It is the soldier, not the reporter, who has given us freedom of the press. It is the soldier, not the poet, who has given us freedom of speech. It is the soldier, not the campus organizer, who has given us the freedom to demonstrate. It is the soldier, who salutes the flag, who serves beneath the flag, and whose coffin is draped by the flag, who allows the protester to burn the flag.
— Father Dennis Edward O’Brien, USMC

Today is a day that we as Americans honor and remember those who lost their lives protecting our country. As my friend Joe Bryant says, it’s easy for the true meaning of this day to get lost in the excitement of summer and barbecues and picnics. But that quote helps me remember that the things I enjoy today are only possible because those before me made incredibly selfless sacrifices. That includes a number of football players who have lost their lives defending our country.

The most famous, of course, is Pat Tillman, the former Arizona Cardinals safety who chose to quit football to enlist in the United States army. On April 22, fifteen years ago, Tillman died in Afghanistan. Over thirty years earlier, we lost both Bob Kalsu and Don Steinbrunner in Vietnam. You can read their stories here. For some perspective, consider that Hall of Famers Roger Staubach, Ray Nitschke, and Charlie Joiner were three of the 29 NFL men who served in the military during that war.

An incredible 226 men with NFL ties served in the Korean War, including Night Train Lane and Don Shula. Most tragically, World War II claimed the lives of 21 former NFL players.

• Nick “Mike” Basca
• Charlie Behan
• Keith Birlem
• Al Blozis
• Chuck Braidwood
• Young Bussey
• Ed Doyle
• Grassy Hinton
• Smiley Johnson
• Eddie Kahn
• Alex Ketzko
• Lee Kizzire
• Jack Lummus
• Roy “Bob” Mackert
• Frank Maher
• Jim Mooney
• Gus Sonneberg
• Len Supulski
• Don Wemple
• Chet Wetterlund; and
• Waddy Young

Another player, Dave Schreiner an All-American at Wisconsin and the 11th pick in the 1943 Draft never played in the NFL: he served in the War and was killed in the Battle of Okinawa. Jack Chevigny, former coach of the Cardinals, and John O’Keefe, an executive with the Eagles, were also World War II casualties. The Pro Football Hall of Fame has chronicled the stories of these 23 men, too. Lummus received the Medal of Honor for his bravery at Iwo Jima, and you can read more about his sacrifice here. In 2015, the Giants inducted him into the team’s Ring of Honor. [continue reading…]

It is the soldier, not the reporter, who has given us freedom of the press. It is the soldier, not the poet, who has given us freedom of speech. It is the soldier, not the campus organizer, who has given us the freedom to demonstrate. It is the soldier, who salutes the flag, who serves beneath the flag, and whose coffin is draped by the flag, who allows the protester to burn the flag.
— Father Dennis Edward O’Brien, USMC

Today is a day that we as Americans honor and remember those who lost their lives protecting our country. As my friend Joe Bryant says, it’s easy for the true meaning of this day to get lost in the excitement of summer and barbecues and picnics. But that quote helps me remember that the things I enjoy today are only possible because those before me made incredibly selfless sacrifices. That includes a number of football players who have lost their lives defending our country.

The most famous, of course, is Pat Tillman, the former Arizona Cardinals safety who chose to quit football to enlist in the United States army. On April 22, fourteen years ago, Tillman died in Afghanistan. Over thirty years earlier, we lost both Bob Kalsu and Don Steinbrunner in Vietnam. You can read their stories here. For some perspective, consider that Hall of Famers Roger Staubach, Ray Nitschke, and Charlie Joiner were three of the 29 NFL men who served in the military during that war.

An incredible 226 men with NFL ties served in the Korean War, including Night Train Lane and Don Shula. Most tragically, World War II claimed the lives of 21 former NFL players.

• Nick “Mike” Basca
• Charlie Behan
• Keith Birlem
• Al Blozis
• Chuck Braidwood
• Young Bussey
• Ed Doyle
• Grassy Hinton
• Smiley Johnson
• Eddie Kahn
• Alex Ketzko
• Lee Kizzire
• Jack Lummus
• Roy “Bob” Mackert
• Frank Maher
• Jim Mooney
• Gus Sonneberg
• Len Supulski
• Don Wemple
• Chet Wetterlund; and
• Waddy Young

Jack Chevigny, former coach of the Cardinals, and John O’Keefe, an executive with the Eagles, were also World War II casualties. The Pro Football Hall of Fame has chronicled the stories of these 23 men, too. Lummus received the Medal of Honor for his bravery at Iwo Jima, and you can read more about his sacrifice here. In 2015, the Giants inducted him into the team’s Ring of Honor.

