Go COCKS!!!
Saturday is the big game!! I havent given up all hope of scoring a ticket. These were the seats we had for the Kentucky game, and once you've been down here theres simply no going back to the cheap seats. I put my feelers out but came back empty handed. If you guys know of a single ticket available, shoot me an email anytime before Saturday!

On Rejecting Ordinary

I absolutely detest average. Average does not make great societies. Average is mediocre and bland. Average is common, plain vanilla, and middle of the road. Yet average seems to be an increasingly more prevalent state of mind. Slackers and perennial underachievers are commonplace; even where we would least expect to find them. My own son believes that if he makes "decent" grades he should be able to do whatever he wants, whenever he wants to; as if a C average were something to be remotely proud of.

I guess I shouldn't be so surprised. After all, it took me a while to realize that the world was full of ordinary people. In high school I relished the fact that I could breeze through the state minimum curricula; never bringing a book home and still make passing grades. I knew that with some effort I could ace every course, but I didn't put forth that effort because if average was good enough for everyone else, it was surely good enough for me. No one told me that acing the state minimum curriculum should be considered average, and that excellence was in fact a much higher goal. I didn't realize that if the bar was set at excellence, the world would be full of great minds. Great minds who do great things. Average people only do average things.

When I graduated high school I didn't know what I wanted to do, I just knew I wanted to be done with school. Accepting my diploma I didn’t feel proud or accomplished because deep down in the bowels of my soul I knew I hadn’t really accomplished anything. I felt strangely ashamed of myself, but I pressed on towards mediocrity anyway, following the majority of my classmates into an average and ordinary life. I got a job and went to work. I hung out with my friends at the local bars every chance I got. I lived above the garage at my parent's house. I suppressed my shame and made myself content with an ordinary existence.

Several years later I ran into a kid I went to high school with. I had known him well. However, although we had much in common, I naively shunned him as a friend. A lanky member of the brass section in our school's marching band, he was teased relentlessly. Though we had been in the Boy Scouts together for years, I tended not to associate with him outside of that setting for fear of damaging my already fragile social status. He recognized me right away and came over to say hello. He was friendly and gracious; and considering I was noticeably uneasy and embarrassed about being complicit in his frequent humiliation, he seemed genuinely happy to see me.

We reminisced for a while and went through the whole "what have you been up to" routine. I told him proudly that I was working in the engine factory making good pay, that I got plenty of overtime, and had paid vacation and benefits. I even offered to put in a good word for him, recounting that I had been instrumental in getting Pete and Frankie on full time at the factory too, cautioning that if he were interested he would have to start at the bottom and work his way up. He claimed to appreciate the offer.

So blindly content with the mundane, I didn’t realize that I had just offered a night shift production job to a guy who three months prior graduated Magna Cum Laud from Emory University and was recently accepted into the Medical College of Georgia. I stood in front of him, inglorious in a navy blue uniform with my first name in script on the shirt lapel as the indignity and shame of my underachievement was unveiled for the world to see. For the first time in my life I allowed myself to see who I had become. I finally admitted that I had set the bar so low that I eventually tripped over it.

I immediately changed how I viewed the world around me and vowed to never be satisfied with average. Now, I struggle with my own sons’ insistence on being typical. I don’t know when that moment of humble revelation will be for him. I’m hoping it’s sooner rather than later. Understanding that setting the bar of achievement at your personal best is liberating. It frees us to reach our full potential, live extraordinary lives, and go on to do great things. "There are countless ways of achieving greatness, but any road to achieving one's maximum potential must be built on a bedrock of respect for the individual, a commitment to excellence, and a rejection of mediocrity." - Buck Rodgers