Braves Player Quotes

You must miss your father terribly, I know. Lord Eddard was a brave man, honest and loyal...but quite a hopeless player.' He brought the seed to his mouth with the knife. 'In King's Landing, there are two sorts of people The players and the pieces.' 'And I was a piece?' She dreaded the answer. 'Yes, but don't let that trouble you. You're still half a child. Every man's a piece to start with, and every maid as well. Even some who think they are players.' He at another seed. 'Cersei, for one. She thinks herself sly, but in truth she is utterly predictable. her strength rests on her beauty, birth, and riches. Only the first of those is truly her own, and it will soon desert her. I pity her then. She wants power, but has no notion what to do with it when she gets it. Everyone wants something, Alayne. And when you know what a man wants you know who he is, and how to move him.

It's actually a very old archetype that trans girl stories get put into: this sort of tragic, plucky-little-orphan character who is just supposed to suffer through everything and wait, and if you're good and brave and patient (and white and rich) enough, then you get the big reward...which is that you get to be just like everybody else who is white and rich and boring. And then you marry the prince or the football player and live boringly ever after.

Leading for true belonging is about creating a culture that celebrates uniqueness. What serves leaders best is understanding your players’ best efforts. My job as a leader is to identify their unique gift or contribution. A strong leader pulls players toward a deep belief in themselves.

It’s widely noted that among players currently eligible for the Hall of Fame, Maris and Murphy are the only two-time MVP recipients not enshrined at Cooperstown. In a previous book I argued Maris should be in the Hall of Fame—here I’d simply point out that during his prime, Murphy was the best player in the game. You can argue that his prime didn’t last long enough or that his career numbers aren’t strong enough, but then he didn’t cheat either.

Whatever we learn to do, we learn by actually doing it. People come to be builders, for instance, by building, and harp players by playing the harp. In the same way, by doing just acts, we come to be just. By doing self-controlled acts, we come to be self-controlled, and by doing brave acts, we come to be brave. (ARISTOTLE)

In spring training prior to his 1995 rookie season, Chipper was already so confident in who he was as a player that he famously deadpanned to veteran slugger Fred McGriff, after the Crime Dog grounded into an inning-ending double play, these two words: “Rally killer.” His confidence carried over to the field, just as it had since he began playing as a kid—he batted .265, and he led all rookies with 23 home runs, 87 runs, and 86 RBIs. Hideo Nomo was Rookie of the Year for the Dodgers, but Chipper and the Braves were World Champions.

When I was a kid, my parents were very careful about who was “acceptable” as my heroes if you will, because they didn’t want me being influenced by athletes who lacked morals. Cal Ripken and Dale Murphy were at the top of my mom’s list of players she felt were good role models, so of course I was a diehard fan of both those guys.

There’s no question that it’s easier to manage a “fitting-in” culture. You set standards and rules. You lead by “put up or shut up.” But you miss real opportunities—especially helping your team members find their purpose. When you push a “fitting-in culture” you miss the opportunity to help people find their personal drive—what’s coming from their hearts. Leading for true belonging is about creating a culture that celebrates uniqueness. What serves leaders best is understanding your players’ best efforts. My job as a leader is to identify their unique gift or contribution. A strong leader pulls players toward a deep belief in themselves.

