Category Archives: Written

05.05.15
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Don’t blame the starters

This might not be the greatest Red Sox pitching staff of this century but it isn’t the worst either.

This isn’t stats driven, rather a belief that comes from the emotional roller coaster of watching this team play every day.

Rarely has there been an outing this season where the starter hasn’t given up a crooked number. On the nights where there are several crooked numbers the bullpen are out of the loop, when the damage is limited, the bullpen show their potential.CB

Buchholz, Miley, Kelly, Porcello and Masterson. Each have their strengths and weaknesses but they all have one thing in common. They’re constantly being told how bad they are as a rotation and guess what? It shows in how they perform.

Broadcasters, Print journalists and some fans can’t attack them quickly enough. A staff without a genuine ace, a staff who aren’t good enough to win the World Series.

What if we re-signed Lester? What if we signed Johnny Cueto? What if, what if, WHAT IF?

What if we all got behind the team and accepted them for what they are? 2015 is going to be a year of ups and downs, the sooner everybody accepts that the easier it will be on all of us!

When the problem lies within the psyche of the pitchers it is much tougher to work around. This is where I believe that Juan Nieves has some work to do. As the pitching coach it’s on him to get the confidence back to where it needs to be.

The solution? Nieves needs to sit down with John Farrell and seek his guidance on the issue. Farrell has a lot on his plate but I don’t believe he uses his history with the club enough in his current managerial role. Farrell knows how to get a Red Sox staff up and about and a little more input from him could make all the difference.

When you look at what the five starters are capable of at their best the Red Sox have a roster that should compete to win the A.L East. A lot of whether that happens in 2015 is going to come down to how they deal with the beating they are getting on and off the field.

Today is game 26. My maths tells me we have 136 games left in the season. If you’re ready to blow the season up and start again then you need to take a few deep breaths and remember that it’s a very long season and anything is possible.

 

04.27.15
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Four points – Sandringham Zebras

A convincing 58-point victory at Burbank Oval on Sunday afternoon provided the perfect 2015 homecoming for the Williamstown Football Club.

1. Anthony Anastasio – A dominating performance from Anastasio showed how vital he is to the side. Four goals and solid pressure placed on the Sandringham defence had him among the best for the Seagulls.  The emergence of the 21 year-old as a key figure in the Seagulls attacking game is a bright note for the future, with Anastasio having only just ticked over the 50 game mark in his very young career. IMG_1199

2. Physicality rules the day – At times in the second quarter it looked like the clash was going to turn into a battle of fists rather than footballing wits. Spot fights erupted from both sides and Williamstown were able to make the most of the Zebras mental unrest to kick a pair of crucial goals to extend their lead back out to 17 points at the long break.

3. Clear messages – Andy Collins sent a clear message at the final change “Go out there is if the scoreboard is reading 0-0”. With a 57 point lead and the points in the back, it would have been easy for the Seagulls to hit cruise control in the final term. The Zebras registered 7 scoring shots to 3 in the final term, but were outscored 3.0.18 to 2.5.17, with the Seagulls making the most of their opportunities, at one point extending their lead to 66 points.

4. Touches in bunches – Ed Carr had 30 touches, Ben Jolley had 30 touches and Nick Sing had 20. When three players can combine to get the ball 80 times, you know they are going to be tough to stop. More impressive for Jolley was the fact he lined up against 149 game St. Kilda Veteran Clint Jones.

04.19.15
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The draft lottery must die

Since 1985 only 4 teams with the worst record in the NBA have had the first pick in the draft. In the NHL the worst team has had the first pick 6 times since 1995. 10/50 or 2/10 or 20%. However you write it the draft lottery needs to be done away with.

I’m not mad that a team I support didn’t win the lottery. I’m mad because teams who don’t deserve the top pick are being given opportune access to players who should be going to other franchises so that the league can have an even distribution of talent. At least in theory.

