Success & Failure

From Fitness Girls

Toughness by Jay Bilas (The Book)

Several years ago Jay Bilas wrote an article on toughness which went viral in the basketball world. High school and college coaches all reprinted the article and shared it with their players. (I have it reprinted on this blog.) Bilas said the motivation for writing the article was a reaction to how a commentator used the word "tough" to describe a physical and perhaps a dirty player. The basic premise of the article was "toughness" is more about an attitude and a self-discipline vs. a physical characteristic.

In his book on the same topic, Bilas looks at the characteristics of tough people. He seeks out people in sports and business who are tough in their approach to sport and life.

Toughness Can Be Learned
"Toughness isn't physical. It has nothing to do with size, physical strength, or athleticism. It's an intangible, an attitude, a philosophy. Some people may be born with the aptitude to be tougher than others, but I believe that true toughness is a skill that can be developed and improved in everyone."

One Word by Jon Gordon

Even Willow knows the concept of One Word.

One of the best courses I ever took was Behavior Modification at the U. of Wisconsin-Madison. It was one of the most practical courses I have had. As anyone who is familiar with operant conditioning can attest- a lot of behavior modification is pretty common sense. The course provided me as a young teacher with ideas to make my classroom, my teams, and myself better.

One of the topics was on self-modification. The professor claimed self-modification is much harder to accomplish than the modification of other people. He went on to claim the problem for most of us when it comes to self-modification is we start out wanting too much change in ourselves. We know the target we want to reach and we try to get there today. So we have not been reading but we want to get to where we are reading 100 pages a day- we start with a plan of reading 50 pages. We want to lose 30 pounds so we set out to lose 5 pounds per week. Usually with the plans we start out great but we cannot maintain. This is the problem with the classic New Year's resolutions. The lesson was keep it simple and be patient.

American Cemetery in Margraten Holland

Rubbing sand from Omaha Beach on William
Allen's stone. 

In World War II American military leaders made a promise that no American soldier would be buried on enemy soil. Most American soldiers were buried in cemeteries near the battle field where they were killed- many in France. As the War ended, American soldiers had invaded Germany and were fighting on German soil, in some cases approaching Berlin. The soldiers who died in Germany were all removed and taken back to Margraten Holland.

Each family of the fallen soldiers was given the choice to have the soldier buried in Margraten or to be returned to the United States to be buried in a private or national cemetery. Once the decision was made by the family, the decision was considered final and could not be changed.

At one time there were over 17,000 soldiers taken to Margraten. Today the cemetery holds only American soldiers, and it has over 8,000 fall US soldiers from WW2 buried there.

William Allen's grave.

My wife's uncle, William Allen was killed at the end of WW2 and is buried in Margraten. We had an opportunity this summer to visit the cemetery. The assistant supt. of the grounds took us to visit William Allen's grave and to also visit Bob Arnold's grave. Bob was Bill's brother in law. We were escorted by Frans and Pauline Roukins. Pauline's family has cared for Bill and Bob's graves for over 60 years.

We had the opportunity to place flowers on the grave. The Supt. then explained a special practice they do with families of the soldiers. The stones of white marble with engraving are very difficult to photograph. To help them be more photographed, they provide sand for the family members to rub over the name so it can be seen. The sand is shipped in from Normandy beach. The significance of the the sand is that the soldiers who are buried in Margraten all started their invasion of Europe at Normandy beaches in France.

Over 8,000 fallen US soldiers are
buried in Margraten.

Our visit was a very emotional experience. It certainly makes one appreciate the sacrifice made by these soldiers.