IF...

SEE LEBRON, THAT WASN'T SO HARD WAS IT?

One of the more disappointing and disturbing events in the world of sports this week was the LeBron James non-handshake.

Yeah, just another example of a big-time athlete being perfectly able to handle victory, success and glory--remember the fuss over the last-second shot--but not being prepared to handle the agony of defeat that inevitably goes with it.

Shame on those unfortunate souls in the media who give a pass to LeBron on this one, ostensibly because he's always been so accessible and nice to them in the past. Sorry fellas, the King is a role model and his horrible lack of class, dignity and sportsmanship filters down to the younger levels who look up to him.

And as anyone who is involved with youth sports will tell you, the greatest poison at that level is the lack of grace, dignity and sportsmanship for fellow players coaches, officials which leads directly to the self-indulgent sense of entitlement that allows these kids to believe that the earth--and everything around it--revolves around them.

The evils that this leads to are at the root of many of the problems we see in big-time sports--like NCAA basketball and football--as well as the professional sports.

Yes LeBron you lost, you got beat up by an opponent and you shouldn't feel good about it. But boxers do shake hands and hug at the center of the ring many times to show respect to a fellow opponent and they are effectively trying to kill each other in the ring. So your "beating each other up" analogy hardly holds water.

You lost, which is bad enough. You compounded that by being a LOSER, which is worse.

Your off season assignment--read Rudyard Kipling's poem IF. Memorize it. Understand it. Write it on the blackboard 500 times if you have to.

Because until you get it Mr. James, you will forever be a Prince and never a King.

IF

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you
But make allowance for their doubting too,
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream--and not make dreams your master,
If you can think--and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it all on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings--nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much,
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And--which is more--you'll be a Man, my son!

--Rudyard Kipling