The Edmonton Oilers won Connor McDavid thanks to the draft lottery

The Edmonton Oilers won Connor McDavid thanks to the draft lottery

If you’re an Edmonton Oilers fan you are more than welcome to dispute this claim. Partly because you haven’t made the playoffs since 2005-2006 and partly because you won Connor McDavid this morning. Congratulations, you’ve won something that isn’t rightfully yours, but I digress.

Professional athletes want to win more than anything else in the world. If you’re not on a winning team the only way you can win is by adding talent, be it through the draft, free agency or trades. Free agents don’t go to clubs where they aren’t going to win, if they are good enough to be attracting interest then they are going to be going to a team who are already a playoff team or in playoff contention. Trades are more successful, but the worse you are the more you are going to be asked to give up. It isn’t nice, but it’s a fact of life. The draft is where the answers are. The worse you are the better your access to the top of the talent pool. Drafting is a science, and the only way to get it right is to have people who are experts in it on the books of your organisation (looking at you Melbourne Football Club).

What if teams lose games on purpose to increase their draft positions? They’re going to do the same thing if there is a lottery. The closer you are to the bottom the more balls you are going to have. Why not rid the potential for teams who truly don’t deserve it (the Cleveland Cavaliers of 2014 spring to mind) and give the worst team in the league the opportunity for light at the end of the tunnel by giving them the top pick in the draft?

Sport should be a level playing field yet everyone knows it isn’t. Draft orders should be variable based only on the results on the playing surface. That means you need to be the worst to get the best. If you’ve ever been on a team at any level who are losing then you know that it feels miserable and nobody is thinking “gee I hope we lose so we can get a kid who won’t fix everything overnight”. The idea of tanking is lunacy despite the fact that teams have been fined for it before.

Where is the hope for poor teams if they aren’t offered the chance for things to get better? All the draft lottery does it shows that the leagues who choose to have one don’t value a level playing field.

Are they rigged? No, but the Oilers having four top picks since 2010 and the Cavaliers three since 2011 is reason enough to leave a bad taste in fans mouths.

More importantly it’s a great reason for leagues who use a lottery to wake up and give their worst performing franchises the opportunities they deserve.

 

 

 

04.16.15
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Williamstown set to end 12-year drought

The Williamstown Seagulls enter the 2015 Victorian Football League season looking to snap a 12-year premiership drought and lift a cup for the tenth straight decade.

The Seagulls fell agonisingly short in 2014, dropping their Preliminary Final clash against the Box Hill Hawks by seven points. Here are five reasons the Seagulls can go all the way in 2015 (in no particular order).Seagulls logo

 

Big game experience – A Preliminary Final in 2014 may not scream big game experience but winning the Foxtel Cup in 2011 and 2014 does. In their two Foxtel Cup campaigns the smallest margin of victory for the Seagulls was 19 points, with three of their six victories coming by over five goals (Swan Districts [2011] 37 Points, Aspley [2014] 45 points and West Perth [2014 Grand Final] 63 points).

You also need to go back to 2009 for the last time Williamstown failed to make a Preliminary Final. On that occasion they were knocked out in straight sets, falling to the Northern Bullants and Collingwood. No other team in the competition has appeared in every Preliminary Final in the same stretch.

Key recruits – One of the luxuries of being a stand-alone club in the VFL is the ability to recruit top class players. While Kane Lambert was lost to Richmond (Where he has subsequently picked up a shoulder injury), Seagulls fans should be excited by the addition of Taylor Hine and Sam Dunell, who have both spent time on AFL lists.

Dunell played twelve games in three seasons with St Kilda scoring one goal. Since his VFL debut with the Bendigo Bombers in 2011 he has played 49 games, scoring 50 goals. He appeared in 15 games for Sandringham last season with a strong return of 23 goals. It appears like Dunell will develop into a key forward role with the Seagulls, where he will be fully capable of a 30-40 goal season should he stay fit.

