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American Education: Emulate the Asian Model of Rigor and Effort

July 2, 2022 by tornado Leave a Comment

Sacrificing scholastic excellence and high achievement in the name of “equity” is destructive to the health of our society as a whole.  Though this story presents more of an India-rooted angle, we’ve known for decades that Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and other east Asian nations’ pupils blow ours away mathematically at the same age levels. This has been such a sustained phenomenon that to ignore it is profoundly foolhardy.

It’s not racial, it’s cultural.  Culture is changeable.  The malignant American culture of familial brokenness, parental uninvolvement/apathy, valuing materialism and entertainment over knowledge and diligence, artifice and appearances over results and work, “equity” that undermines excellence, and other contributors to academic underperformance, needs to change for the better here.  We must also strip sociopolitical agendas out of education and return to curricular fundamentals:  reading, writing, mathematics, and factual history.  Apply to it the rigor of late-1800s to early-1900s grade-level texts, but the updated factual knowledge of today, under stern and unyielding expectations of excellence, encouraging the hardcore work ethic of the Asian study model.

I’ve seen first-hand, even back to my childhood as a “gifted student” with such classmates, the readily apparent, tremendous value and time investment that these cultures place on education. Such families (most certainly including first-generation immigrants) are doing something right, and it should be replicated, not ignored nor discouraged.

And yes, poor kids can and do achieve high academically despite the economic handicaps.  I have some first-hand experience there as non-immigrant yet economically poor “white trash”, as did many of those first- to second-generation immigrant Hmong, Han Chinese (escaping Maoist communism), non-Hmong Vietnamese, and Korean and Japanese students I knew who mostly had been treated like trash in their native lands, except for the Koreans and Japanese.  Yet they succeeded in school despite their socioeconomic and linguistic limitations, and because of ferociously diligent work ethics imparted in a close familial setting.  For them there was family honor in high scholastic achievement, not just personal reputation, with family valued over self.

This offers non-scholastic lessons from which we can learn.

Filed Under: Not weather Tagged With: academics, Asian achievement, childhood, curricula, discipline, education, educational system, honor, parenthood, rigor, work ethic

Bigtime Respect for “Big Game Bob”

December 30, 2021 by tornado Leave a Comment

Bob Stoops: so glad to see this great Hall of Fame coach’s career resurrect for one more night (and a month of preparation before) so he could go out with victory, honor and the utmost respect and love of players, fans and colleagues alike. So it was.

There was absolutely no guarantee OU would win the game, of course, but something seemed predestined and inevitable about this — especially with his son on the team (who, in a moment fit for a movie, scored a touchdown in the game), and also, the particulars of who was the opposing team. History was coming full circle.

The hotshot young assistant coach to whom Bob had handed the keys to the OU football Ferrari, and who won a lot of games here afterward, clearly had been distracted and performing uncharacteristically out of sorts all season after the USC job opened in September. Then we all found out why.

Behind everyone’s backs, hours after the last game of the season, he reached a lucrative deal with that historically storied yet recently far lesser program halfway across the country, taking several coaches and future 5-star recruits with him right away. Anyone who thinks that all came together only in a few hours one Sunday morning: I’ve got beautiful land 10 miles east of downtown Miami to sell you.

Joe Castiglione called Bob off a golf course out of the blue that afternoon, to tell him the hotshot coach is fleeing town, and would he please coach the bowl game? After several years of retirement, Bob dropped everything he was doing. With no hesitation, he went straight to work in under an hour. He first went on TV and online, and in one of the greatest motivational-leadership moments I’ve seen in sports, said all the right things and quickly cooled off what could have turned into a massive dumpster fire. Bob reassured players and fans alike that no one (not even himself nor any coach) was bigger than the program.

Then he set about preparing players he hadn’t coached before, and an assortment of leftover assistant coaches who hadn’t drawn up an offensive or defensive game plan on their own, to beat an opponent that was in one respect thoroughly unknown, and in another, hauntingly familiar. He even tried at first to turn down the pay they offered from the previous coach’s voided contract — he wanted to volunteer, out of sheer devotion to the program. Who else does that?

Flashback 2006: Likely the bitterest, most frustrating moment of Bob’s career was when OU got screwed horribly by both field and replay officials in Eugene, when the Sooners clearly recovered an Oregon onside kick and displayed the ball for the whole stadium and TV audience to see…except the refs, who shockingly didn’t see, thought the ball was still in the pile, and awarded it to Oregon, who went on to “win” a game everybody involved knew they didn’t deserve. In the annals of botched officiating, this was among the top few worst of all time, rivaled only by the Colorado “fifth down” against Missouri. Refs from that Oregon crew soon got fired and suspended for their egregious errors in that game, but officially it went down as an Oregon win for ever and ever.

What goes around, comes around…29 December 2021: OU 47, Oregon 32 (and it wasn’t that close). As one of my colleagues said, Oregon lost to a part-time tequila salesman. Yes, and one who still could coach, too. Bob got ’em back good, in an opportunity he shouldn’t have had, by all rights. Afterward, in the midfield stage celebration, he conducted a ceremonial “passing of the visor” to the new, full-time, head ball coach — his longtime defensive assistant here in the 2000s, Brent Venables. And now a new era of winning begins in Sooner football.

Bob Stoops represents what is too often sorely lacking in high-stakes sports (and I include college football in that category): integrity, dedication, loyalty, tremendous work ethic, and a drive to not only win, but win the right way. Bob will never have to pay for a drink in this state again, and you can bet his statue outside Memorial Stadium will be kept spotless and clean.

