Quote of the Day

Before I refuse to take your questions,
I have an opening statement.



Ronald Wilson Reagan

Quote of the Day

Government is like a baby. An alimentary
canal with a big appetite at one end and
no sense of responsibility at the other.



Ronald Wilson Reagan

Tanning/Training at Stacy Pool

Outdoors in Austin Sunday:

Quote of the Day

Governments have a tendency not to solve
problems, only to rearrange them.



Ronald Wilson Reagan

Quote of the Day

One way to make sure crime doesn't pay
would be to let the government run it.



Ronald Wilson Reagan

Quote of the Day

I know it's hard, when you're up to your
armpits in alligators, to remember you
came here to drain the swamp.



Ronald Wilson Reagan

Merry Christmas!

We got a great present from John Stossel. Now, the WSF has thrown in a nice stocking-stuffer. Read more here and here.

Yep, they're on the defensive. Seems they have been defending proportionality and it's starting to backfire.

They closed out their "Fact Check" post with this:

The Women’s Sports Foundation would like to move the conversation beyond limiting stereotypes. Girls have proven over and over that they are interested in playing sports by filling spots as they’re opened. High school and college sports are not private entities, but are largely funded by schools with our tax dollars through tax deductions, tax-free bonds for facilities and tax deductions for donors. This expenditure in sport is part of our nation’s investment in education and our future. And it's an investment with superior dividends: the Women's Sports Foundation's work documents the impressive life-long educational and health benefits flowing directly from a sports experience for men and women. See Her Life Depends on It.

Oh yeah, they'd really like to move the conversation - move it away from what the quota system's all about. Stereotypes? Facts is facts, y'all! When opportunities are there, males generally take advantage of them in higher numbers than females. We wish that weren't the case, but it is. All we can do is continue offering opportunities. We can't force these things, can we?

As an organization that has proudly defended Title IX for four decades, the Foundation seek to increase the pie in athletics for women and men, so that a bigger percentage of our youth can experience this important educational experience.

What? They care about men's athletics? What a joke! Thanks for the laugh, Nan!



Well, that about wraps it up for me for a few days. Time to start that Christmas shopping...

Quote of the Day

The future is much like the present, only longer.



Daniel Raymond Quisenberry

Quote of the Day

The single most exciting thing you encounter in
government is competence, because it's so rare.



Daniel Patrick Moynihan

Getting the Message Out

John Stossel does a nice job of letting John Q. Public know truth about Title IX:

Quote of the Day

Do not be too severe upon the errors of the
people, but reclaim them by enlightening them.



Thomas Jefferson

Quote of the Day

One stumble is enough to deface
the character of an honorable life.



Sir Roger L'Estrange

Quote of the Day

Indecision and delays are
the parents of failure.



George Canning

Quote of the Day (thanks MS)

The difference between the almost right word
and the right word is really a large matter -
it's the difference between the
lightning bug and lightning.



Samuel Langhorne Clemens, a.k.a. Mark Twain

Quote of the Day

Setting a goal is not the main thing.
It is deciding how you will go about
achieving it and staying with that plan.



Thomas Wade "Tom" Landry

The NWLC's Big Lie

They claim that poor funding and a lack of opportunities are the reasons fewer girls than boys participate in high school sports.

Coaches and administrators who work with student-athletes know funding and opportunities aren't what's holding down participation numbers among girls in some schools.

We know that, even when funding is available and opportunities are offered, fewer girls opt to play sports than boys. We wish that weren't the case, but it is. We'd like higher participation numbers, but we don't always get them. Read more here.

Cindy Rivers, athletic director at Lake Placid High School, doesn't agree with the NWLC's assumption.

"It's hard to get the girls to come out and play," Rivers said. "There's not the desire."

Mort Jackson concurred. He tries to recruit girls for sports. "We do everything we can do to get girls to participate, just can't get the girls to come out."

Why?

"I don't know. Tell me that, and I can solve the problem," the Avon Park High School athletic director said.

One reason though, is that cheerleading — now counted as a sport — attracts 30 girls.

"But they don't play soccer. They don't want to play basketball."

So, why do the NWLC and WSF continue to push what they want you to buy into, rather than what's actually true? It's got to do with money, fans. Title IX litigations is a cash cow for lawyers.

We're nearly four decades into Title IX. Unfortunately, what started out as a great concept has been turned upside down by radical feminists. They've been successful in bringing down hundreds of mens' teams at the collegiate level. Now they're setting their sights on public schools.