After 23 games split between the Gold Coast Suns and North Melbourne Kangaroos, Hine will play a key role for the Seagulls in 2015, varying between midfield and defensive duties. During his time with the Roos he was frequently used in a tagging role, a role which he will be sure to embrace should he be given it by Andy Collins. His 18 games for the Werribee Tigers in 2014 demonstrate his ability to play consistent football and back up his performances, something the side will be hoping to see repeated as they look to take the next step.

Andy Collins – The chips were stacked heavily against Collins in 2014 and he still managed to come out on top. In the Seagulls first year as a stand-alone outfit, and his first year as coach, he took the side to within a game of the Grand Final and eased the club to their second ever Foxtel Cup triumph. The impact he has had on the side is similar to that of Paul Roos at Melbourne, in that he has a structure in place which he will continue to develop as he enters his second year at the helm.

Home ground advantage – There’s something special about Burbank Oval. Whether it’s the location, the passion from the home fans or the wind belting off the water, it’s not a happy hunting ground for opposition clubs.

Since 2012 the Seagulls have a formidable 20-6 record at Burbank Oval. That’s a winning percentage of .769. The key to success at Burbank is knowing that the scoring end is the scoreboard end and that you need to keep possession rotating while you are kicking towards the Floyd Pavilion. All too often visiting sides are undone by pushing too far forward at the Floyd end, leaving the Seagulls with easy opportunities on the counter.

This was best highlighted in 2014 during the Seagulls clash against Collingwood where a combined 3.0 (18) was kicked to the Floyd end, with 21.23 (149) was kicked towards the scoreboard end on a wet and windy Sunday afternoon. If the Seagulls can continue to use their local knowledge to exploit the opposition then their winning form is certain to continue.

Defensive pressure – In a loop back to the impact of Andy Collins the Seagulls have shown themselves to be one of the best defensive sides in the competition.

The Collins mantra places great focus on pressuring the player with the ball and dominating the clearances, something which the Seagulls were able to do throughout the preseason. The home clash against Box Hill on Saturday was the toughest test of the preseason, and while the result wasn’t as desired there were positive signs. The tackling pressure was relentless and it was clear that Box Hill were rattled whenever they were required to clear the ball from inside the Williamstown forward 50.

The more time Collins has to work his philosophy into the game the tougher the Seagulls are going to be to score against. For a team who only conceded over 100 points twice in 2014 (101 against the Northern Blues in round one, 100 against Box Hill in the Preliminary Final) and averaged 99.09 points per game, that defensive pressure is a scary prospect for the rest of the competition.

04.02.15
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Deebacle 2015

I have no idea what the Melbourne Football Club are going to do this year.

What I do know is that we aren’t winning a Premiership. I also know we need to score more points and we have the weapons to do it.

Angus Brayshaw should be a shining light for the Dees this year

Angus Brayshaw should be a shining light for the Dees this year

I fell for it with Jack Watts, Tom Scully and Jack Trengove. They were all going to be the one who turned the fortunes of the Melbourne Football Club around. As much as I love you Jesse Hogan, I’m not going to put you in the same category. Not because I believe you don’t deserve to be there, purely because the pressure of Melbourne is a miserable thing to lump on anyone.

We have a great core of young players with one thing in common. I want to see more from them in 2015. Jack Viney, Jay Kennedy-Harris, Christian Salem and Dom Tyson all need to be playing at their best every week if we are going to see progression.

We should have won more than four games last year and we should win more than four games this year, but who knows? Preseason is a great indicator, even though the wins and losses don’t matter as much. We could have beaten Freo, where we put up a good fight all day. We should have finished the Bulldogs off a lot sooner than we did. Essendon was summed up by the losing turnover – some days it just isn’t going to happen.

At the end of last year I thought we could win seven or eight games. Within half an hour of Christian Petracca being ruled out for the season I adjusted that to being happy with winning five games. Being happy with being awful is enough to make me miserable before a Matt Jones kick in anger.