Did you have a kid in your neighborhood who always hid so good, nobody could find him? We did. After a while we would give up on him and go off, leaving him to rot wherever he was. Sooner or later he would show up, all mad because we didn't keep looking for him. And we would get mad back because he wasn't playing the game the way it was supposed to be played. There's hiding and there's finding, we'd say. And he'd say it was hide-and-seek, not hide-and-give-UP, and we'd all yell about who made the rules and who cared about who, anyway, and how we wouldn't play with him anymore if he didn't get it straight and who needed him anyhow, and things like that. Hide-and-seek-and-yell. No matter what, though, the next time he would hide too good again. He's probably still hidden somewhere, for all I know. As I write this, the neighborhood game goes on, and there is a kid under a pile of leaves in the yard just under my window. He has been there a long time now, and everybody else is found and they are about to give up on him over at the base. I considered going out to the base and telling them where he is hiding. And I thought about setting the leaves on fire to drive him out. Finally, I just yelled, "GET FOUND, KID!" out the window. And scared him so bad he probably wet his pants and started crying and ran home to tell his mother. It's real hard to know how to be helpful sometimes. A man I know found out last year he had terminal cancer. He was a doctor. And knew about dying, and he didn't want to make his family and friends suffer through that with him. So he kept his secret. And died. Everybody said how brave he was to bear his suffering in silence and not tell everybody, and so on and so forth. But privately his family and friends said how angry they were that he didn't need them, didn't trust their strength. And it hurt that he didn't say good-bye. He hid too well. Getting found would have kept him in the game. Hide-and-seek, grown-up style. Wanting to hide. Needing to be sought. Confused about being found. "I don't want anyone to know." "What will people think?" "I don't want to bother anyone." Better than hide-and-seek, I like the game called Sardines. In Sardines the person who is It goes and hides, and everybody goes looking for him. When you find him, you get in with him and hide there with him. Pretty soon everybody is hiding together, all stacked in a small space like puppies in a pile. And pretty soon somebody giggles and somebody laughs and everybody gets found. Medieval theologians even described God in hide-and-seek terms, calling him Deus Absconditus. But me, I think old God is a Sardine player. And will be found the same way everybody gets found in Sardines - by the sound of laughter of those heaped together at the end. "Olly-olly-oxen-free." The kids out in the street are hollering the cry that says "Come on in, wherever you are. It's a new game." And so say I. To all those who have hid too good. Get found, kid! Olly-olly-oxen-free.

You and Garcia aren't---" "No. I'm a one-man kind of woman." "And this one man..." His eyes lit up. Hopeful. Intent. "What's he like?" "He's brave." I pressed a kiss to his forehead. "He's strong." Another kiss, this one on his cheek. "Funny and sarcastic." Kisses down his jaw despite the bristles. "Selfless." A kiss on the corner of his lips. "Loyal and honorable." Another kiss on the cheek. "A team player." Jack gave a satisfied rumble. "He's always worked alone." "Not anymore." I brushed his hair back from his face. "No one wanted to be left behind when it came time to save him. Everyone wanted to help. He was part of a team, and the team looks after each other." "How is he in bed?" His voice dropped to a sensual rumble. "Incredible." "The best you ever had?" "I wouldn't want him to get too cocky." Jack laughed. "He's cocky now.

Your Eve was wise, John. She knew that Paradise would make her mad, if she were to live forever with Adam and know no other thing but strawberries and tigers and rivers of milk. She knew they would tire of these things, and each other. They would grow to hate every fruit, every stone, every creature they touched. Yet where could they go to find any new thing? It takes strength to live in Paradise and not collapse under the weight of it. It is every day a trial. And so Eve gave her lover the gift of time, time to the timeless, so that they could grasp at happiness. ... And this is what Queen Abir gave to us, her apple in the garden, her wisdom--without which we might all have leapt into the Rimal in a century. The rite bears her name still. For she knew the alchemy of demarcation far better than any clock, and decreed that every third century husbands and wives should separate, customs should shift and parchmenters become architects, architects farmers of geese and monkeys, Kings should become fishermen, and fishermen become players of scenes. Mothers and fathers should leave their children and go forth to get other sons and daughters, or to get none if that was their wish. On the roads of Pentexore folk might meet who were once famous lovers, or a mother and child of uncommon devotion--and they would laugh, and remember, but call each other by new names, and begin again as friends, or sisters, or lovers, or enemies. And some time hence all things would be tossed up into the air once more and land in some other pattern. If not for this, how fastened, how frozen we would be, bound to one self, forever a mother, forever a child. We anticipate this refurbishing of the world like children at a holiday. We never know what we will be, who we will love in our new, brave life, how deeply we will wish and yearn and hope for who knows what impossible thing! Well, we anticipate it. There is fear too, and grief. There is shaking, and a worry deep in the bone. Only the Oinokha remains herself for all time--that is her sacrifice for us. There is sadness in all this, of course--and poets with long elegant noses have sung ballads full of tears that break at one blow the hearts of a flock of passing crows! But even the most ardent lover or doting father has only two hundred years to wait until he may try again at the wheel of the world, and perhaps the wheel will return his wife or his son to him. Perhaps not. Wheels, and worlds, are cruel. Time to the timeless, apples to those who live without hunger. There is nothing so sweet and so bitter, nothing so fine and so sharp.

