Next came a World Series history DVD, dominated by highlights of the Yankees' record 27 world championships.

We watched the Yankees lose to the rival Red Sox in the 2021 AL Wild Card game. I saw Eric cheering for the Yankees. They now had Anthony Rizzo, whom I had always liked on the Cubs. And this Aaron Judge guy seemed pretty good.

I chose to go with the flow, just thrilled that Eric loved baseball.

For Christmas, Santa brought him a boxed set of Yankeeography DVDs - in-depth biographies of all the Yankee greats. We watched Pride of the Yankees as my heart began to soften toward the evil empire in New York.

The Yankee Bond Grows Stronger

Eric began his second year of house baseball in the spring of 2022. We came home disappointed at what we saw at his first practice.

"If Casey Stengel saw our practice tonight, he would be rolling in his grave," Eric said from the backseat. I looked away from the rearview mirror. I did everything I could to keep Eric from seeing me laugh at his reference to the legendary Yankee manager from the 1950s.

Unfortunately, he was right about his team that year. Things never improved. But we kept working on his fundamentals, especially his pitching and fielding.

Meanwhile, Aaron Judge and the Yankees were tearing up the Major Leagues. We watched as many Yankees games as possible in between Eric’s and Elizabeth's games. Eric saw his first in-person Yankees game in May when we watched them lose a close one to the White Sox on a beautiful night at Chicago's Guaranteed Rate Field on the south side.

The Bronx Bombers jumped out to a scorching 64-28 in the first half of the season. Judge clobbered homers at a record pace, hitting 12 in 14 games during a stretch in July. It was beginning to look like Roger Maris's AL and Yankee home run record of 61 was in jeopardy.

Amid the Yankees' hot streak, ESPN aired "The Captain," a seven-episode documentary about Derek Jeter's career. They interviewed his family and friends and showed footage of Derek working hard at baseball as a kid. It was fun watching the highlights from his career, his clutch performances in those tense playoff games in the 1990s and early 2000s.

Even though the Yankees cooled off and ultimately lost in the ALCS, it was exciting to watch Aaron Judge break Maris's record. It was neat seeing Judge's parents in the stands, his mom sitting by Maris's son as they followed big #99 from stadium to stadium during his chase for the record.

Travel Ball

Eric's love affair with baseball reached new heights as we decided to jump from house league to 9U travel ball.

Indoor practices started in December, with the team working out twice weekly. Multiple dads commented on Eric's work ethic and maturity. One dad caught on to Eric liking the Yankees and wearing #2. "That is Jeter’s number, right? That makes total sense. He acts like him. He is always locked in.”

As the season began, I was tickled to see Eric having some fun moments, especially on defense at shortstop and on the pitching mound.

Our team peaked at the end of the summer season and won the league championship, finally defeating a team in the finals that had beaten us twice during the regular season.

The fall league included a dramatic win in a tight game against our biggest rivals. Eric snagged a grounder up the middle, alertly stepped on second and threw a strike to first to nip the runner and end the game on a bang-bang double play.

It was even more special because my mom, brother, and sister-in-law were in the bleachers to see it. It happened on the ninth anniversary of my wife (Eric’s mom) passing away. The timing made me think the little guy had some help on that last play.

More important than the wins and excellent play, I was thrilled with Eric’s attitude and behavior. I loved the way he hustled on and off the field. How he didn’t pout or show up the umpire when a call didn’t go his way. I was proud of his poise as a pitcher, especially in tough situations. I enjoyed the way he bonded with his team, his leadership, his warmth. That mattered way more to me than his batting average or ERA.

Batting Practice Bliss

The summer ended with another Yankees game versus the White Sox in Chicago. We arrived early so that we could catch as much of Yankees batting practice as possible. We entered the gates and sprinted to our seats in right-center, leaving Elizabeth and my mom in the dust.

As soon as we walked down to the first row of outfield seats, Eric yelled out “Kahnle! Tommy!” after the reliever shagged a ball in the outfield. Kahnle turned around and casually tossed the ball to a smiling Eric.

Minutes later, relief pitcher Jonathan Loáisiga fielded a line drive. For some reason, he seemed to lock onto Eric and threw him a second ball. Amazing.