I just want something to smile about on a regular basis. We haven’t made the finals since Channel Nine had rights (2006), and with the exception of the first half of 2010 and roughly half of our games in a horribly inconsistent 2011, we have not looked like breaking the drought.

We also have a great group of older guys, but they aren’t getting consistent help. Dawes, Nathan Jones and Lumumba need to have career best years. I’m also looking forward to seeing what Stretch and Brayshaw can do.

Over to you Melbourne. Even if you can’t make me smile every week the Robbie Flower Wing is another stunning example of why I will never stop loving you.

03.30.15
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Rebels at a crossroads

The Melbourne Rebels head into their Good Friday clash with the Queensland Reds desperate for victory at a ground they have not won at since Good Friday 2014.

Jack Debreczeni has stood out for the Melbourne Rebels in 2015

Jack Debreczeni has stood out for the Melbourne Rebels in 2015

The Reds and Rebels don’t have a whole lot in common. Despite this the last two weeks have seen both sides lose to the Lions in a game they should have won. For the Reds it was poor execution in their attacking half after the hooter that let them down, while the Rebels combusted in what was arguably their worst performance ever.

After beating the Crusaders away from home it is fair to say that my hopes were high for the Rebels in 2015. Now the calendar is ready to flip into April, we’re 2-4 and need a lot to fall our way to secure our first finals appearance. To be any chance we need to win on Friday night.

In the last two weeks we have played some of the most fluent rugby I’ve ever seen from a Rebels outfit. In that time we’ve only scored one try. Simply not good enough.

Another lackluster performance on Friday and the scene is set for the rest of the season – disappointment as we try to fight ourselves out of a hole we shouldn’t have been in to start with.

A win going into the bye week offers a glimmer of hope as we travel to Canberra to take on the Brumbies (a team we have always given trouble), followed by a clash against the Waratahs (another team who are having a slower 2015 than anticipated) , before returning home against the Chiefs in the first week of May.

Anything less than 3-1 over this period is unacceptable and we must kick into gear on Friday night.

Since our inception our home record against the Reds (who to their credit have won a title in that period) does not make for pretty reading:

 

2011 : Reds 33 – 18 Rebels

2012 : Reds 32 – 17 Rebels

2013 : Reds 23 – 13 Rebels

2014 :  Reds 36 – 20 Rebels

Being the optimist that I am it’s easy to say that I know what I’m in for on Friday night. History tells me the Rebels are going to lose by two converted tries, but history doesn’t matter. I honestly believe the 2015 crop of Rebels are a different proposition for their opponents.

The two faces that I have been impressed by the most this season are Jack Debreczeni and Lopeti Timani. Debreczeni has stood out because he has shown consistent glimpses of his NRC form, while Timani has a great case of try-line fever. The closer he gets to the try line the faster I’d be moving out of the way if I was on the other side of the ball.

Sadly though the efforts of two are reduced by the all-too-frequent shortfalls. It was on show again against the Hurricanes where we went into the break with a lead and might as well not have come back out after the half time oranges.

So what do we need to do against the Reds to get our season back on track? Use the ball we have.

It seems simple, but if you hold the ball for 7+ phases and don’t do anything with it you aren’t going to win. The Rebels have been guilty of this on countless occasions in the last fortnight, all to often when they are within ten metres of scoring.

I have no doubt this is going to be a focus on the training track this week and I look forward to seeing the results on what will hopefully be a very Good Friday at AAMI Park.

03.30.15
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The Cricket World Cup is bad for the game

There. I said it. The World Cup was bad for the game of cricket.

AustraliawinWC

There is no better feeling in sport than winning. Australia lifting the World Cup for the fourth time in my life was a sweet as any other occasion. Despite this I can’t help be left with a sour taste about what the tournament does for the sport.

Crowds were wonderful, upsets were had and close games were more frequent than they had been at past tournaments. All fun and games, or was it?

