Race Track Retribution Leads To Death Of Kevin Ward Jr.

As a parent, I have been torn over this Tony Stewart/ Kevin Ward Jr. racing death incident.  My heart bleeds so sincerely for the parents of Ward Jr., that I have hesitated to deliver the SquareBiz on this issue.  The more that I have mulled it over, I have decided that these parents have lost a son.  If we don't give this issue meaning, than they will have lost him for nothing.

White people sports fight too much.

Race car driving is the new hockey, but even hockey seems to be fighting tooth and nail to hang on to fighting.  It has become some forgone conclusion within these sports that something gruesome, either a blind sided run into the side boards or something similar on the race track, is a necessity for full entertainment value. In sports like soccer or football and basketball, fighting has been legislated away from the game. Players might try it, but the penalties insure that they won't do it twice.  In hockey, certain players actually remain employed in the NHL, despite limited skills on skates, simply because they've been garnered with the tag. "Enforcer".

This is the guy who beats up other guys that play the game too physically, especially when said physical play is being forced upon a key scorer on your team.  Many of these players may never even see the ice until they are needed to isolate other enforcers. For the sake of the test later, I am going to paraphrase that for you.  Hockey has players that they pay to perform assault and battery on each other.

Although car racing does not utilize an enforcer, it does allow, and seemingly condone bumping and shoving on the track that keeps leading to assault and battery after the race.  Technically, one of the attacked would have to press charges and since there is so much noise in the arena, it would even  be hard to site them for disturbance of the peace, but you get my drift.  This is assault and battery that may someday cause a man to lose his life, and then what will we do.

Well, someday is now.  Granted, this fight was not like the others.  Car versus man is closer to vehicular homicide which begins to question the motive of the killer and the intent of the slain.  Was he really going to try to fight Tony Stewart during the actual race (the video says maybe), and why is it okay that we continue to watch the escalation of raceway retribution?  Is it still okay that we allow and nearly condone the fighting now that we've lost Ward Jr.?  Tony Stewart is a virtual poster child for dirty driving (enforcer) tactics, so the question of whether or not this would have happened if it were any other driver except Stewart looms over the Stewart legacy in addition to the life lost while Stewart was, once again, being Stewart.

Questions are endless in the face of tragedy. Yet, searching for a reason for the lost life goes without question.  Whatever we determine to be the singular cause for this incident, fighting , or the unabashed allowance of it, needs to be high upon the list of focal points.  No one can speak for Ward Jr. and what motivated him to do what he did that day.  If Stewart was planning on accepting blame, I doubt that he would be mulling over whether or not to race in Michigan this coming weekend. To Stewart, this was just an accident.  You know, the kind of stuff that happens when you allow really fast cars to race around a track, and really immature men to fight when their cars crash from racing so fast.

It used to be that the barbarism of the wreck was enough for race fans.  The track design combined with the speed and volume of cars proves they have an expectation of a wreck; maybe even the hope of one.  Race fans who frequent the tracks seem to recall the scene of a wreck more than they do the 60 cars that passed the dude in the back of the pack.  These days, if the wreck doesn't entertain you enough, there is the obligatory, post race fist fight in response to the wreck.

 Post race!!

Ward Jr.  decided that he couldn't wait to get his point across to Stewart.  People who live on the edge of death may not have the same sensitivity to it as one might expect; both Ward Jr. in his fearless attack of a moving vehicle, and Stewart in his cold ability to move on so quickly after taking part in the death of a 20 year old man.  As for hockey? We will likely need to see a player have his nose bone forced into his brain from one of those close combat punches in hockey, causing the first hockey related death from fighting, but do we need anything else to clearly see the risk of allowing men who drive fast cars to fight each other without retribution?

If every race car driver who engages in an act of raceway violence knew that they would have to sit out the next 2 races, do you think we would ever see another fight, or another death due to the acceptance of fighting?  Even the guy who wanted to fight would not often gain a willing combatant if we change the rules around fighting on the raceway.

As a show of respect to the parents of Kevin Ward Jr., that should be the new standard for all race car drivers on any level.  We will call it the Kevin Ward Jr. rule in honor of his tragic and senseless death.  To me, that's the only way to give this loss some meaning.