Is Title IX working?

In an effort to cut budgets and maintain equality, secondary schools and colleges are trimming minor sports like gymnastics and volleyball.

Title IX, Quarles says now, "was fair in the beginning. But it should not come at the expense of our smaller sports. It's working in reverse."

Quote of the Day

I see my path, but I don't know where it

leads. Not knowing where I'm going

is what inspires me to travel it.



María Rosalía Rita de Castro

Quote of the Day

Whatever you do, do it to the purpose; do it
thoroughly, not superficially. Go to the bottom
of things. Any thing half done, or half known,
is in my mind, neither done nor known at all.
Nay, worse, for it often misleads.



Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield

Quote of the Day

Everything government touches turns to crap.



Richard Parkin Starkey, a.k.a. Ringo Starr

Quote of the Day

You never know how a horse will pull
until you hook him up to a heavy load.



Paul William "Bear" Bryant

Quote of the Day

If they can make penicillin out of moldy bread,
they can sure make something out of you.



Cassius Marcellus Clay, Jr., a.k.a. Muhammad Ali

Quote of the Day

Our imagination is stretched to the utmost,
not, as in fiction, to imagine things which
are not really there, but just to comprehend
those things which "are" there.



Richard Phillips Feynman

Odds & Ends

If it's a big meet, chances are good Sam Kendricks will be the announcer. He's professional, knowledgeable, and has a great sense of humor. The crowd wasn't responding the way he'd wanted in Austin:

"Don't make me come up there!"

I work with a great young coach who also has a great sense of humor. Carlos Salazar watching a freestyler:

"He's breathing every four because he can't count to three."

Some other things I've heard and/or said on deck:

"Okay freshmen, get your snorkels on. We're gonna do some backstroke."

"Go out as fast as you can, and then negative split it."

"You looked like you were shot out of a gun on that first fifty! Too bad it looked like you were shot by the gun on the last fifty."

"It's a no-breather, so you get two breaths - one before you start and another after you finish."

"Swing, step, and go. It's as easy as 1-2-4."

"That was really using your head - to finish."

Quote of the Day

We are trying to prove ourselves wrong
as quickly as possible, because only
in that way can we find progress.



Richard Phillips Feynman

Quote of the Day (thanks BG)

I can live with doubt, and uncertainty,
and not knowing. I think it's much more
interesting to live not knowing than to
have answers which might be wrong.



Richard Phillips Feynman

One Thousand!

That was Quote of the Day #1,000.

Whether they're worthwhile to you readers or not, I've enjoyed posting them. I've learned quite a bit over the last 3 years of searching for them. Hope at least a few of them have been useful.

Quote of the Day

Poets say science takes away from the beauty of
the stars - mere globs of gas atoms. I, too, can
see the stars on a desert night, and feel them.
But do I see less, or more?



Richard Phillips Feynman

Quote of the Day

I was born not knowing and have only had
a little time to change that here and there.



Richard Phillips Feynman

Quote of the Day

I believe that a scientist looking at nonscientific

problems is just as dumb as the next guy.



Richard Phillips Feynman

Quote of the Day

A successful man is one who can
lay a firm foundation with the
bricks others have thrown at him.



David McClure Brinkley

Talent is Overrated?

That's what Geoff Colvin says. Read more here.

The idea of "deliberate practice" seems to mirror what we're supposed to be doing with our swimmers.

Can you see how Colvin's eight (8) characteristics of deliberate practice tie in with the way outstanding swimming programs teach and train their athletes?

An Understanding of Deliberate Practice
A summarization of Colvin’s eight characteristics of deliberate practice follow below. Readers will find a more in-depth explanation as well as a number of examples in Colvin’s original article.

“Deliberate practice is designed specifically to improve performance with the key word being ‘designed.’ The essence of deliberate practice is continually stretching an individual just beyond his or her current abilities. By contrast, deliberate practice requires that one identify certain sharply defined elements of performance that need to be improved, and then work intently on them. The great performers isolate remarkably specific aspects of what they do and focus on just those things until they’re improved; then it’s on to the next aspect.”

“Deliberate practice can be repeated. High repetition is the most important difference between deliberate practice of a task and performing the task for real, when it counts. One is the choice of a properly demanding activity just beyond our current abilities. The other is the amount of repetition.”

“Feedback on results is continuously available.” Though this is obvious, it is “not nearly as simple as it might seem, especially when results require interpretation. In many important situations, a teacher, coach, or mentor is vital for providing crucial feedback.”