Despite another solid effort from Gerrit Cole, the Yanks would lose to the Sox. But it was a day we will never forget.

My Conversion

These last couple of years with Eric and baseball have been some of the best of my life. This time has brought me back to something I loved, allowing me to experience it again from a new perspective.

I never expected to come out the other side as a dreaded Yankee fan, but that has been a blessing as well. I have enjoyed learning more about a vast section of baseball history now that I am no longer resisting it. More than that, I am happy that the Yankees culture has been an example for my son.

Last week, I bumped into that same friend again on Halloween. Eric wore his Aaron Judge uniform for the second consecutive year. This year, my friend asked, "Does Eric gravitate to role models like Derek Jeter and Aaron Judge on his own? Or are you pushing that? My son now likes this guy named Justin Jefferson - it drives me nuts.”

I said, "I can’t believe I’m saying it, but I think I got lucky that he likes the Yankees. They seem to have a higher standard for how their players act.”

A friend from work emailed me last week about a recent documentary about Yankees legend Yogi Berra.

It sounds like a good thing for us to watch on Sunday afternoon after church.

Links:

• The Contract - Derek Jeter

• Yankeeography DVD Megaset

• “The Captain” (Derek Jeter Documentary) - Hulu/ESPN+

• "It Ain't Over" (Yogi Berra Documentary) - Netflix

• Judge wins 2023 Clemente Award: 'It's just the beginning'

Image credit: Shutterstock

Sharing Midwestern stories of faith, family, work, and sports

Self-pity was a cardinal sin in our family growing up.

Unfortunately, it took more than my mom and dad’s guidance to overcome this bad habit.

No, this limiting behavior had to be stamped out of me through experience.

An Immediate Setback

The peak lesson came in the summer of 1995 when I was 22, fresh out of college and working to establish my life in Chicago.

Less than four months before, I had been stressed to the max about not having a job lined up. During senior year, I had been through dozens of interviews with consulting firms and investment banks without a second look, let alone an offer. I didn’t even want to work at those places but was following the lead of the other computer science students.

And then a week before graduation, on my birthday, I got the call - I had landed my dream job.

A prominent sports organization had hired me as an intern to build their first website.

But after only a few months on the job, my new company announced a multi-year, multi-million TV contract with ESPN.

As a mere footnote to the deal, the sports network giant would also handle our website.

Suddenly, my purpose (and career path) had been ripped out from under me.

From Bad to Worse

I spent the next couple of weeks moping around, upset about how unfair it all was.

Then another new intern at work invited me to his party in the city to watch the opening Sunday of the football season.

His party had plenty of pizza and plenty of beer.

I was still feeling sorry for myself.

So, I drank. And then drank some more.

Ten to fifteen beers later, someone at the party helped me onto the CTA Blue Line as I headed back to my apartment in the northwest corner of Chicago.

I had done a smart thing by taking the train to the party earlier in the day.

But foolishly, I had driven my brand-new 1995 Ford Probe to the train station when I could have easily walked there instead.

In another head-scratcher, I didn't go straight home after getting off the train.

In hindsight, I should have left my car there and walked home.

But, I was still hungry. And that led to my brilliant idea of driving to the Denny's down the street.

By the time I finished my Grand Slam breakfast, it was dark outside.

Being drunk and still new to my car and the area, I struggled with flipping on my headlights as I pulled out of the restaurant onto the busy street.

For those unfamiliar with a Ford Probe, it had headlights that popped out of the hood. It was a sleek feature, but it worked against me that night. As I fiddled with the controls, the headlights bobbed up and down, drawing a lot of attention.

The commotion caught the eye of a policeman parked on the street corner.

The police car's lights flashed as the cop directed me to pull into a parking lot, less than a mile from my apartment.

I failed the breathalyzer test, and the officer took me to the local police station, where I waited for a friend to come bail me out an hour later. Fortunately, I don't remember much about that. 

What I do remember is calling home and telling my mom and dad the shameful news, with tears in my eyes as I leaned over the sink in my tiny kitchen, looking out into the night from my 8th floor studio apartment window.

Not only did I have to tell my parents about my DUI, but I was not in good financial shape.