As for the bigger issue of fighting in sports, car racing and hockey seem to be the last of a kind.  Basketball players tried to keep up a good front, but they always seemed to look like the kids in the neighborhood that couldn't fight so well (not Stephen Jackson...he got hands), so no one cared to legislate fighting in hoops until the Ben Wallace .vs. Ron Artest/Metta World Peace incident in Detroit 

Hockey is starting to get too many black players, so they will self correct soon enough. America is uncomfortable with black love and black violence as it invokes images of fear that Will Smith and Colin Powell haven't fully erased from our psyche. Don't be offended white people, we are all afraid of young black men with a chip on their shoulder, me included.  A few of us are just more afraid for them. (another topic for another day)

As for race car driving, the brothers are not aching to take over that sport any time soon, so you will have to fix that one yourself.  Wrecks and scraps are blowing the sport up exponentially, but they are also causing the sport to lose favor among parents who have to bury the victims of this growing craze. Fighting in racing might seem benign when you consider the massive pit crews that typically separate the angry combatants, but sometimes even the pit crews lose their cool.  Sooner or later fighting always leads to some unexpected incident, like the one we saw in Detroit...... or the death of Kevin Ward Jr.

Its time for the fighting to end.

Patrick Roy Teaches Life Lesson While Leading Av's To Victory

I am a passionate person with a passion for life and all things Colorado.  That includes the Avalanche (when they are winning) so my passion fire burned hot as the Av's took on the Wild in the opening round of the Stanley Cup Playoff chase.

The Colorado Avalanche are a very important team in Colorado. They are the team who helped us to capture our first major sports championship prior to Elway and the boys joining in on the act.  We enjoyed that run in true Colorado sports fashion.  Inside of those two championship journey's was plenty of reason to doubt.  The first title came in the face of immense opposition  while the second championship was captured in a way that resembled this season's opening round game against the Minnesota Wild. Back then, the Av's were a capable team that took it on the chin early in the finals only to find its fire from a legendary spark plug named Ray Bourque. Bourque inspired the team to get up off the mat when they had been knocked down and appeared beaten.

As I listened to the game on radio, (I much prefer it to television) I found myself standing face to face with the volume dial as I shadow boxed my way through the entire last minute of play. The Av's had once again picked themselves off of the mat and were mounting an attack against their opponent.

If you don't follow hockey, you are not likely to be reading this post, so I won't review the game much at all assuming you already watched it.  In short, the Av's scored first and appeared to be delivering some good blows at a goalie who held strong.  Minnesota responded quickly and often to everything the Av's offered up in this game and eventually gained confidence in their goalie by extending the game to a 4-2 lead in the 3rd period.  When the Av's scored to put the game within one point, it became a forgone conclusion that Patrick Roy would pull his goalie if the team could not generate the offense they needed to tie the game.

Roy not only pulled the goalie, he did it with over 3 minutes left in the game.  Historian's worldwide instantly stood in amazement wondering if any coach had every done such a thing with so much time to play in a playoff game. Coaches the world wide tweeted the letters WTF across the worldwide web trying to see which handbook this was drawn from and why did Roy have the only copy.

This coach (Me) immediately dropped the pool stick that I was holding and walked directly up to the radio, as if standing in front of it would get me right out onto the ice.  My eyebrow's remained stuck in the sky as I listened to see how each team would respond to this move.  I was hopeful for a score, but afraid bad luck would intervene since it had a 3 minute window to play with.  Bad luck usually needs much less time to do its damage.

As bad luck would have it, a puck popped loose an headed straight for the Av's net. The radio description of the puck that headed towards our goal felt like the final blow until Erik Johnson saved the day.  In a miraculous bout of effort and luck (the puck never got flat so it eventually slowed) Johnson stopped an imminent goal and justified the confidence of his coach.

I come from the Jim Thompson "Positive Coaching" school of thought, and I am keen on what happens when coaches invest belief and confidence into their players.  Great coaches are on a mission to help you see your capacity and to give you the fight to fulfill it to the best of your ability.  If you ever begin to doubt your own ability (as young teams often do), great coaches have enough confidence in themselves and in you to fill the void.

Confidence in sports is a unique thing because their is a wide gap between the words and the actions.  As a coach, I can say I believe in you but if I never put you in the game or let you stay there when you are not succeeding, then there is a  gap between the words and the actions.  Great coaches are looking for an opportunity to tell their players that they believe in them, but they are desperate for a chance to show it.

