Calm before the Storm

 The night before the Russian invasion on Ukraine. A former colleague sent me a link to live feed from downtown Kyiv.  It was o'dark thirty in the morning over there and all was quiet.  In the days leading up to what we now know was an all out attempt to wipe Ukraine off the map by Putin, I was struck by the beauty of this former Soviet Union republic.

Thanks to google and google maps you can quickly learn more about lands far away.  You can also take an up close look at something you would not otherwise see.  Sadly, I knew that just as easily, this place could be wiped off the face of the Earth.

I remember taking my kids to the beach when they were really small.  They couldn't wait to run up and down the beach and splash in the water.  One time, we found a sandcastle that someone left behind.  They had obviously taken time to collect the wet packing sand, put it in a mold and construct the walls before building the main castle.  

Like kids will do, they started directly towards this curiosity.  I had to hold them back from plowing right through it and destroying someone else's work.  I don't know if the person who built it was watching. It didn't matter, I was going to use this as a teachable moment  for my kids to respect others even if no one is watching.

You would think that if kids who are 4-5 years old could learn this lesson, it would be a lay up for a grown man to learn this lesson too.

It goes way beyond losing buildings for sure.  The loss of life is the main reason wars don't make sense to me.

In 1996, I went to Bosnia while working as Petersburg Bureau Chief for WWBT.  The most poignant moment of the trip came when Gene Lepley, my sidekick for the trip, and I were filming a 
Bosnian women who was mourning at the graveside of her child.  This had become a frequent ritual for her after her son was killed when the enemy lobbed a shell into the middle of the town square on a bright and sunny day.  The sad news was she wasn't alone in her grief.

In fact on that day, the square was full of young people and many of them were buried in that same cemetery.

Now, more than two decades ago right here in America, we are burying more young people than ever due to gun violence. 

Since, manning the news desk at WBTV, I have been overwhelmed by report after report of teenagers being killed in the streets of Charlotte and across the country.  At the same time, we are not hearing anyone come up with solutions to the problem.   After a 10 year-old was sent to the hospital with life-threatening injuries sustained during a random shooting at a car wash, our reporter reached out to a high ranking city official.

After a few hours, we were told that she was unavailable.  I can't quit wrap my head around exactly what unavailable would mean in this circumstance.  One teen dying is a problem.  Two is extremely disturbing but four or five is a crisis.  So that being said, I think it's time that our city and county leaders become crisis managers.

Just as they took steps to manage the covid pandemic, it's past the time to curb this latest plague:

- The city needs to initiate a curfew.  Anyone  who is under the age of  18 and is on the streets after 10 pm they need to be scooped up and escorted home.  That also means that businesses, like fast food restaurants, need to be held accountable for scheduling underage employees to work pass the curfew.  Also, high school sporting events will have to start early enough, so that students and athletes can be home when required.

- I give the school system credit for making an effort to keep guns and other weapons out of schools. Every single school needs to have a body scanners installed.  Forget testing and forget piece-mealing this solution.  Not only make the search mandatory at the start of school day but also make the penalty for violating the weapons ban permanent.  Anyone caught with a weapon on school ground should be expelled permanently.

- Parents have to do their part as well by removing an equally dangerous weapon from their child's hand - the cell phone.  As a former teacher, I know without a doubt that the majority of beef's inside the school walls start in cyberspace.  Parents need to take away cell phones and throw them in the trash can.   Nothing good comes from opening a young mind to the garbage that is pumped through Tik Tok and Instagram.  When we were on virtual schooling during the height of covid,  I know that kids were consuming hours and hours of violence, vulgar language and God knows what else during the time they should have been participating in class or studying.  Many of the students that I taught, were so dependent on their phones that they would literally breakdown when they weren't allowed to have them.  If a child ask you - "Why can't they have a cell phone?"  Tell them some thing are just not for you.

In most cases, I spend very little time telling other people what they should do.  I am more likely to look in the mirror and ask the person looking back - what can I do?  I do know that there are six seats up for re-election on Mecklenburg County's School Board in 2022, so I will be calling on close friends and associates in the political arena as I consider running.  As I get closer to retirement age, it won't take much to make myself available.  Stay tuned.

Like is Such a Strong Word

Many years ago, I was on a first date in Richmond, Virginia.  After a nice lunch on Cary Street, I decided to take the young lady (not named Sonya) to Byrd Park.  I know my Richmond friends and family will agree that on a nice spring day that is one of the nicest places to be in the City by the James.

The radio station we were listening to in the car started playing a Luther Vandross song. As we listened along, my date who I only knew casually to this point turned to me and said, "I love you."

My mind raced, my sweat glands went into overdrive as I tried to come up with the right answer in milli-seconds.  I looked back and I said, "Me too."  

I know it seemed like a cop out to not go all the way, but remember this was a first date.  You don't make a leap like that on the first date.  What had I done to deserve such an outpouring of emotion?  

At that point, I wasn't ready to commit to the "L-word". Well at least not that one.  I would reserve that one for a later date and time.

Just as quickly as the moment came,  it subsided and we returned to listening to the master of love songs.  Then I got the clue that maybe my hearing wasn't quite right.  After the young lady continued to talk about the singers others songs, I realized that what she actually said earlier was, "I Love Luther."

Bare with me, because I have always wanted to put that story in writing and now I have.  My point to all of this is that there has been a cosmic shift in "L-words".  It seems to me that now, especially among millennials, "Like" has become all powerful.

