This week’s piece has two separate meanings.
One, sports and life will always be about opportunity. How you face up to your
situation tells the story. Some will prosper like, for example, Colin Kaepernick of the San Francisco
49ers, who, just a few weeks ago was called upon to fill in for the injured
starter Alex Smith and performed
brilliantly. Now there are debates whether he is the better player to lead the NFL
club. Perhaps the most legendary sports story about opportunity occurred in the
year 1925 when Wally Pipp of the New
York Yankees excused himself from the lineup due to a headache and a young
rookie by the name of Lou Gehrig was
given the nod to play 1st base … Gehrig never left the lineup
thereafter and became one of the game’s greatest icons!
On the flip side to opportunity, each of you
is born with a tremendous gift. A calling, if I may say, to play a game and to
make a nice living as a result. Never take your skill and gift for granted or
fail to truly maximize your potential. Over the Thanksgiving holiday break, I
was watching ESPN’s ‘The Sporting Life’ and saw the story on Jacob Rainey, a high school football
player from Virginia. A gifted
quarterback with definite pro potential. He was already being recruited by many
major colleges. At 6-3, 215 pounds and timed at 4.61
seconds in the 40-yard dash, Rainey was equally feared as a runner and passer
who could throw bullets down the field and had scouts everywhere drooling in
anticipation of his future development.
During his junior school season in 2011, he
suffered a knee injury during practice that changed his life forever and
without warning. Doctors soon discovered that Rainey had severed the main
artery in his leg and developed a rare condition called compartment syndrome.
This condition cut off the blood flow to part of his leg which led to the death
of muscle tissue and nerves. It was this condition that left “amputation” of
part of his leg as the only option left for this athlete to survive.
Facing the daunting task that his dream to
play professional football is now over? Rainey refused to spend time thinking
about what he has lost. Instead, he inspired his school and community by
attempting to return to the playing field for his senior season. Where most amputees would be learning to walk comfortably and slowly
gaining trust in their new prosthetic -- Rainey has been working with a
strength coach, running sprints by June of 2012, and fighting his way back to a
football field. That was his goal … to return to his high school team for his
senior year and play quarterback. He
actually reached his goal and was on the field to throw one pass for five yards
during his school’s season opener last Sept. 7th. For the entire season, he completed 7 of 9
passes –two for touchdowns and 75 overall yards.
Rainey’s comeback was viewed as logic-defying, heartwarming and
mind-blowing by all observers and medical experts. Despite his athletic dreams to ultimately
play at the professional level were shattered, his courage, strength of
mind and engaging personality, will more than likely take him so much further in
life and be an inspiration to millions of those debilitated by injuries. .
"He's the same but he's not the same. He lost a leg but he didn't lose the
heart, or the arm, or the athleticism," said Jeff Johnson, Rainey’s high school football team trainer.
Fellas – value the
opportunity bestowed upon you to play this great game of baseball! Continue to
work hard so that the uniform never comes off!
MY BEST FOR YOU ALWAYS!
MY BEST FOR YOU ALWAYS!
Jim Loria
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SAN FRANCISCO
GIANTS NL MVP BUSTER POSEY COMMENTING ON WHAT HIS DEVASTATING LEG INJURY IN
2011 DID FOR HIS LOVE OF THE GAME? “It increased it, no doubt about it. I’ve always loved baseball. After my
injury I saw how quickly this game can be gone. Hopefully that thought can be
something I carry with me the rest of my career. I just have a better
understanding of how privileged I am to play the game”.
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“People are always blaming their
circumstances for what they are. I don't believe in circumstances.
The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the
circumstances they want, and, if they can't find them, make them” – stated by G.B. Shaw, Irish Playwright, 1893
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LYRICS FROM THE ARTIST “PINK” AND HER SONG
“TRY”
…
Where there is desire
…
There is gonna be a flame… Where there is a flame
… Someone's bound to get burned
… But just because it burns
… Doesn't mean you're gonna die
… You've gotta get up and try try try
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"So many of our dreams at first seem impossible, then they seem improbable, and then, when we summon the will, they soon become inevitable" - stated by an unknown author
“Most people have no idea of the giant capacity we can immediately command when we focus all of our resources on mastering a single area of our lives” – stated by Anthony Robbins, American self-help motivational speaker
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Jim Loria, Career Planning Expert for Sports Professionals Email address: loria@sfstampede.com
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