Patrick Roy is a legend in sports for reason's that had nothing to do with coaching.  This season, and in this game, his legend grew in a special way.  Roy saw a chance to display confidence in his team, but he wasn't exactly a river boat gambler.  His team had practiced this approach for a long time leading up to that moment, so they were confident in the approach.  In fact, it is something that most teams will do when faced with game desperation.

Just not at three and a half minutes.  60 seconds of an empty net is about all that any normal coach can endure without passing out from sheer anxiety.  By leaving the Avalanche net empty for over 3 minutes, Patrick Roy shifted the series and probably the playoffs all in one gutsy call.

Prior to that moment, Colorado sports fans were witnessing a much less painful variety of the Denver Broncos over the last two seasons.  An immensely talented team was once again outmatched or outlasted in the playoffs.  Minnesota put on a defensive display that ignited their offense and the concerns of Avalanche nation that all of our excitement was probably a season too soon. The moment Roy pulled the goalie, the Wild took on a defensive posture that eventually came to resemble the fetal position.

In the last minute of play, the Wild hoped they could simply absorb the Av's blows and just beat them on the score card. As I stood at the face of my radio swinging punches like a boxer, I became convinced that the same team that stopped an obvious open net goal would find a way to tie this game and win it in overtime....and they did it.

Not every defeat is quite the same.  Some of them have lasting effect.  Barring another injury, the Av's have probably finished off the Wild by snatching their hearts out in the first game.  The heart of an athlete will regrow, but it takes some time.

What also takes some time is the journey of legend.  Sure, for us sport fans it seems like the speed of light as we recollect the flashes of brilliance that connect us to our sports heroes.  For Elway, it was all of those amazing comeback moments with the spinning helicopter play against Green Bay in the Superbowl as the flashes in time that established his legendary status.  For Roy it will be similar, but his legend is gaining images that started on the ice and are extended to the coaching box.

First it was the opening game assault on the glass partition between him and the opposing coach, and now
 we will talk about the day he pulled the goalie at 3 minutes and won the game.  In both situations, he was making a statement that every coach, every parent and every leader of others could learn from.

"I Believe In You"!

What Do You Get When You Make Professionals Play Amateur Sports? Shady Business.

While recognizing the wonderful accomplishment of 18 year old Colorado Avalanche rookie Nathan MacKinnon, it dawned on me that this 18 year old young man is pursuing his dream and proving himself capable against the best hockey players in the land. Baseball, tennis and any Olympic sport see's it the same way. Golf might force you to earn your mettle on the professional tour, but  will at least give you a chance to prove yourself against professional competition. The NFL and the NBA force professionals to behave as amateurs because they believe they know better.

What do you get when you force professionals to behave as college amateurs?  You get the Fab Five of Michigan, that's what.  

What we knew then is what we know now.  Some of these kids are simply too good to deny them an opportunity to get paid right away.  The only thing that we accomplish for a kid destined for the pro's is 6 months of more school and millions of dollars for the schools who get to use these athletes for at least one year (two if you play football).

If you get hurt in the process there is no insurance for your potential.  The school doesn't even have to honor your scholarship, which is a year to year contract that must be renewed.  Four years of guaranteed education is a reasonable exchange, but athletes who are worthy of going directly to the pro's could earn the value of a 4 year degree in the first year of a pro contract (with change to spare). The union was forced into this deal as a means of avoiding an NBA lockout.  It might very well be criminal, especially in the face of the absence of such a restriction in every other sport around the entire earth.

The only distinction between the sports that allow teenagers to compete for a job right away and the one's that do not is the mass percentage of black people who compete in the two banned sports.  Both the NBA and the NFL are complicit to the behavior because they, much like the college's who partake in the bounty, get the benefit of not overpaying for the uncertain potential of youth.

The history of drafting high schoolers has been a mixed bag. For every Kevin Garnett or Lebron James you have an Eddie Curry or Kwame Brown.  One year players are still dominating the landscape even if the year of play helps eliminate the guessing game of it all.  Essentially, the NBA has asked to be saved from themselves with this restriction.

So what is the end effect?

In the end, kids who are excellent athletes but horrible students get to compete in any sport that they are good at, except football and basketball.  In these sports, you will be blocked from a career by your lack of educational prowess.  Kids that succeed in school often have the support of one or two parents who keep them on track and teach them good study habits and time management skills. If you happen to do football and basketball well but not literature and math, you either fix the problem or forego a dream.