That’s the one,” said Aunt Bea. “He used to chew licorice and spit on the grass to make the principal think he was chewing tobacco like a professional baseball player, which was what he wanted to be.” “Where’s this cute licorice-chewing uncle coming from, and how did he get so rich?” asked Ramona’s father, beginning to be interested. “Playing baseball?” “He’s coming from—” Ramona frowned. “I can’t remember the name, but it sounds like a fairy tale and has camels.” Narnia? Never-never-land? No, those names weren’t right. “Saudi Arabia,” said Beezus, who also went to the Kemps’ after school. Being in junior high school, she could take her time getting there. “Yes, that’s it!” Ramona wished she had remembered first. “Howie says he’s bringing the whole family presents.” She imagined bags of gold like those in The Arabian Nights, which Beezus had read to her. Of course, nobody carried around bags of gold today, but she enjoyed imagining them. “What’s Howie’s uncle doing in Saudi Arabia?” asked Mr. Quimby. “Besides spitting licorice in the sand?

FOR MANY YEARS, I was on a committee that read and selected papers to be published at SIGGRAPH, the annual computer graphics conference I mentioned in chapter 2. These papers were supposed to present ideas that advanced the field. The committee was composed of many of the field’s most prominent players, all of whom I knew; it was a group that took the task of selecting papers very seriously. At each of the meetings, I was struck that there seemed to be two kinds of reviewers: some who would look for flaws in the papers, and then pounce to kill them; and others who started from a place of seeking and promoting good ideas. When the “idea protectors” saw flaws, they pointed them out gently, in the spirit of improving the paper—not eviscerating it. Interestingly, the “paper killers” were not aware that they were serving some other agenda (which was often, in my estimation, to show their colleagues how high their standards were). Both groups thought they were protecting the proceedings, but only one group understood that by looking for something new and surprising, they were offering the most valuable kind of protection. Negative feedback may be fun, but it is far less brave than endorsing something unproven and providing room for it to grow.

Does the prince play?" asked the lute player. "Hamish is a wee beast with all stringed things," Fergus said. "Pity those wolves didn't have strings." Immediately, the woman passed the lute to Hamish. He didn't move his arms in time to take it, so she simply plopped it down in his lap. "I'll trade you a tune for your dish of pears." Hamish sat there, a frozen little creature with big eyes. Pinned to the bench by fear and by the lute. How badly Merida wanted him to be able to play fearlessly for this group. Not for their benefit, but for his. How was it that his sense of fun had been replaced by a sense of fear? She whispered to him, "You could play 'Crosses and Squares.'" Still he was frozen. Maldouen said, "Don't you think you owe Ol' Flower a tune for saving your life?" Maldouen was being playful, but he had, without realizing, hit upon the only way Hamish perform: obligation. Hamish let fear rule him, but not at the expense of other people. Hamish whispered, "All right," and then added, to the dog, "Ma'am," which made the entire table laugh uproariously. Hamish began to play. The villagers began to clap in time with him. Hamish played faster. They clapped faster. Hamish played little riffs and twirls, and the villagers got up and danced along with the well-known tune. With the lute in his hand and the tune ringing out strongly, it was almost possible to believe Hamish wasn't afraid, but Merida knew better. This was how it always went. When Hamish played for other people, he always looked like a different person. Straighter, surer. More like Hubert or Harris. This was part of a good show, after all, and he felt obligated to give Ol' Flower a good show.