My internship paid little.

Monthly car payments loomed large. I also had apartment rent and my college loan to pay off.

Now, I was looking at a driver's license suspension, a substantial fine, the cost of a lawyer, and who knows what else.

It devastated my ego to ask my parents for money, but I needed some immediate help to get back on my feet.

Rising From the Rubble

Along with giving me a small loan, my mom nudged me to call a local temp agency to supplement my income. The agency quickly found me a second job that was a walkable distance from my place.

It was a low-paying office job for the ComEd electric company, where I tore open payment envelopes and sorted the checks and forms into two piles.

I was surrounded by co-workers much different from myself. I was one of the only white people. I didn't have a tattoo or wear chains. Our primary bond was that none of us wanted to be there for four hours every Sunday.

But I pushed through it, knowing that every bit of money helped.

Swallowing My Pride

As humbling as that job was, the required alcohol education meetings were much worse. These sessions came with my one-year probation sentence, along with a mandatory 90-day license suspension.

Every month, I had to visit a local county office to get questioned by an obese female therapist about my drinking.

I knew why I was there, and it wasn't because I had a drinking problem.

I didn't care if I had another beer in my life, but she wouldn't accept that. Her training told her that I was in denial about my issues.

She talked down to me like I was helpless, like she felt sorry for me, in a way that only a worthless therapist can.

Watching this woman waddle around her cluttered cubicle made my skin crawl.

She was a miserable, incompetent bureaucrat plucked right from the pages of Atlas Shrugged.

I despised her.

But I swallowed my pride and counted down the visits until I would never have to see her again.

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I Love You Lord, Oh Your Mercy Never Fails Me

As I got off my butt and stopped feeling sorry for myself, God began making big moves in my life.

Our company's Novell computer network was serviced by a young guy my age named Charlie. We had similar interests and got along well with each other.

It was around this time that one of Charlie's other customers asked him if he could create a website dedicated to people passionate about the American West and the cowboy culture, including information about Western clothing and dude ranches (like the one in the 1991 Billy Crystal movie City Slickers.) 

Charlie knew I had created a sports website in college and asked me to help him build the cowboy site, offering me a new computer in return.

I jumped at the chance.

From then on, Charlie swung by my office to pick me up at five every afternoon. He then drove us downtown on the Kennedy Expressway to his older brother's office, where we hosted our one Internet server. We scanned photos from Western catalogs and typed content into the site. I learned all about Tony Lama boots and Stetson hats. We ordered pizza and usually worked until 11 PM.

Then, we would wake up the following day to do it all over again.

It felt so free to work hard at something I loved, especially after scrambling eight hours every day to stay busy at my now aimless internship.

We gained a couple more website customers, and Charlie was able to pay me some more money along with the new computer. Within a few months, I was able to quit my crummy temp office job for ComEd on Sundays and used that time to work on websites instead.

Within 18 months, I quit my job at the sports company to work full-time for Charlie’s company, making double the salary. Our business quickly grew from there.

God used my predicament for good - not only to reinforce the perils of self-pity but to solidify and accelerate a close friendship and business partnership that has now lasted nearly 30 years.

God was also preparing me for a much tougher test twenty years away, when cancer would suddenly strike my wife Kristy.

Grateful for the Good and the Bad

As time has passed, I have learned to lean on gratitude and positive activity (usually hard work) as my best daily defense against the vice of victimhood.

I am thankful my reckless, selfish behavior on that night long ago didn’t result in an accident, that it didn’t lead to anyone’s injury (or worse).

I am grateful for the lessons I learned from my mistake, for the lifelong relationships and rewarding career that God wrapped up with the hardship.

Drawing Strength From Superman

If you want more inspiration in this area, I recommend the new documentary about Superman actor Christopher Reeve. The film tells the story of how Reeve pressed forward with remarkable courage and determination after a near-fatal horse-riding accident left him paralyzed from the neck down.

Reeve’s story is another great reminder that, no matter our circumstances, we can all find the strength to climb out of the dark abyss of self-pity and pursue a life of purpose and significance.

