As I mentioned in a previous blog, I am rereading what I think of as the best sports book I have ever read, My Losing 
Season by Pat Conroy. Listen to the way he outlines the power of sports in his life.
The lessons I learned while playing basketball at the Citadel Bulldogs from 1963 to 1967 have proven priceless to me as both a writer and a man. I have a sense of fair play and sportsmanship. My work ethic is credible and you can count on me in the clutch. When given an assignment, I carry it to completion, my five senses lit up in concentration. I believe with all my heart that athletics is one of the finest preparations for most of the intricacies and darknesses a human life can throw at you. Athletics provide some of the richest fields of both metaphor and cliche to measure our lives against the intrusions and aggressions of other people. Basketball forced me to deal head-on with my inadequacies and terrors with no room or tolerance for evasion.
For those of you who are around sports most if not all the time, it is easy to forget
the power of sports. Hopefully, this excerpt reminds you of that power and encourages you to mine the riches that can be found in the “laboratory of sports” both for yourself as you coach or play or for others that you are around.
