Life and Sport
A Knockout Introduction
Author: Bryan Davies
I was never a boxer. If you have no desire to get hurt or if your pain threshold is limited to the normal function of the peripheral nervous system, boxing is a poor athletic choice. My friends feign amazement when I tell them that I never boxed. They laugh as they wonder how my face, one made for radio, acquired such character without being punched a few times.
Almost no one boxes. In Canada, hockey fights are the only martial arts equivalent, and I avoided them too. Boxing may have the highest recognition factor relative to actual participation of any sport on earth. The boxing gym mama, if she exists, will never displace the multi-tasking, ever so capable soccer mom on our societal radar. Outside of its most hard core devotees, who can name the reigning world heavyweight champion, in any of professional boxing’s myriad of "sanctioned" competitions? In its murk and mire, boxing makes an eBay auction seem regulated to its eye teeth by comparison.Yet boxing and its images of sweat and grit, power and pain, is more representative of what so many of us wish we were in real life than almost any other human endeavor. It is no accident that the language of business is so often peppered by boxing’s salsa, expressions uttered without any connection to actual boxing participation.
The knock out punch... shadow box... rope-a-dope... answer the bell... body blow... the TKO... down for the count... up off the canvas...
Boxing is brutally hard work without any guarantee of a tangible reward.
Boxing is fitness and quickness and strength. Boxing is pain, fear and glory, sometimes all at once. Boxing is failure and the determination to never fail again. Boxing, the sweet science, is the sweet sweep of life itself.
I have played many sports, honing a broad range of athletic skills to the dull edge of mediocrity. When my daughter began to enjoy success as a basketball player, my coaching was never cited as the reason – it was accepted that Claire had instead conquered her less than stirring genetics.
At age 47, I have taken up boxing, in the risk free environment of my rudimentary home gym. There is a heavy bag, a speed bag, a variety of gloves, and tape. An elliptical machine sits ready for my stationary Rocky Balboa impersonation. George Thorogood and his Destroyers pound off the walls in 4/4 time. Rivulets of sweat and the smell of some liniment I bought are pure training verisimilitude. I throw inept combinations of punches into the silent bags - if they could speak, those bags would laugh out loud.
I put up some pictures the my gym walls – Sugar Ray Robinson, Hit Man Hearns, and my favorite, George Chuvalo, the only fighter to ever face Mohammed Ali and remain upright for two entire contests. George twice had his broad Slavic features turned into hamburger by the Ali’s deftly delivered missiles. George kept coming.
I Love the Lessons of Sport.
In this column I will explore with you the many intersections between sport and life, both in business and in the wider world. Motivation, goal setting, communication, and team work are some of those places that deserve a regular look, even if sometimes the examination comes from an irregular angle.Like any aspiring boxer, I have two great corner men behind me, whose voices you will often hear from outside the ring, shouting encouragement as we go along. Bill Pangos and Peter Lonergan are coaches who have elevated their sports passion to the sublime. Bill has directed the fortunes of Toronto’s York University Lions women’s basketball team for 20 years, leading the Lions to a 5th place national finish in 2006. Peter has achieved success as both a senior manager with Jostens, Inc. of New York, and as a long time NCAA coach; he took the Medaille College women of Buffalo to a first ever national tournament appearance in 2006, garnering Coach of the Year accolades along the way.
I hope to inspire you to read these columns for pleasure, but to also ponder, reflect, and inwardly digest these offerings (with apologies to the anonymous author of the Collects in the Anglican Book of Common Prayer). I will answer any and all questions you may have about any of the issues! As doubt is at the cutting edge of reason (my further apologies to St. Thomas Aquinas), I welcome healthy debate, too!
Please contact me at bryan@acqyr.com. I welcome your observations.
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Published: March 22, 2006