I started innocently enough with social media outlets like Facebook.  When you see something nice, gently use the index finger on your right hand to press the left mouse button - "click".  

Eventually, it evolved into any overall referendum on the "SANCTITY OF MANKIND".  That's yelling I know but ask yourself if all of this isn't a little over done?

One like becomes two likes and so fourth and so on until you get a million likes.  Then people, some with no discernable skills, become famous and in some cases become quite wealthy.

Of course, there may be some people who might say that I built a 30-plus year career in broadcasting without a lot of talent either. So, I am not throwing stones.  And my concern is not for the folks who garner the lion's share of likes.

My concern is for the ones who don't.  What about the people who broadcast to the world their greatest joys and accomplishments, only to have them come back like a boomerang that misses it's mark. 

Are they judging their joy and in some cases their value to the world by the number of likes or the lack  of "likes".

On another fateful ride, this time taking my daughter, Mikaela to school, I ripped off a "Coach Craft" classic.  I encouraged her to make sure in her pursuit of a career in musical theater or acting to not do it for the applause.  I said, "Don't do it to see your name in lights. Don't do it so everyone will know your name and say how great you are."

I added that, "Even if you get all those things, it will be empty."

I maintain that like is such a strong word in this day and age but love is still stronger. More importantly it stands the test of time.

I encouraged Mikaela to instead of falling in love with the likes, fall in love with the work itself.  Take stock of the fact that you are doing something that 99.9 percent of the people will never attempt and even if they do an even smaller percentage will put in the work necessary to succeed.

Instead of counting on the world for praise and approval,  give it to yourself.  My advice: take a break from  Instagram, Twitter, Tik Tok or even Facebook .  Instead look in the mirror and give the person looking back a smile and two thumbs up.  Heck, if you got them, give four thumbs up.

More importantly, look that person in the eye and say what I didn't say on that first date - "I love you."

 

Intellectual Atrophy

One of the strongest and most powerful variants of Covid-19 -- the virus that made the world stand still -- has had a profound affect on our children.  I call it "intellectual atrophy". 

Before you disregard my use of a mixed metaphor, something that I did frequently during my broadcast career for humorous effect, hear me out. 

In most cases, atrophy is used to describe the effect of inactivity on an organ or tissue like muscle.  One definition describes atrophy as, "gradually decline in effectiveness or vigor due to underuse or neglect."  

In my first year of high school football, I broke a bone in my foot in the fifth game of the season.  The doctor put it in a cast for four weeks to heal.  I held out hope that I would get the cast off and play in the last game of the year.  I really hated watching from the sideline but when I took a look at my foot after the doctor removed the cast -- it was a wrap.  

As a teacher, I had that same kind of reaction after a half semester working with my students.  A year and a half of showing up as a blank screen on zoom, many of them returned to the school building this past year suffering the side effects.

During the fall semester of 2021, I was guiding a student to an answer that was right in front of him on the computer screen.  At one point, I had to catch myself from saying in frustration, "What is wrong with you?"  Thankfully cooler heads prevailed.  More importantly I didn't have to ask the question when I already know the answer.

When muscles have experienced atrophy and you put them to work the outcome is inevitable. Any muscle that is put under stress after a prolonged period of inactivity will exhaust quickly.  I saw this coaching high school football as well.  When players are forced to do wind sprints for the first time in training camp most look like they are going to die. One thing coaches know is that the majority of players will never push themselves in the offseason  enough to be ready for the real thing.

The day I got my cast off, I could barely make it out of the doctor's office.  I certainly couldn't put my full weight on that sliver of a foot.  In an instant, I had totally given up on playing football instead I was just focused on walking across the parking lot.

A few months ago, I noticed that even my best students were hitting a wall near the end of the first quarter.  Now mind you, I wasn't teaching rocket science and I understand that my students have to reserve their energy for doing some heavy lifting like chemistry and math 3.  However, I was finding that even some of my brightest students were struggling with what I considered simple tasks.

After one student grew frustrated while trying to debug some html code she said, "Can't you just tell me what's wrong with my code?"  I made a conscious decision then, as always to not just simply tell students the answer.  

What I did was tailor my instruction to help those who were ready to run, those who are ready to walk as well as those who are barely limping along.  This was a switch for me because I am hyper competitive.  I very rarely take my foot off the gas pedal but this past year, I was forced to do just that.

During that semester, I started giving my students 10 minute breaks at the beginning and end of class.  In my longer third block, I also wrapped 10 minute breaks around lunch.  

Before covid, I asked my students to commit to learning one thing a day.  Post covid, I sometimes asked them to learn one thing over a three day period.  It wasn't the same lesson three days in a row, but the same lesson taught three different ways.

Near then end of the semester, my classes stunned me during a game we call vocabulary baseball.  Each student comes up to bat and has to give the word that matches a definition in order to get on base. I didn't expect much because I thought they weren't approaching this unit with any enthusiasm but when the game started each class knocked it out of the park.  

That game didn't alleviate all my fears for these students but it was a glimmer of hope.  

That glimmer will have to suffice because at the end of the semester, I made the tough decision to shut it down as a teacher.  Well, at least shut it down in the physical since.  Even though my personal battles with covid, sapped me of a lot of the energy necessary to handle the rigors of teaching and coaching day to day, I still plan to contribute in other ways (stay tuned).

To my former colleagues who keep fighting the good fight,  I salute you for continuing to positively affect the lives of the next generation. God Bless.

Coach Mike Craft