Story of Jimmy Butler

Jimmy Butler is a basketball player that played at Marquette for the past few years, and he looks to be drafted in the NBA Draft in a couple of weeks. But that is not what makes him special.

I read this article on him the other day, and it is amazing the things he has overcome.

"His story," one GM said. "is one of the most remarkable I've seen in all my years of basketball. There were so many times in his life where he was set up to fail. Every time, he overcame just enormous odds. When you talk to him -- and he's hesitant to talk about his life -- you just have this feeling that this kid has greatness in him."

Butler is fine with that interpretation. But there's another one that he fears.

"Please, I know you're going to write something. I'm just asking you, don't write it in a way that makes people feel sorry for me," he said. "I hate that. There's nothing to feel sorry about. I love what happened to me. It made me who I am. I'm grateful for the challenges I've faced. Please, don't make them feel sorry for me."

Pity hasn't gotten Butler anywhere in life. Courage has.

Check it out and get inspired.

"Dream On" Sports Montage

One of the best sports montage videos you will ever see. Warning: goosebumps inducing...

Lou Gehrig Speech

Lou Gehrig is well-known both by those who follow baseball, and those who don't. For baseball fans, they know him as perhaps the great first baseman of all-time. For everyone else, they know him by the disease ALS, or Lou Gehrig's Disease.

Another way that he is known is through the eloquence and inspiration of his speech given at Yankee Stadium. The full text of the speech is:

"Fans, for the past two weeks you have been reading about the bad break I got. Yet today I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of this earth. I have been in ballparks for seventeen years and have never received anything but kindness and encouragement from you fans.

"Look at these grand men. Which of you wouldn't consider it the highlight of his career just to associate with them for even one day? Sure, I'm lucky. Who wouldn't consider it an honor to have known Jacob Ruppert? Also, the builder of baseball's greatest empire, Ed Barrow? To have spent six years with that wonderful little fellow, Miller Huggins? Then to have spent the next nine years with that outstanding leader, that smart student of psychology, the best manager in baseball today, Joe McCarthy? Sure, I'm lucky.

"When the New York Giants, a team you would give your right arm to beat, and vice versa, sends you a gift - that's something. When everybody down to the groundskeepers and those boys in white coats remember you with trophies - that's something. When you have a wonderful mother-in-law who takes sides with you in squabbles with her own daughter - that's something. When you have a father and a mother who work all their lives so you can have an education and build your body - it's a blessing. When you have a wife who has been a tower of strength and shown more courage than you dreamed existed - that's the finest I know.

"So I close in saying that I may have had a bad break, but I have an awful lot to live for."

Let us always keep that in mind... we've got an awful lot to live for.

Don't Give Up, Don't Ever Give Up

Many of you have possible (hopefully?) seen this video at some point, but if not, I thought it would be good to post.

Jim Valvano was a college basketball coach, mostly back in the 1980s, before he passed away in the early 90s from cancer. Before he died, he started The V Foundation (with the help of others) aimed at raising money for cancer research.

In 1993, he gave one of the most inspiration speeches that I have ever seen at the ESPY Awards.



Highlights from the speech:

"To me, there are three things we all should do every day. We should do this every day of our lives. Number one is laugh. You should laugh every day. Number two is think. You should spend some time in thought. Number three is, you should have your emotions moved to tears, could be happiness or joy. But think about it. If you laugh, you think, and you cry, that's a full day. That's a heck of a day. You do that seven days a week, you're going to have something special. "

"It's so important to know where you are. I know where I am right now. How do you go from where you are to where you want to be? I think you have to have an enthusiasm for life. You have to have a dream, a goal. You have to be willing to work for it."

And it's motto is "Don't give up, don't ever give up." That's what I'm going to try to do every minute that I have left. I will thank God for the day and the moment I have.

RIP Jimmy V.

A Lesson From Pee Wee Reese

In Roger Khan's great baseball book (heck, you don't even need the baseball disclaimer, it's just a great book all around) Boys of Summer, he has this paragraph in the book about Pee Wee Reese, the Brooklyn Dodgers shortstop of the 1940s and 1950s. [Note: in case you don't know, Jackie Robinson was the first black player to play in the MLB).

"As the Dodgers moved into infield practice, taunts began. Fans started calling Jackie Robinson names: 'Snowflake,' 'Jungle Bunny,' and worse. Very much worse. Some Cincinnati players picked that up and began shouting obscenities at Robinson from their dugout. There Jackie stood, one solitary black man, trying to warm up and catching hell. Reese raised a hand and stopped the practice. Then he walked from shortstop to first base and put and arm around the shoulders of Jackie Robinson. He stood there and looked into the dugout and into the stands, stared into the torrents of hate, a slim white southerner who wore number 1 and just happened to have an arm draped in friendship around a black man, who wore number 42. Reese did not say a word. The deed was beyond words. 'After Pee Wee came over like that,' Robinson said years afterward, 'I never felt alone on a baseball field again.'"

This just makes me think of all the times that I do NOT stand up so well for the things that I believe in, either in word or in deed. All of the times I don't comfort the lonely, or worry what others might think of me if I do something that might be seen as unpopular.

We could all learn a little bit from Pee Wee Reese.