Already in the College Football Hall of Fame, he showed himself to be a hall of famer in the character department too. All due respect, Big Game Bob. This time, he went out on the right terms.

BOOMER

Filed Under: Not weather Tagged With: Bob Stoops, football, integrity, Lincoln Riley, OU, OU football, University of Oklahoma, work ethic

Jason Witten: Doing It All the Right Way

May 4, 2018 by tornado Leave a Comment

Rumored as likely for a couple weeks, the story verified yesterday: Jason Witten, Dallas Cowboys tight end, Mr. Dependable, Number 82, retired after a team-record 15 seasons. Observing well-known Blue Star tight ends like Billy Joe DuPree and Doug Cosbie as a kid, and Jay Novacek on the dynastic Super Bowl teams of the 1990s, I didn’t imagine we would see one arrive to outperform them all, by a large margin. I’ve been watching Cowboys games since I was a little kid in the mid-’70s, and can assure you he’s among the top few greatest players among the many greats ever to wear the star.

Rightly, fans, other players and coaches alike stand in starstruck admiration of Witten’s on-field accomplishments, including team records for games played (239), games started (229), receptions (1152), receiving yards (12,488), and a team and NFL record for receptions in a game by a tight end (18, against a team he tormented often, the Giants). He ranks first in NFL history for tight-end receptions in a season (110), second all-time in the NFL in single-game receptions by a tight end (18), and fourth for any position. It seemed like Witten would play forever; the big man in the #82 jersey, trotting on the field every game, was so dependable and easy to take for granted.

While these stats amaze us in and of themselves, they hint at a greater truth: such accomplishments happen only through a combination of avoidance of severe injury, with both great training and good luck involved, and unwavering dedication to the craft. Remembering Witten for his iron-man achievements in a violent sport, I can’t even fathom playing just two weeks after a busted jaw — the intervening game being the only one he ever missed — nor playing the season opener on a still-healing spleen just a few weeks after it got lacerated in a tremendous preseason hit. Of course, there was the hallmark play of his career: where two Eagles players slammed into him at once, bouncing off of Witten in different directions while his helmet flew in another, and he just kept running, for a 53-yard gain. Add in all the selfless, behind-the-scenes blocking prowess that made him the NFL’s most complete tight end, and his longevity rises from remarkable to astounding.

That all this deserved respect and accolades are showered on Witten — a man who is humble and still somewhat uncomfortable in the spotlight despite being one of the best all-time players on tradition-soaked America’s Team — is no coincidence. Witten is a man of strong Christian faith, and the Christian worldview clearly informs and guides his life and his work. In justifying his drive to excel and his unsurpassed work ethic, he cites one of my favorite verses, Colossians 3:23; “Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters,…”. This is a principle I’ve long strived to apply to severe-storms meteorology, and recognized it early in Witten’s football work, long before knowing he also specifically followed the same verse. As such, and knowing any player who earned the famously cranky Bill Parcells’ respect so early in his career must be doing something right, I became a Witten fan fast.

Many words exist to describe what he brought to the Cowboys and the sport at top performance level, and here are some:

      Intelligence

      Skill

      Toughness

      Integrity

      Trustworthiness

      Professionalism

      Authenticity

      Leadership

      Dependability

      Savvy

      Work ethic

      Excellence

      Giving

      Honor

Yes, honor…he gave it, he received it, and he earned it, on and off the field. No question, he will have a bust in the Pro Football Hall of Fame in the next 5-6 years. In 2012, Witten won the NFL’s highest humanitarian award, the Walter Payton Man of the Year, for his combination of playing excellence and community service. His charitable foundations and causes included kids’ fitness and the struggle to stop domestic violence — the latter a poignant point after spending part of his childhood around his wife-beating, alcoholic father. Witten’s charitable involvement isn’t for show — it is authentic, deeply personal and meaningful. He is even more devoted as a father and husband than he was to football.

Witten has earned every last bit of the respect he has gotten and will get. Thinking of his career makes me glad and thankful to be a fan of his and the Cowboys, the only regret being that he couldn’t get a Super Bowl ring to cap it off. For good reason, many coaches on his team have told new players: If you want to succeed, find someone who does it the right way, all the time, and follow his example…and that guy is #82.

Witten never, ever let his fans down, on or off the field. I can’t express how rare and refreshing that is, and how grateful I am to have followed his career with the Cowboys. His retirement press-conference speech showed once more the class and honor we have come to expect, respect and admire from Jason Witten.

Elke and I watched his classy and heartfelt retirement speech while eating lunch at Qdoba yesterday…

As a sportsman and a man outside sports, Jason Witten has been top-caliber, and he will succeed in TV and beyond at whatever he does, because he both played the game and conducts his life the right way. “I relied on grit…the secret is in the dirt. I have to be willing to go out and earn it.” Earn it, he did. Success wasn’t handed to him on a silver spoon. He rose from disadvantage and busted his ass hard to succeed, while also honoring those who helped him along that journey. Here’s a story about Witten’s most effective receiving play and how he made it so, exemplifying his playing style and work ethic.

“I hope I made you proud to be a Dallas Cowboys fan.” You did, Jason, and you do. May God’s blessings keep shining upon you in your TV gig and beyond.

Filed Under: Not weather Tagged With: authenticity, charity, Christian, Christianity, Dallas Cowboys, excellence, faith, football, giving, honor, integrity, intelligence, Jason Witten, lessons, NFL, skill, sports, toughness, work ethic, worldview

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