Image credit: Alamy

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Sharing Midwestern stories of faith, family, work, and sports

October 7, 2014

I pushed through the front door of Mayo Clinic’s Methodist Hospital into the crisp, cool darkness of the early autumn night.

I had no coat but felt no chill.

I had just watched my wife take her final breath an hour before.

And now, after sharing tearful hugs with Kristy’s mom and dad, I trudged forward on the ten-minute walk to the Hilton DoubleTree hotel, where my mom was getting my two-year-old daughter Elizabeth and 4-month-old son Eric ready for bed.

Looking up at the bright full moon, I paused to catch my breath. I had just become something I had never imagined - I was now a single dad.

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Blessings From Above

After the funeral, we went to my mom and dad’s farm in Iowa. Mom helped take care of Elizabeth and Eric while I went for walks and worked to put weight back on my bony frame.

I started attending my boyhood church, where Kristy and I had been married only three short years before. I started my Jesus Calling daily devotional and immersed myself in Eben Alexander’s Proof of Heaven, looking for assurance that she was safe.

A lot of people asked me how I was going to balance my family and demanding job while suffering the pain of losing Kristy. They comforted me that I would find another wife soon.

But, as I turned more toward God, I received blessings beyond anything I deserved.

Within a month, God delivered an angel to care for Elizabeth and Eric during my workday, enabling us to move back home to Chicago. This special woman was the mom of the college girl who had done a great job babysitting for us the previous summer when Kristy was sick. Ten years later, she’s still with us today.

With God’s help, I was getting over the main hurdles. But something still gnawed at me.

Lingering Guilt

My mind kept going back to my relationship with Kristy when she was sick.

I had done a lot for Kristy and our family, things I was proud of.

I asked many questions and quickly read multiple books to get into the details of her cancer as soon as the doctors diagnosed her. I advocated for her constantly with Northwestern hospital. It was me who pushed to have Mayo give us an early second opinion and ultimately secure her appointment at Rochester.

I did almost everything for our newborn Eric when I wasn’t at work, feeding him at night, taking him to all of his doctor appointments.

Little Elizabeth leaned on me as well, especially at night before bed which had always been our special time. I took her to the park and pool on weekends so both of us could get a break from the tension in our condo.

But there was one critical area where I had come up short: I had failed to connect deeply with Kristy at times, especially during the last two weeks of her life.

I told myself I had no openings to talk with her at Mayo. A steady stream of doctors and nurses came into her room at all hours, along with her mom and dad being a constant presence.

But was that the real reason? As I searched my soul, I dug for truth.

The Mayo doctors and staff told me to carve out time with Kristy and make sure I said everything I wanted to say.

But it never happened. Kristy’s condition quickly worsened, and the opportunity got away from me.

Was I wrong if I talked to her about dying? Even when the best doctors in the world said that they “typically don’t see tumors this aggressive?” Would that have been the same as quitting, the same as losing faith in God?

A Nudge to Return

In early 2016, I read The Mayo Clinic Guide to Stress-Free Living by Dr. Amit Sood as I binged on books to help me through this time. I checked out the associated website and noticed Dr. Sood offered related workshops at Mayo on resilience several times a year.

I called the contact number and asked when the next class was. Somehow, I knew the answer before the woman could respond. It was October 7 - the second anniversary of Kristy’s death.

A voice told me I had to go.

October 7, 2016

The Second Anniversary

I attended the full-day workshop and met Dr. Sood and some great people in the class. As I walked around the Mayo campus, I found myself avoiding certain buildings and hallways where the memories were still too raw.

I went back to my hotel room and rested for an hour. I needed to summon my strength if I was going to connect with Kristy and be completely present for her.

I planned to sit in the grassy courtyard outside Mayo’s Methodist Hospital from 6:00-7:00 PM, the location and time of Kristy’s final hour of life.

As I approached the courtyard, I walked past the Dutch pancake house where God had comforted me two years ago.

As the clock struck six, I settled onto a bench in the corner of the yard. With overcast skies overhead, I closed my eyes. I visualized being back in Kristy’s hospital room, sitting there with her mom and dad.

I told Kristy that I loved her, that I missed her, that I hoped she was proud of how I was raising Elizabeth and Eric.