“It’s highly demanding mentally. Deliberate practice is above all an effort of focus and concentration. That is what makes it ‘deliberate.’ Continually seeking exactly those elements of performance that are unsatisfactory and then trying one’s hardest to make them better places enormous strains on anyone’s mental abilities. The work is so great that it seems no one can sustain it for very long.”

“It’s hard. This follows inescapably from the other characteristics of deliberate practice, which could be described as a recipe for not having fun. Doing things we know how to do well is enjoyable, and that’s exactly the opposite of what deliberate practice demands. Instead of doing what we’re good at, we insistently seek out what we’re not good at.”

There is a definitive ‘before the work’ component. “Self-regulation begins with setting goals – not big, life-directing goals, but more immediate goals for what you’re going to be doing today. In the research, the poorest performers don’t set goals at all; they just slog through their work. Mediocre performers set goals that are general and are often focused on simply achieving a good outcome. The best performers set goals that are not about the outcome but rather about the process of reaching the outcome.”

There is a ‘during the work’ phase. “The most important self-regulatory skill that top performers in every field use during their work is self-observation. Even in purely mental work, the best performers observe themselves closely. They are able to monitor what is happening in their own minds and ask how it’s going. Researchers call this metacognition – knowledge about your own knowledge, thinking about your own thinking. Top performers do this much more systematically than others do; it’s an established part of their routine.”

There is an ‘after the work’ component as well. “Practice activities are worthless without useful feedback about the results. These must be self-evaluations” and “the best performers judge themselves against a standard that’s relevant for what they’re trying to achieve. Sometimes they compare their performance with their own personal best; sometimes they compare it with the performance of competitors they’re facing or expect to face; sometimes they compare it with the best known performance by anyone in the field.”

Quote of the Day

Deeds, not stones, are the true
monuments of the great.



John Lothrop Motley

Quote of the Day

Age wrinkles the body. Quitting wrinkles the soul.



General Douglas MacArthur

Quote of the Day

I have seen that it is not man who is impotent

in the struggle against evil, but the power of

evil that is impotent in the struggle against man.



Vasily Semyonovich Grossman

Quote of the Day

Not the power to remember, but its

very opposite, the power to forget, is a
necessary condition for our existence.



Sholem Asch

Quote of the Day

Obviously crime pays, or there'd be no crime.



George Gordon Battle Liddy

Quote of the Day

Abuse a man unjustly, and you
will make friends for him.



Edgar Watson "E.W." Howe

Quote of the Day

About the time we think we can make
ends meet, somebody moves the ends.



Herbert Clark Hoover

Quote of the Day

Advertising may be described as the science
of arresting the human intelligence
long enough to get money from it.



Stephen Butler Leacock

Quote of the Day

Do not pray for easy lives. Pray to be stronger
men. Do not pray for tasks equal to your
powers. Pray for powers equal to your
tasks. Then the doing of your work
shall be no miracle, but you
shall be the miracle.



Phillips Brooks

Quote of the Day

No matter what side of the argument you
are on, you always find people on your
side that you wish were on the other.



Jascha Heifetz

Quote of the Day

The attempt to combine wisdom and power
has only rarely been successful and
then only for a short while.



Albert Einstein

Quote of the Day

The performance of our National Team athletes

and their attempt to do the ultimate -

win a gold medal at the Olympic Games -

is more important than money.



Mark Schubert

Quote of the Day

Flattery is like cologne water,
to be smelt of, not swallowed.



Henry Wheeler Shaw, a.k.a. Josh Billings

Quote of the Day

A good horse should be seldom spurred.



Thomas Fuller

Quote of the Day

To understand a new idea,

break an old habit.



Nathan Eugene Pinchback "Jean" Toomer

Quote of the Day

Nothing is worse than active ignorance.



Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Quote of the Day (thanks JB)

State is the name of the coldest of all monsters.
Coldly it lies; and this lie slips from its mouth:
"I, the state, am the people."



Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

Quote of the Day

In order that people may be happy in their
work, these three things are needed:
They must be fit for it. They must
not do too much of it. And they
must have a sense of success in it.



John Ruskin

Quote of the Day

Duty is the most sublime word in
our language. Do your duty in all
things. You cannot do more.
You should never wish to do less.



General Robert Edward Lee

Quote of the Day

Shallow men believe in luck. Strong
men believe in cause and effect.



Ralph Waldo Emerson

Quote of the Day

I have no particular affinity with any number -

other than one, of course.



Jenson Alexander Lyons Button