Welcome to the End of the Bench.
For the most part, this will be a sports blog, but I hope to give it a different twist. As you can read in the description, I love sports -- I always have.
I wrote about sports as part of my job for five years as a Sports Information Director and really enjoyed it. I have always enjoyed writing and sports and those two interests were first joined when I was in elementary school. My dad was an elementary principal and on a Friday afternoon while I was waiting for him to finish things up so we could head home, I wrote a game story about the game our town's high school was going to play that evening.
After that I knew I had found something I enjoyed. It wasn't telling the future because I don't think anything I predicted to happen in the game actually came true. It was the writing aspect, though. I was the kid who poured over the Saturday paper reading every story about the previous night's high school football slate.
Fast forward several years and after I left the world of Sports Information, I wrote a column for my local paper for a couple of years and it was called "The End of the Bench."
Now, "The End of the Bench" has found it's way to the blogosphere -- hopefully not the end of the blogosphere; I'd kind of like for people to find it, read it and maybe glean something from it.
The goal is to not necessarily make this a cookie cutter blog with news. I'm probably not the one who is going to break many news stories -- I'll leave that up to the qualified media.
My goal is to maybe give you another point of view. I watch a lot of TV, but believe it or not, not all of what I watch is sports programming (just most of it.) One of the shows that my wife and I watch is "The Next Food Network Star." The judges are always asking the contestants what their cooking point of view is.
I rolled my eyes and wondered how in the world a cook could have a point of view. I rolled my eyes further when the cook would try to explain their point of view. You know, that they would try to express their upbringing, area of the country they were from, etc., through each of their challenges. I would think to myself, "Just cook the food and make it taste good. That's all anybody's looking for."
Over the last few months, though, I think I've come to realize what they mean. A lot of people cook food. But it is the personal experiences and thoughts that make each cook different.
So it is with many things, and in my opinion, and maybe even a seldom-viewed sports blog. I hope to give you a different point of view on current events in the world of sports. My point of view is that of a diehard sports fan who over the last couple of years has really tried to balance that love for sports with a dose of perspective.
Sports are great as long as they are kept in perspective.
Why the name "The End of the Bench?" Well, for starters, (no pun intended) it's where I spent the majority of time during my high school basketball career. I loved the game, but just wasn't blessed by God with the physical tools to compete at a high level. My coaches always told me I had a good mind for the game (my naive nature tended to believe them rather than allow myself to think that was their nice way of saying, "You're terrible") but I just couldn't translate it to the court.
But what I did have was a great view of the action from my seat on the bench. From my point of view, I could see everything that was taking place on the court and off of the court. Because I was separated from the action physically, I was able to take a step back mentally and see what might work. My coach called me a player/coach my senior year. By that time even my naive self knew that was code for "You're still terrible."
But I had a good vantage point.
Much of that is a parallel to today's sports fan. We're not in the action, so to speak, but we sure do think we're close to it. If we can give ourselves the ability to be passionate about or favorite teams while maintaining that sense of perspective that we should have while we're outside the lines, sports will always have it's proper place in our lives.
So, welcome to the end of the bench. I hope you enjoy the view.