I said that I was still in the early stages of my journey with God but wished I knew then what I knew now.

I told her I regretted not talking to her more in the ICU, even when she was unresponsive and not opening her eyes for days at a time.

The Hard Truth

As the sun set around 6:45, the courtyard’s lamp posts turned on.

As I talked more to Kristy, the lamp post lights began to flicker.

My face grew warm, tears streamed down my cheeks.

I told her that I know she was scared, that I should have done more to comfort her, especially near the end. But I didn’t know what to say.

What had she believed was going to happen when she died? She was Lutheran, and I was Methodist. But we had never attended church together outside a Christmas Eve candlelight service.

The truth? I didn’t know what to say because we didn’t know each other’s faith well enough.

No one expected a situation like this. But our surface level understanding of each other’s beliefs left us unprepared as she rapidly approached death.

I said I was sorry we hadn’t talked more about God and our faith before getting married.

I asked her to forgive all the mistakes I made during that traumatic time.

I forgave her as well. I wasn’t happy with some things that happened during those months but doubt I fully understood everything going on. I needed to let it go.

As the hour ended, I said good-bye, prayed to God and then left the bench, walking the same path back to my hotel as I had two years before.

I left Rochester grateful that I had returned, feeling closer to Kristy and more at peace with her passing.

The Lesson

If I’m ever lucky enough to meet another woman as extraordinary as Kristy, I will prioritize that our relationship is built on a firm foundation of faith.

Before we consider marriage, I will insist that we have a deep discussion on our beliefs. And I will come prepared.

Where Do You Need Redemption?

The Bible is full of second chances: Jonah, Moses, David, Peter, Paul, the list goes on.

Mistakes are part of the journey. Where do you need atonement?

Reflect on your past, where things went wrong, and ask for forgiveness.

Ask God for a chance at redemption - He wants to give it to you.

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Sharing Midwestern stories of faith, family, work, and sports

In early September, I took off a Friday afternoon with my kids to watch my son Eric's Yankees make a rare visit to Chicago's Wrigley Field to face the Cubs.

We arrived early to secure prime seats in right-center between New York's superstars Aaron Judge (CF) and Juan Soto (RF).

Excitement was in the air - it was former Cubs Anthony Rizzo’s first game back at Wrigley since his trade to the Yankees.

Sitting in the bleachers took me back to my first Cubs game as a 15-year-old.

Some Great Games…

It was August 1988, and our family was on summer vacation in Chicago at a historic time. The first-ever night game at Wrigley Field had taken place earlier in the week.

We had bleacher tickets for two afternoon games: Wednesday, August 10th, and Thursday, August 11th, both against the rival New York Mets.

The Mets were in first place in the National League East, only two years removed from their memorable 1986 world championship team. New York had a star-filled roster with the likes of Darryl Strawberry, Dwight Gooden, Gary Carter, Keith Hernandez, and Lenny Dykstra.

To jog my memory, I looked up the boxscores online. I even found the recap and some video of the August 11th game.

I was surprised I didn't remember the Mets winning 9-6 when Mets outfielder Kevin McReynolds hit a ninth-inning grand slam off the Cubs’ 37-year-old Hall of Fame closer Goose Gossage.

I didn't recall Mets Hall of Famer Gary Carter hitting his 300th home run that day.

Or that Gooden had started for the Mets, a young fireballer only a couple years removed from a an incredible 24-4 / 1.53 Cy Young season.

No, what I remember most from those two days at Wrigley was something that didn't even happen during the games.

…But Some Better Action

On that first day, we arrived super early to Wrigleyville and waited on Waveland for the gates to open. Being near the front of the line helped us get first-row bleacher seats in right field, giving us a terrific view of two talented all-stars: Darryl Strawberry of the Mets and reigning NL MVP Andre Dawson of the Cubs.

It rained before the game, delaying the start by several hours. But the sun eventually emerged, bringing muggy 90-degree-plus weather with it.

My younger brothers and I stared out at the field, wondering when the Cubs ground crew would remove the bright blue tarp and get the game going.

Then, out of nowhere, we heard some commotion behind us.

A bare-chested, bare-footed man in his late 20s was scooting down the aisle steps on his butt, stopping right next to us in the first row.