The tournament was a success, but the barrage of high scores combined with the “new batting textbook” commentators ranted about leaves me feeling sour.

There were 23, 531 runs scored in the tournament at an average of 500.65 per game. When you factor in that England were playing and they were hopeless, this is a high scoring outlay from the more successful teams in the tournament.

There is a great skill in scoring 400 in 50 overs, there’s no denying that. But it is a skill which is demonstrating that 50% of the game isn’t valued under the current ODI format. If you’re a bowler you’re on a hiding to nothing. Powerplays, No-Balls, Wides and the new rules surrounding the bouncer have all been altered to ensure that runs are scored with ease.

When I first watched cricket a wide was a ball you couldn’t play a shot to with a regulation stance. Now a wide is something that’s either 75cm outside off or anything down the leg side. Two bouncers an over, anything over waist height and a full toss is a no-ball (unless you’re India), and don’t get me started on fielding regulations.

ODIs are successful because they have what the general observer classifies as “constant entertainment”. In a market when the forms of the game are getting shorter, entertainment comes through big hitting rather than a tight bowling battle. If people want big hitting you can replace bowlers with a bowling machine. The majority of bowling were half-volley’s outside off throughout the tournament, so why not give people more of what they so clearly want?

Cricket is one of my favourite sports. I’ll watch any form, but the shorter the game gets the less I care. ODIs aren’t a battle between batsmen and bowlers for the mental edge to get runs on the board. It’s a test of how long a batter will wait for the bowler to start bowling rubbish. If the batter can wait out the two over period at the start of a spell they are going to get runs.

The focus on attack hurts me as a fan, but it also hurts the next generation. Our future test cricketers think watching guys like Brendon McCullum is the way to build your technique to a level where you deserve a Baggy Green. No, it isn’t. McCullum is a wonderful cricketer with one fault – a severe inability to distinguish between forms of the game. Thank you very much short-form cricket for creating a monster which ruins it for the traditionalists. If you want to build an arsenal which will see you become a test great I suggest you YouTube guys like Doug Walters and Steve Waugh. They are the sorts of players we need to develop. I don’t need you scoring 15 an over on the first morning. I need you averaging between 47 and 60. That’s how we win tests, and reach the pinnacle of the sport.

For a pro-hitting rant you’d assume that I think there is never any smart bowling in the shorter forms. I know that Australia won the final with a fantastic bowling performance. Clarke for all of his faults devised a plan to beat an unbeaten team and pulled it off with apparent ease. Credit to him for that, but that performance alone doesn’t swing back to bowlers having a prominent role in the current form of ODIs for mine.

Is anyone else wishing The Ashes would hurry up and start?

07.13.14
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Tommy Thompson by the numbers

The Melbourne Aces last week announced the signing of Tommy Thompson as their new manager for the 2014-15 Australian Baseball League season.

Thompson is the current manager of the Class A-Advanced Winston-Salem Dash, who are an affiliate of the Chicago White Sox. He comes to Melbourne with a decade of playing experience in the minors, as well as spending twelve years as a manager.blog3WSD

Thompson replaces Phil Dale, who had been at the helm of the Aces since the formation of the league in 2010, leading the Aces to a regular season record of 76-100 (.431) with two playoff appearances in that period.

In his managerial career, Thompson boasts a .486 record (616-651 at the time of positing). While the sample size is much bigger, it doesn’t read much better, with just four seasons with a winning record throughout his career.

When you break down Thompson’s record further, at the four different levels of baseball he’s managed his only  overall winning record comes at Class A-Advanced, where he has a record of .530. With many experts believing the Australia Baseball League floats between A and AA, replication of these numbers will see the Aces make a playoff appearance for the first time since losing the 2011-12 ABLCS to the Perth Heat.

The Aces have just two playoff appearances in the four-year history of the league. Tommy Thompson has led a side he has managed to the playoffs just three times in his twelve years calling the shots from the dugout.

