Finding My Mo

I was fortunate enough to play one season of varsity basketball (#22) for the greatest basketball coach in South Carolina high school history – Louie Golden. Our ’84-’85 Riverside Warrior team was one of his best, with a 26-3 record and a victory in the AAA state championship over A.C. Flora.

As great as Coach Golden was, with his knowledge of the game and finger-wagging-in-your-face intensity, there was one game situation that always drove me nuts and had me shaking my head. On the occasion of a close game, once we had a slim lead late in the fourth quarter, Coach Golden would call for our stall offense. Some of you know this as four corners.

This meant we’d spread our players out to the edges of the court and try to play keep away from the other team. The goal was to run out the clock and secure the win. Unfortunately, this particular maneuver almost always resulted in us blowing the lead and having to scrap in the end to win the game.

See, by stalling, we had lost momentum and our rhythm. The other teams heightened their intensity, managed to steal the ball and would start catching up. Fortunately, we’d abandon this strategy, usually regaining the lead. We almost always came out on top, but the stall made the victory a whole lot more stressful than it needed to be.

In any moment of decision, the best thing you can do is the right thing, the next best thing is the wrong thing, and the worst thing you can do is nothing. – Theodore Roosevelt

For the last few months, heck maybe the last couple of years, my writing game has been in a stall offense. I’m not sure I even had a lead before the stall, but nonetheless, I definitely lost any momentum I ever had. At the moment I can’t even tell you what my ultimate writing goals are, but I know I need to regain momentum.

As you may have noticed, I have published three consecutive days of blog posts. This is highly unusual for me, even when I was consistently writing. However, I have decided that I need to get back in the game, even if I don’t know where the game is headed.

So, that’s why I’m declaring my word for 2019 is Action. Sure, I’m a couple of months late, but here’s my deal: re-establish solid writing habits by publishing a shortish blog post every weekday. Perhaps if the stars align, I’ll put out an occasional bonus weekend post. The subjects will vary but they will more than likely be about something stupid I’ve done in the past, or some race I’ve run, or just some random observation.

We’ll see where this goes. If I miss a day, feel free to call me out. And since my day job tends to be a tad nutty, I do reserve the right to pull out a “Throwback Thursday” post from an old blog every now and then. Some of those posts were pretty good and most of you have never seen them, anyway.

If you’d like to comment, please do so in the comments section below.

Thanks for reading,

Greg

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