[continue reading…]

With so much content available for easy consumption, it’s easy for even really good pieces to get lost in the shuffle, or to fade out of memory soon after reading. But there is one passage, in one article, that has stuck with me more than anything I have read in 2016. And I wanted to share that with you guys.

Ezra Klein is the Editor-in-Chief at Vox, and he wrote an interesting article about Hillary Clinton in July. But today’s post has nothing to do with liberal politics, Klein, Vox, or Clinton.  Because the part that I retained from that article came from Deborah Tannen, a Georgetown linguist who studies differences in how men and women communicate.

Women, [Tannen’s] found, emphasize the “rapport dimension” of communication — did a particular conversation bring us closer together or further apart? Men, by contrast, emphasize the “status dimension” — did a conversation raise my status compared to yours?

Talking is a way of changing your status: If you make a great point, or set the terms of the discussion, you win the conversation. Listening, on the other hand, is a way of establishing rapport, of bringing people closer together; showing you’ve heard what’s been said so far may not win you the conversation, but it does win you allies.

Now, maybe you didn’t have the “mind blown” moment I had. This sort of thing may be naturally obvious to some of you.  But so much of our “communication” about sports — whether it’s from members of the media, comments on the internet, or talking with friends in a bar — is about the status dimension of conversation.  And given the dominant presence of the male gender in sports communication, it’s probably not too surprising that the status dimension of communication is the big driver.  For example, you’ve probably heard or said some variation of the following:

• No, Joe Flacco is not elite, and let me tell you why, because I am so smart and after you hear my brilliant words, my status will be higher in your eyes.
• Running and playing defense is the way to win football games — this is what my first NFL coach said, and because I played NFL football and you didn’t, your status will go down in my eyes if you disagree with me.
• Here is some great stat that you didn’t know about but I did: look at how much I know! Now my status should go up in your eyes.
• Yes, Tony Romo is a choker, look at what he did in this game; if you are going to disagree with me, I’m going to say you are crazy, and your status will decrease in your eyes.
• If you look at what has happened over the course of NFL history, here is what you should expect to happen now: listen to me, I have studied history, and therefore my status should go up in your eyes.

Now, when you are engaging with an internet commenter, or listening to a talking head on TV, it’s easy to see why you might not think that bringing people closer together is the point of the communication.  But at least in the comments here, I do think there’s more to be had than just trying to convince someone of your point of view.  And there’s definitely more to be had when communicating in real life.

Stephen Covey wrote that most people do not listen with the intent to understand; they listen with the intent to reply. That’s something I’m guilty of, which is maybe why Tannen’s words have resonated so strongly with me. As the guy who has published an article every day for over 4 years, no one could benefit from this advice more than me.

But “listen more” doesn’t stick with me the way framing communication as either a status dimension or a rapport dimension does. It’s not listening for its own sake, but listening to bring you closer with someone. For me, there’s nothing easier than to revert to the idea that the purpose of communicating is to persuade someone of something; that’s just my default setting, and it may be yours, too. But it’s just as easy, and maybe more wise, to think of communicating as a way of getting closer to someone. And I think that may be the more important goal.

Reviewing a work of fiction falls pretty far outside the normal parameters of this site, ^[1]While there’s some precedent for literature on a football blog, I’ll be honest about the real reason for today’s post. I publish a post daily, so it feels odd to spend countless … Continue reading but I’ll give it a shot with Donna Tart’s newest book, The Goldfinch. Her novel will be one of the more popular books of the year: it’s 8th on the list of best-selling E-Books and the number two best-seller on Amazon’s fiction hardcopy book list. There are many reviews already out there for you to read, although I’ve quickly learned that reading most book reviews is a miserable experience.  So I’ll write a review that I’d want to read for a book I’m deciding whether I want to read.

A bomb explodes at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. In the museum at the time are 13-year-old Theodore Decker (the main character and narrator), his mother, and a pair of strangers whose presence form the first link in the long chain of events that make up our story. Theo’s mother dies in the terrorist attack, and the first act takes us through Theo’s life as a de facto 13-year-old orphan (his father and grandparents want nothing to do with him).

The title of the book comes from a real piece of art, painted in 1654 by the Dutch artist Carel Fabritius, and currently on display in the Frick Museum in New York City. In the aftermatch of the museum bombing, Theo takes off with the painting, and the book ostensibly is about Theo’s love for the painting.  Only that’s not really the case, at least not for many large sections of the book. As Julie Myerson noted in her review, we are told that there are two loves of Theo’s life — the painting and a girl — but both largely absent for hundreds of pages.  The painting itself is an afterthought for most of the first 85% of the book, although by the end, I felt that the novel was appropriately titled. [continue reading…]