Now I am alone. O, what a rogue and peasant slave am I! (520) Is it not monstrous that this player here, But in a fiction, in a dream of passion, Could force his soul so to his own conceit That from her working all his visage wann'd, Tears in his eyes, distraction in's aspect, A broken voice, and his whole function suiting With forms to his conceit? and all for nothing! For Hecuba! What's Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba, (530) That he should weep for her? What would he do, Had he the motive and the cue for passion That I have? He would drown the stage with tears And cleave the general ear with horrid speech, Make mad the guilty and appal the free, Confound the ignorant, and amaze indeed The very faculties of eyes and ears. Yet I, A dull and muddy-mettled rascal, peak, Like John-a-dreams, unpregnant of my cause, (540) And can say nothing; no, not for a king, Upon whose property and most dear life A damn'd defeat was made. Am I a coward? Who calls me villain? breaks my pate across? Plucks off my beard, and blows it in my face? Tweaks me by the nose? gives me the lie i' the throat, As deep as to the lungs? who does me this? Ha! 'Swounds, I should take it: for it cannot be But I am pigeon-liver'd and lack gall (550) To make oppression bitter, or ere this I should have fatted all the region kites With this slave's offal: bloody, bawdy villain! Remorseless, treacherous, lecherous, kindless villain! O, vengeance! Why, what an ass am I! This is most brave, That I, the son of a dear father murder'd, Prompted to my revenge by heaven and hell, Must, like a whore, unpack my heart with words, And fall a-cursing, like a very drab, (560) A scullion! Fie upon't! foh! About, my brain! I have heard That guilty creatures sitting at a play Have by the very cunning of the scene Been struck so to the soul that presently They have proclaim'd their malefactions; For murder, though it have no tongue, will speak With most miraculous organ. I'll have these players Play something like the murder of my father Before mine uncle: I'll observe his looks; (570) I'll tent him to the quick: if he but blench, I know my course. The spirit that I have seen May be the devil: and the devil hath power To assume a pleasing shape; yea, and perhaps Out of my weakness and my melancholy, As he is very potent with such spirits, Abuses me to damn me: I'll have grounds More relative than this: the play's the thing Wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king.

Lark wrapped an arm around me and started to speak until Bailey’s startled voice interrupted us. A huge football player had her pinned against the wall and she was yelling for him to back off. Instead, he crowded her more while playing with her blonde hair. “Hey!” I yelled as Lark and I rushed over. Six four and wide shouldered, the guy was wasted and angry at the interruption. “Fuck off, bitches,” he muttered. Bailey clawed at his neck, but he had her pinned in a weird way, so she couldn’t get any leverage. While I was ready to jump on him in a weak attempt to save my friend, someone shoved the football player off Bailey. I hadn’t even seen the guy appear, but he stood between Bailey and the pissed jerk. “Fuck off, man,” the asshole said. “She’s mine.” “Nick,” Bailey mumbled, looking ready to cry. “He humped my leg. Crush his skull, will ya?” Nick frowned at Bailey who was leaning on him now. The football player was an inch or two bigger than Nick and outweighed him by probably fifty pounds. Feeling the fight would be short, the asshole reached for Bailey’s arm and Nick nailed the guy in the face. To my shock, the giant asshole collapsed on the ground. “My hero,” Bailey said, looking ready to puke. She caressed Nick’s biceps and asked, “Do you work out?” Running his hands through his dark wavy hair, Nick laughed. “You’re so wasted.” “And you’re like the Energizer Bunny,” she cooed. “My bro said you took a punch, yet kept on ticking.” Nick started to speak then heard the asshole’s friends riled up. I was too drunk to know if everything happened really quickly or if my brain just took awhile to catch up. The guys rushed Nick who dodged most of them and hit another. The room emptied out except for Nick, the guys, and us. I grabbed a beer bottle and threw it at one of the guys shoving Nick. When the bottle hit him in the back, the bastard glared at me. “You want to fight, bitch?” “Leave her alone,” Nick said, kicking one guy into the jerk looking to hit me. As impressive as Nick was against six guys, he was just one guy against six. A losing bet, he took a shot to the face then the gut. Lark grabbed a folding chair and went WWE on one guy. I was tossing beers in the roundabout direction of the other guys. Yet, Bailey was the one who ended the fight by pulling out a gun. “Back the fuck off or I’ll burn this motherfucking house to the ground!” she screamed then fired at a lamp. Everyone stopped and stared at her. When she noticed me wide-eyed, Bailey frowned. “Too much?” Grinning, I followed Lark to the door. Nick followed us while the assholes seemed ready to piss themselves. Well, except for an idiot who looked ready to go for Bailey’s gun. "Dude,” Nick muttered, “that’s Bailey Fucking Johansson. Unless you want to end up in a shallow grave, back the fuck off.” “What he said!” Bailey yelled, waving her gun around before I hurried her out of the door. The cold air sobered up Bailey enough for her to return the gun to her purse. She was still drunk enough to laugh hysterically as we reached the SUV. “Did you see me kill that lamp?” “You did good,” I said, groggy as my adrenaline shifted to nausea and the alcohol threatened to come back up on me. Nick walked us to the SUV. “Next time, you might want to wave the gun around before you get drunk and dance.” “Don’t tell me what to do,” Bailey growled, crawling into the backseat. Then, realizing he saved her, she crawled back to face him. “You were so brave. I should totally get you off as a thank you." “Maybe another time,” he said, laughing as she batted her eyes at him. “Are you guys safe to drive?” Lark nodded. “I’m sober enough to remember everything tomorrow. Trust me that there’ll be mocking.