The end effect of forcing professional talent into the amateur ranks is what I mentioned before.  It is the Fab Five of Michigan who all got money from the neighborhood mentor and lover of kids that may have also been a bookie on the side. Ed Martin probably did exactly what he is accused of doing for Chris Webber and many other kids in Detroit, especially the professional basketball player kids that he helped nurture.  He gave them a hand up.  For the really good ones like Chris Webber, he might have given more.  I may have even told these pro's that he helped out "remember me when you make it".

In America, it is illegal to do this for a professional basketball player playing amateur college sports, but it is legal to force that professional to pass an ACT and pick a school for a year or two, just to be considered worthy to earn professionally.  If you are a doctor, this type of restriction (aka certification) is universally accepted. In professional sports, no other country in the world recognizes such a restriction, and even the NBA will draft and pay an underaged European player but places a ban on US high school players at the same time.

Let me say this once more.  US high school basketball and football players  are the only athletes in the world who suffer such a restriction.  Every other sport in every corner of the earth is free to earn income as soon as someone offers one.

While I certainly admire the efforts of the players from Northwestern, I have been critical of their class action law suit that would force colleges to pay the athletes. Title 9 has made this functionally impossible, because in order to pay any athlete, we have to pay every athlete the same. In the past, schools would balance their sports budget by eliminating sports that did not make much money.  Typically, women's sports experienced the ax first, however, eliminating male sports instead of adding female sports has been another route towards Title 9 compliance.

Whereas large schools could easily pay all of the kids, smaller schools have a few sports supporting all of the others (and sometimes parts of the academic budget as well). Across the land, there simply is no easy way to pay every athlete and comply with Title 9 as well.  As a result of this challenge, I believe this fight needs to leave the arena of profit sharing and enter the realm of corporate collusion .

Restricting only adolescent athletes in these two bigger, blacker sports is beyond the pale of understanding.  It allows the NCAA the NBA and the NFL to have their cake and eat it too.  Back when the Fab Five launched on the scene, they started wearing plain blue t-shirts in defiance of the system they recognized was raping them for every dime it could earn, and giving nothing back in return.

When the Fab Five decided to go baggy, Nike sold baggy shorts and put "Fab Five" on the marketing. Nobody did it before them, and nobody does it differently since.  When they wore black socks for the first time, sock sellers across the land grabbed a sharpie and wrote "Fab Five" on their black sock signs.

It would be easy to say that nothing has changed but the date on the story.  After all, the same ugly face of racial injustice that plagues America simply rears its ugly head in new ways from time to time.

The truth is that the NBA version of said injustice only began in 2005.  Instead of simply forcing a rookie pay scale, the league saw the NCAA as fertile (and free) ground for a de facto farm league.

I don't think it can be reiterated enough. The fact that this restriction is only placed upon US high school kids either makes a statement about our failure to groom our kids, or is just another shady example of business in America.

Ducks Beats Av's With 6 Goals In One Period. Avalanche Looking Forward To Season Finale

Tonight was a difficult sports viewing night for a Nugget/Avalanche fan such as myself.

The Nug's, the Av's or Golf?
So many decisions....so little time.

Lured late in the evening by the Colorado sunshine, I got stuck playing the back nine (instead of stopping after nine) and finished in the darkest of functional dusk.  By the time I made it home, the Nuggets were late in the game against Miami, and the Colorado Avalanche were getting plastered with pucks by the Anaheim Ducks.

The Avs have recently beaten some of the best teams in the NHL.  The Ducks are among the top in the league, but not seen as playoff worthy like the Chicago Blackhawks or the St. Louis Blues, two teams that the Avs dismantled in recent games.

The last time these two teams faced off, it was the glass partition between the benches that became dismantled in a heated opening night match up that, if not for the partition, might of ended in a fist fight between the coaches of these two teams.  The Avs won that game 6-1.

Two things to remember.  The Ducks left that first game mad as hell over the outcome and the Ducks are the best team in the league at winning a game when giving up the first goal.  After peppering Avs goalie Semyon Varlamov with several shots on goal early, John Mitchell scored for the Avs to take a 1-0 lead into the second period.  .

This has become the nature of this team.  Even when they do not appear to be dominating play, they are dominating goal tending and grit.  True to their name, the Avalanche can come out of nowhere with ferocious impact, and they did again tonight against the Ducks.

Content that the Avs could find a way to do what they've done to others recently, I decided beating the Heat was a much for significant challenge for this Colorado sports fan and switched over to see the Nuggets close out Miami. When I turned back, the Av's scored a goal in the second period to take a 2-1 lead over the Ducks.

