[FASTLARRY]

Recognition

If you want to be recognized by your peers as a great player or champion, then go out now and earn it by playing and beating the best around you at all times. An example from baseball.

Considered by many to be the greatest hitter to ever play baseball, Ted Williams played for the Boston Red Sox from 1939-1960. His tremendous career was interrupted twice - once when Williams served in World War II from 1942 to 1946, and again in 1952-53, when he missed almost the entire season serving in the Korean War. Nevertheless, Ted Williams still amassed 521 home runs, a .344 life-time batting average, and was the last major leaguer to hit above the magically .400 level, when he hit .406 in 1941. Ted Williams only thought of one thing when he stepped in the batter's box: "I am Ted Williams, the world's greatest hitter." That was his focus. Williams said, "All I want out of life is that when I walk down the street, folks will say, 'There goes the greatest hitter who ever lived." That was his goal.

Every time Ted came to my home town in KCMO to play the last place A’s, I was out in the cheap seats in right field just to observe and study him. Around the 5th inning I would sneak out of the Bob Uker nose bleed seats and get behind home plate so I could see the man up close. In the 50’s, I knew I was seeing, what would come to be, the last of the great ones, the best now there was, and the best there would ever be. I watched how he used his legs to time his swing. It was the thrill of my life. In 196l and for the next decade I had that same experience every year in a little town called Johnston City, Illinois where I went to play and gamble with and observe the greatest pool players who would ever live. The 100 greatest pool hustlers on earth would assemble and match up and play for a month until only one was left and had all the money. My mentors and teachers were there, Minnesota Fats and Omaha Fat. I was up close and in study with them for a decade.

Get around greatness, get as close to it as you can…
Observe it, study it, feel it, want it for your self as well…

Ted’s success was the result of positive thinking and his affirmations. He willed him self to be the best, demanded this occur. He refused to settle for any thing less than that.
Forty years after he retired, Williams is still recognized as the best by his peers. At the 1999 All-Star Game in Boston, the players were asked to leave the field for the start of the nationally televised game, but many of today's stars refused to leave the presence of the legendary Ted Williams, who was on the field chatting and meeting the members of the All-Star team.
Athletic Principle
One of the greatest joys in athletics is to be recognized for your athletic abilities; your talent, your skills, and for your performance. Athletes are also remembered for their character, their hustle, their leadership and for their integrity.
But athletes and coaches are also remembered for the mistakes they have made:
• In the Rose Bowl, Roy Regales picked up a fumble and zig zagged across the field streaking for the goal line, the wrong goal line, scoring a touchdown for the other team. He never lived it down, as he is remembered today as "Wrong-way Regales."
• Bill Buckner's error in game seven of the 1986 World Series gave the New York Mets the world championship title, when the games should have been easily won by the Boston Red Sox.
• Heavyweight Boxing World Champion, Iron Mike Tyson will be remembered for biting off a piece of Evander Holyfield's ear during a championship bout.
• NCAA champion and Olympic Basketball Coach Bobby Knight is remembered for tossing a chair across the court in anger for a disputed call made by the official.
• U.S. National Champion and Olympic figure skater Tonya Harding will be remembered for her role in injuring competitor Nancy Kerrigan, so that Harding could make the Olympic Team.
• Tennis champion John McEnroe will not be remembered so much for his play, or the championships he won as much as for his emotional outbursts against tennis officials.
• Pete Rose will be remembered for his gambling addiction and his life-time suspension from baseball rather than his hustle and all-time hit record.
Every athlete would like to be remembered. What would you like to be remembered for? What will you be remembered for?
God's Performance Principle
There are two key principles that you need to remember; first and foremost it is critically important that you recognize God; and second, to realize that God recognizes and remembers you!
"The memory of the righteous will be a blessing, but the name of the wicked will not." (Proverbs 10:7) The righteous are those people who love, trust, and know God in their heart. This scripture verse says that our memory will be a blessing. We are blessed because God remembers our faithfulness. In Psalms 112:6, it is written, "Surely he will never be shaken; a righteous man will be remembered forever." That is a promise for those who know Christ as Lord and Savior. Your name will be written in the Book of Life, you will be remembered by God himself and spend eternity with Him! That is the greatest blessing you can receive.
It is also important for you to recognize God. You need to recognize Him in all that you do. You can recognize God by living a life pleasing to Him - by following His Word; by spending time with Him in prayer and Bible study; by thanking Him for all that He has given you. Wherever you are, whatever you do, you need to remember Him.
"On my bed I remember you; I think of you though the watches of the night." (Psalm 63:6) It may be great to walk down the street and see people point at you, and hear them say there goes “But, how great will it be when Jesus tells His Father, "Yes, I know him."
:-) :-D :-o :-o :-P

[madmax]

This is a cool article, I enjoyed reading it.

[pooh]

Nice article, Larry.

To divurge a bit into goal setting and personality things which keep players from achieving excellence and finally what I see is the difference between recognition and remembrance:

I think goals are important if a person wants recognition as a great pool player. Long term goals and short term ones. Say, if my long term goal is to become a B player, and I go through the work, time on the table to reach my goal. It is then time to set new goals, say as an A. I see players getting stuck because they do not do this. They become APA sl7 players and think they have arrived.

Some of them want to be A but they think in many cases that they already know everything. So they do not listen to others more experienced. They do not develop the mental toughness and whatever skills they need to develop more excellence in, to be that A and just as important, they do not compete with As.

But, I have seen lower skilled players be stuck too, usually they are not motivated, think they are better than they are, and did I say motivation, and some do not have the confidence in themselves to move up. Some also have ego holding them back, they are not willing to step up to the plate of excellence, have their bubble popped, and their fake perception of what they really are, shattered. Often there is a breaking, a tearing down of what a player believes themselves to be, before they can rebuild to be the player they wish to be. Confidence will take that player far, but ego will often hold them back, keep them from being what they can be.

Recognition? Many league players are like 'a big fish in a little pond' or like a person who has always lived in the same village and do not know about the wonders over the mountain they see in the distance. They do well in their league, but only when they step out and see A tournament and A roadie players, do they see things in perspective. So, if they venture out, they see that they are not a 'big fish in a little pond', but 'a little fish in a big pond'. These players do not get recognition except among their friends in that small pond.

In becoming a great player, whether roadie or tournament player, there are many great players. They, as champions, are recognized, while they are playing at that level. But in the great players, the ones most remembered IMO are those who have style. personality, and are performers in addition to being a great pool player unless the person was a pioneer in some aspect like Mosconi, Lassiter, perhaps Allison Fisher or Jean Balukas. You see this in every sport. The ones most remembered are the first greats, not the others who came afterwords and broke their records, unless they do something in a major way that so outstands others, like Mark Spitz, the swimmer. Without performance, only the best of the best, the pioneers, like Mosconi and Lassiter are remembered.

Think of all of the champions of today. They are recognized, but how many will be remembered 20 or 40 years from now long past their championship days?

Earl strickland and keith Mcready, to name a few, will be remembered not only for their excellence, but for their theatrics.If you look at other sports and who is remembered, those who threw temper tantrums and other theatrical performances are remembered longer than their peers, who were also champions. Their peers were recognized but not remembered.


Laura

[ Edited by pooh on 2004/9/26 7:22 ]