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Sunday, October 13, 2013

Eye Makeup

I went to the Peoria Cross Country Invite last week. There were 50+ varsity girls and varsity boys running. So in each race there were over 300 runners. The way Detweiller Park is layed out, you can watch the runners go by about 6 times.

During the girls race I noticed something interesting. Very few of the girls in the top fourth of the race wore any eye makeup. A MUCH higher percentage of the girls in the bottom 3/4 of the race had eye makeup. Does wearing eye makeup slow runners down? I seriously doubt that. I am sure there were some great runners in the group who had eye makeup on. But I just wondered-- does this tell us anything about a difference in the focus of the top runners vs. the average runner? All of us want to look our best, but were some of the runners focused on looking their best 20 minutes before race time while other runners were focused on running their best?



Years ago one of the radio announcers for Streaks basketball commented to me that he had gone to an area game and he was struck by the appearance of the girls in the game. At this area school in the 1990's, he said each of the girls had eye makeup on and ribbons in their hair. During warmups they spent a lot of time adjusting their ribbons and even had compact mirrors to check their makeup. The radio man said it was a real contrast to the Streaks players who seemed more focused on the game.

It was several years ago I noticed one of our white uniforms was spoiled at the end of the season. It had also this discoloring on it. I asked one of the other players what had happened to this jersey. They explained the user had worn alot of makeup and would use their jersey to pat it down when they sweat.

Guys are not immune to this. About a decade ago, one of the coaches commented they had a player who put a big mirror in their locker for pre-game. And before one game told the coach they were not ready because they had just gotten their hair gel and needed to apply it. The coach was not happy.

I have nothing agains teenagers wanting to look good. But I have trouble believing a player can go from being obsessed with appearance 30 minutes before a game to being obsessed with performance in a few minutes. My other belief is that it may reflect a greater concern with ME than with WE. This has been evidenced throughout history of sports- players wanting to wear special shoes that are different, arm sleeves, etc. The more focused on me, the harder it is to be focused on we!!

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