That would be the last lead they saw in this game that ended 6-4 in favor of the Ducks who blew the game wide open in the second period with all 6 goals (the most goals against the Avs in one period this year) and made the Avs chase the rest of the way, as they chased away the Avs goalie who did not finish the game.

The Av's have the benefit of fighting with the Ducks and a few other teams for the best record in the Western conference and will likely finish the season jockeying for playoff positioning.  Since the last game of the season will be in Anaheim against these Ducks, hockey fans in both cities are crossing their fingers for a meaningful game and a grande finale.

For the Denver Nuggets, the night would end more joyfully. (read more)

Postscript:  The Av's got the score as close as 5-4 in that second period with a magical play from the captain Gabriel Landiskog.  After making a move to get free in front of the net, Landiskog nearly held the puck till the window to score had fully closed and then unleashed an odd angled blast  past a goalie frozen by the move.  Peter Forsberg type stuff if I do say so myself.

Mackinnon Surpasses "The Great One". Is He Gretzky (or Is Joe Sakic More Accurate?)

I was about to lose my focus on this topic when I realized that the Avalanche have the most productive 18 year old on their team since the Great One Wayne Gretzky (12 game point streak).  If Mackinnon scores another point (goal or assist) he will surpass the Great Gretzky to stand alone with this record. Why we still have 18 year old hockey players but basketball players are forced into college is another blog for another day.

Especially since that magical 18 year old plays for my team, I celebrate whatever system allowed for that to happen.  Nathan Mackinnon is a player for the ages.  Earlier in the season I wrote a post about the best Avalanche player from a big list of options, and decided that Semyon Varlamov is clearly the best of the best.  Mackinnon is making me question myself.

Not that Mackinnon is really at THAT level yet, but the upside potential is absolutely scary with even a little bit of growth as a player.  Considering his age, physical stature as a result of age, and impending growth from both a physical and mental perspective, McKinnon is on a path to take over the entire NHL.....no really.  His point streak, that is equal only to Gretzky, does not appear to be a freak coincidence.  This kid does things that boggles the mind.  It feels like he is so advanced that he could be doing more hot dog type plays, which he sort of does, but with an obvious restraint.

If he was a 10 year veteran this would simply be impressive.  As an 18 year old rookie we are seeing amazing stuff coming from the stick and skates of this kid.  If comparisons to Gretzky are high praise, then we are at least seeing the reincarnation of Joe Sakic for sure.  We'll make him earn that Gretzky stuff later.

Understanding that comparison's are the most unfair thing that we fans love to do, my  praise of Mackinnon seems to discount the fact that Gabriel Landiskog is the captain of this team or that Matt Duchene is the most magical scorer we've got.

Mackinnon is something special.  I watched the Avalanche/ Detroit Red Wings game in Detroit as I wrote this piece, and the record that Mackinnon had tied with Gretzky is now Mackinnon's alone (13 games in a row for an 18 year old player).  With a pass from behind the net that looked like he threw it with his hand, Mackinnon found Andre Benoit in overtime to beat the hated Red Wings in their own house. A similar late assist from Mackinnon was the difference in beating the back to back champion Chicago Blackhawks two nights ago.

It was actually amazing goaltending that gave this team a chance to win.  Detroit was smothering in their defensive approach, so it took a patient Avalanche team to overcome the Red Wing D and capture the overtime win.  Much bigger than the Mackinnon scoring streak was the maturity of this win.  Detroit may not make the playoffs this year for the first time in years, but they are a hated rival who gives us their best shot whenever we play them.

Coach Patrick Roy made the wise decision to start goalie J.S. Giguere in net.  Giguere dislodged the net and broke a stick (old veteran tricks to slow down an aggressive team) as needed in order to overcome the initial attack from Detroit.  It is likely that starting Semyon Varlamov in goal would not have provided the calming effect that Giguere brought to this victory.

In the end, Mackinnon finished the game in a fashion that not only reminded us of Sakic (not Gretzky), but reminds us that all legends, even Gretzky, will someday be surpassed.

Not to be forgotten was the spinning pass that Erik Johnson made to Mackinnon when the puck was moving out of the zone.  That was a pretty special play as well. 