Despite only leading teams to the playoffs at a rate of once every four seasons, he does have a title to his name, after he took the Frederick Keys to the Carolina League title in 2007. The title came on the back of a ten-year break for Thompson, who had last managed the Sioux Falls Canaries in 1997, lasting just 36 games after the side started the campaign 13-23, seeing Thompson relieved of his duties.

One advantage Thompson will find in the ABL is that with half of the teams in the league making the playoffs, the bar is lower, with the lowest winning percentage to ever make the playoffs being a staggering .444, which three teams were tied on in the 2011-12 season. As a manager, Thompson has a record of above .444 on eight of twelve occasions, a stat which should bring a smile to the faces of Aces fans.

Several Aces fans have already discussed the importance of Thompson being a long-term option at Melbourne Ballpark, however history suggests that he may not return for the 2015-16 season. Thompson has three stints longer than a year as a manager, but only one of those stints occurred over consecutive years (Frederick 2007-2008).

One thing is for sure, the Aces spared no expense in getting their man. A worldwide net was cast, and Thompson the fish caught. It is undeniable that his connections through the White Sox organisation and the entire game of baseball will benefit the Aces not only off the field, but also leave them in the position to push for the elusive Claxton Shield title.

 

 

 

 

04.05.14
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Should the bullpen be a concern for the 2014 Red Sox?

Spring ball can be deceiving. That’s never more obvious than at Fenway South, where if you see David Ortiz bat over .100 something is drastically wrong.

Today I’m going to focus on the happenings on the other side of the ball. When I look at the list of guys who threw, but didn’t start a game this spring, it takes a while to filter through them all and get an idea of who to talk about when it comes to specifics.FenwayPark

The two relievers from Spring I’m going to do a brief focus on today are Jose Mijares and Rubby De La Rosa.

De La Rosa has also been a player who made me feel uneasy when he was called into a game. His 4-7 lifetime record with an ERA of 4.21 and 69 hits given up from just under 73 innings of work give me the feeling that I might be right. At 7.36 his ERA this Spring could be mistaken for the price of a Taco Bell value meal. He gave up more hits than he pitched innings, struck out 1.25 guys a game and somehow manage to have a .382 BA against him in the process. How do these numbers support getting a look in at Big League camp, let alone the steady flow of action he’s gotten at Fenway?

Mijares fared better than De La Rosa, but was by no means great. Sure, he had a 5.14 ERA from six appearances, but he doesn’t have any of the other horrendous numbers  we saw with De La Rosa. Four runs on eight hits doesn’t look good, but unless you saw him pitch in every game he played this Spring (which I certainly didn’t), then you aren’t going to get the full story. The 1.58 WHIP came in at 0.2 higher than the MLB average. I think that had he not opted out of his contract, then he may have been able to find a spot at Fenway at some point in 2014.

One of the ways that the Red Sox like to break hearts is to give up runs at the worst possible time (Brandon Workman, anyone?), but I think the cause for concern runs (no pun intended) much deeper.

When you look at the 2013 season, it’s easy to see that we got the World Series title we weren’t expecting, and that should be enough for us to consider the season a success.

We were lucky, and I don’t think there are many Red Sox fans who don’t know that. If Myers makes a regulation catch, if Detroit played a bit smarter and if Ortiz didn’t have the hottest run I’ve ever seen in the Fall, then we may have been waiting for the Home Opener against the Brewers, wondering what might have been, rather than watching probably the most emotional Ring Ceremony of the last decade.

The Red Sox pen had the 21st best ERA in the Majors last year (3.70), which put them at 10th in the AL. As if this was a stat that wasn’t concerning enough, the OBP of opponents of the Red Sox pen was a staggering .320, a number high enough that only nine clubs registered a higher opponent OBP.

24 Blown Saves is a number that should leave all fans wondering where we go from here. Why? Because it’s stats like this that cost us the Division, which isn’t exactly a pretty thought given we play in the toughest division in the game.