We gave him uneasy smiles, unsure of what he was up to.

The man sensed our nervousness and laughed, saying that he was at the game with his friends, nodding back to five guys drinking beer about ten rows behind us.

He explained that each of his buddies would pay him $20 if he jumped onto the outfield grass, ran to the infield, and crawled through the giant tube used to roll up the tarp.

The man looked around to make sure none of the ushers were tracking him. He then stood up and surveyed the chain-link fence basket along the top of the outfield wall.

The purpose of the basket is to prevent fans from reaching over and interfering with fly balls in play. But to this guy, it was the first obstacle blocking his quest to win $100.

The man drank his beer while chatting with my little brother as he psyched himself up for the challenge.

Then all of a sudden, he chugged his beer and swiveled his head around to make sure the coast was clear.

He sprang to his feet with a grin and said, "Here goes nothing," and leaped off the top of the wall.

Unfortunately, he caught his left foot on the chain-link basket on his jump. As his bare feet landed on the plush outfield grass, he grasped his left ankle in pain but quickly shook it off, likely powered by liquid courage.

While enduring the rain delay, the Wrigley Field crowd had grown restless.

The fans were looking for any source of entertainment, and our new drunken friend provided an instant remedy to their boredom. 

The stadium began to buzz as more people noticed the gutsy trespasser.

Three overweight Cubs security guards jogged out to apprehend the man and take him off the field.

Emboldened by the fans' support, the man started waving his arms, darting around the outfield.

He quickly sensed his agility advantage over the Cubs security staff.

The man would allow his pursuers to close in on him and then juke like a young Walter Payton, leaving them in his wake.

The security guards started to slip and slide in the wet grass, to the crowd's delight.

As the security guards leaned over to catch their breath, the crazy fan decided it was time to make his move for the tarp roller.

He sprinted to the infield and ducked down as he reached the end of the roll, ready to make his trip through the tube.

But there was a big problem with his plan.

The tube wasn't hollow in the middle; there was no way through it.

None of us realized this because of the tube's position down the third baseline. From our seats in the right-field bleachers, we didn't have a good view of either end of the roller to know it was completely solid.

The fearless fan quickly pivoted and jumped on the tube, hopping across the top of it like he was riding a horse.

The Wrigley faithful howled in laughter.

By this time, Cubs security had sent reinforcements. The man was about halfway across the roller before he had to jump off to avoid capture.

As he disembarked from the tube, he sidestepped a guard and then bolted for the short brick wall just past the first base dugout.

The man easily hurdled the wall and raced up the stadium steps as he faded into the concourse with guards coming at him from every direction.

With the pre-game ruckus over, we had a quick laugh and then headed to the concession stand to kill some time before the first pitch.

An Amusing Ending

The game finally started, and our attention turned to baseball.

The Cubs jumped out to a 6-0 lead after four innings before the Mets struck back for four runs in the fifth off the Cubs 22-year-old pitcher, a future Hall of Famer named Greg Maddux.

Maddux would get out of that inning but have to leave in the sixth after taking a Met line drive off his right forearm.

We sat down after singing "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" with Harry Caray when we suddenly saw the silhouette of a man flailing his arms and yelling in our direction from the concourse along the first base line.

Everyone in our section looked at each other, unaware of what was happening.

We then noticed a nearby usher shaking his head in disbelief with a big smile on his face.

My dad asked the usher what was going on. The friendly black man informed us that the fan hollering at us was the drunken fan who had run out onto the field prior to the game.

The security guards had caught him and taken him to the Chicago police station down the street. But someone had quickly bailed him out, and he had re-entered the stadium to catch the rest of the game!

I had to look at the box score online to see that the Cubs held on for a 6-5 win.

But the adventures of the crazy bleacher bum are etched in my memory forever.

Links:

• August 10, 1988: Cubs 6, Mets 5 (Boxscore)

• August 11, 1988: Mets 9, Cubs 6 (Boxscore)

• September 6, 2024: Yankees 3, Cubs 0 (Boxscore)

• September 6, 2024: Cubs Video Tribute to Anthony Rizzo

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Sharing Midwestern stories of faith, family, work, and sports