Coach Roy Must Motivate And Inspire Olympians

The good part about making it to the Olympics is the prestige and honor of playing for your country.  It also goes a long way towards helping a player to stack rack themselves against the forces of international competition.  Since the final rounds of international hockey look a whole lot like the NHL playoffs, mainly the young players gain a great deal from such competition.

The rest of Olympic hockey is all bad.  Players who have never done it have no way of knowing what to expect from their legs as the season progresses.  They may hit two or three walls that they will have to fight through before the season is over.  By the time playoffs arrive, only the veterans understand what to expect from the post Olympic playoff grind.

The Colorado Avalanche are blessed with several young players who swam in the deepest of waters by the end of this tournament.  Russia is the only team with an Avalanche player that did not play in the last few days, but he (goalie Semyon Varlamov) may have lost some confidence with the peppering he took on goal.  Gabriel Landiskog played Matt Duchene in the final game and Paul Stastny played, but lost the bronze medal match. Each will be challenged to maintain their legs if the Av's are to have any real chance at Sir Stanley's Cup.

If you were making a list of likely Stanley Cup champions, the Avalanche might not be in your top 3 list, but they would be #1 in the likely long shot bet.  No one really expects the Av's to win it all, even if they've all noticed that we have the kind of team that could. Winning is about more than ability, it speaks to vulnerability even more. No matter how bad Roy wants to return a title to Denver, he can not motivate any team to achieve it.  Inspiration must do that

When Patrick Roy started this season, he was loaded with fire for the job and plenty of experience with coaching young athletes since he recently coached in the junior hockey leagues. The word fire is often associated with the world of coaching but it can apply to any competitive endeavor.  Fire is the stuff that fuels success, but at times it comes in the fashion of heat from beneath the feet of uninspired teammates.

Fire is another word for motivation when you are a coach, and it is your fire or motivation of your players that can propel them to focus on the task at hand, but motivation is much like an exposed fire, it demands a constant source of fuel.  Motivation eventually burns up the people you prop up for so long or you'll burn out yourself from playing with fire day in and day out.

Furnace fire is highly effective because it is not exposed to the impact of the elements.  It is well contained and focused on the mission at hand.  The fire that burns inside of each of us is a similar fuel that drives our success.  In order for the Avalanche to overcome the impact of the Olympic journey, it will take a huge dose of inspiration from guys who felt like they emptied it all on Olympic ice.

Now the balancing act becomes resting the Olympic Av's at the risk of  losing games and a high seeding, or playing them at the risk of a lackluster playoff due to a lack of energy. Roy understand the grind that his players shall endure better than most, but some lessons must be experienced first hand.

Near death fatigue is one of them.

Winter Olympics In Sochi Get An Avalanche From Colorado

The Avalanche have sent four players to the Olympics in Sochi

If Vladimir Putin needs any help with security he might be on his own.  If he runs short of snow, Colorado sent an Avalanche to Sochi. Actually, we have sent four Avalanche players to the winter Olympics this year, and it begs a few important questions.

First of all, why would the NHL risk injury to their most valuable players by sending them to the Olympics in the middle of a season?  The mere privilege of playing for your own country is incentive enough to risk a lot. I realize that this has been the Olympic standard forever, but my team hasn't had such a likelihood of littering Olympic lineups in a while.

This year we have 4 players that did make it.  Matt Duchene, Semyon Varlamov, Gabriel Landiskog and Paul Stasny.  If you are watching the Avs, it should be clear that the rookie, Nathan McKinnon could  soon become an Olympian as well as Ryan O'Reilly. But what about P.A. Parenteau, or Jan Hejda?  What about Erik Johnson.  These guys could help any team win games, and when America gets to know all of these Av's, we will lose a few to free agency.  Those that remain will join this years group of Olympians four years from now.  It is possible that the Av's will bum rush the league with a deep run in the playoffs this year. They will certainly do it before the next winter Olympics return.

That is good from the standpoint of prestige, but bad when you consider the physical demand a long run in the Olympics will require, and the physical risk that you incur while doing it.  The most difficult part of being or having young players is the adjustment to such a long season.  Those who make the adjustment with lots of rest and proper diet can overcome the mental walls that challenge young players. Typically, you won't know what you don't know.

I am excited and concerned for all of our Olympians.  They are deserving of the honor they've received.  A couple of them have teams that could win the whole thing, so Av's fans might have a rooting stake late into this tournament.  I will also find myself watching to see if they make it through safely, and if they return to the team with the inspiration of an Olympian, or the legs of a noodle.