On the flipside there were only nine IBB issued by the Red Sox relievers throughout the season, and the faith that any of them can throw at anybody on any given day is certain an asset we are lucky to have.

Do you think the Red Sox should be concerned about the bullpen in 2014?

 

02.19.14
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The “Choke” doesn’t exist

The Olympic and Paralympic season is great. There is more sport than I know what to do with and I get to fall in love with the magic of one of the things I love most in the world all over again.

With this comes problems. Everybody is an expert. I don’t mind the fact that we all pretend to know things that we don’t know Olympic-Ringsabout the sports we watch, I’ve done that multiple times. The problem I have is that everybody is an expert on what it takes to be an Olympian or Paralympian and how that if an athlete doesn’t perform on the day then it must be a “choke”.

Get off your high horse before you injure yourself.

I know what you’re probably thinking, “But how could you know, you were never an Olympian or Paralympian”.

Darn right I wasn’t, and I’m lucky if more than a few days go by where I don’t think about it. There aren’t any certainties in life, but had things progressed as they were I probably would have gone to Beijing and certainly made the trip to London.

So yes, I do know what it takes to that level. By the time that I finished school in 2005 I was in the pool for close to 20 hours a week with another 5 hours spent in the gym or doing other work out of the pool. I got lucky. My parents never complained about the 5am wakeup or the money that they spent so that I could chase a dream. In fact they worked just as hard as I did for it and probably deserved more credit for the success that I had than I did.

I didn’t suffer an injury, there was no reason I couldn’t keep swimming. I made the decision I made, and living with it isn’t the easiest thing to do, but you can’t change the past, so I deal with it however I can.

It’s not easy to represent your country, but it looks easy because you are at the top of your game when you’re doing it. Failing when you’re at the top of your game isn’t a choke, it’s nothing more than a simple act of human failure, which we all have on a daily basis. I’ve lost count of the number of times in the last few weeks that I’ve seen references to Steven Bradbury, or “Doing a Bradbury”. But that’s probably because the people making the point don’t think he deserved it.

  • 12 years at an international level.
  • Almost losing his life after have a skate go through his leg.
  • A broken neck 18 months before Salt Lake City.

Yeah, nothing at all there screams deserving. He made his race plan, he executed it, and as he once said, his reason for taking the Gold Medal wasn’t for the 90 seconds in that race, it was for the 12 years before it.

Chumpy Pullin was favourite heading into the snowboard cross last night, in fact he would have been certain in his mind that today was the day he was going to reach the ultimate goal for any athlete. But things didn’t work out, that’s life, not a choke.

He doesn’t need people saying he choked, how he feels about it is worse than anyone else can make him feel. Trust me, I’ve been there.

It’s 2004 and the last qualifying event before the trials for the Athens games. Having already qualified for trials there was one more event I wanted to add to my schedule. This particular event was one that I had been targeting for years, even though it had always been just out of reach. Everything was set. All I needed to do was swim within about half a second of my best time and I’d be swimming that event in Sydney in two months time, I was ready and nothing could stop me.

The time to beat was 48.10 … The time I swam was 48.11. Never has something that I wanted so badly felt so far away. .01 of a second can be made up anywhere, and I know that I should have done better, but in that time I did all I could, and I walked away knowing that fact.

That race ended up being my first Open-Age medal at a State swim meet, something which I’m awfully proud of and something that I still smile about today.

So why can’t it leave me? The first Grandparent of mine to pass away passed away eight days before that swim. Death is something none of us can control, and at the age of 16 I don’t think I was in any capacity to level out in my mind, as they had planned to be there watching that day. The two events were and forever will be connected, and now I see it is one of the best thing that has ever happened to me, because it shows that no matter what happens, you can find strength in it.

I didn’t choke that day, I just didn’t achieve what I had in mind, that’s life.

So, next time you think an athlete chokes, stop and think. Nothing is ever what it seems, particularly in the world that so few people get to experience.