THIS IS MY ABC BOOK of people God loves. We’ll start with . . .           A: God loves Adorable people. God loves those who are Affable and Affectionate. God loves Ambulance drivers, Artists, Accordion players, Astronauts, Airplane pilots, and Acrobats. God loves African Americans, the Amish, Anglicans, and Animal husbandry workers. God loves Animal-rights Activists, Astrologers, Adulterers, Addicts, Atheists, and Abortionists.           B: God loves Babies. God loves Bible readers. God loves Baptists and Barbershop quartets . . . Boys and Boy Band members . . . Blondes, Brunettes, and old ladies with Blue hair. He loves the Bedraggled, the Beat up, and the Burnt out . . . the Bullied and the Bullies . . . people who are Brave, Busy, Bossy, Bitter, Boastful, Bored, and Boorish. God loves all the Blue men in the Blue Man Group.           C: God loves Crystal meth junkies,           D: Drag queens,           E: and Elvis impersonators.           F: God loves the Faithful and the Faithless, the Fearful and the Fearless. He loves people from Fiji, Finland, and France; people who Fight for Freedom, their Friends, and their right to party; and God loves people who sound like Fat Albert . . . “Hey, hey, hey!”           G: God loves Greedy Guatemalan Gynecologists.           H: God loves Homosexuals, and people who are Homophobic, and all the Homo sapiens in between.           I: God loves IRS auditors.           J: God loves late-night talk-show hosts named Jimmy (Fallon or Kimmel), people who eat Jim sausages (Dean or Slim), people who love Jams (hip-hop or strawberry), singers named Justin (Timberlake or Bieber), and people who aren’t ready for this Jelly (Beyoncé’s or grape).           K: God loves Khloe Kardashian, Kourtney Kardashian, Kim Kardashian, and Kanye Kardashian. (Please don’t tell him I said that.)           L: God loves people in Laos and people who are feeling Lousy. God loves people who are Ludicrous, and God loves Ludacris. God loves Ladies, and God loves Lady Gaga.           M: God loves Ministers, Missionaries, and Meter maids; people who are Malicious, Meticulous, Mischievous, and Mysterious; people who collect Marbles and people who have lost their Marbles . . . and Miley Cyrus.           N: God loves Ninjas, Nudists, and Nose pickers,           O: Obstetricians, Orthodontists, Optometrists, Ophthalmologists, and Overweight Obituary writers,           P: Pimps, Pornographers, and Pedophiles,           Q: the Queen of England, the members of the band Queen, and Queen Latifah.           R: God loves the people of Rwanda and the Rebels who committed genocide against them.           S: God loves Strippers in Stilettos working on the Strip in Sin City;           T: it’s not unusual that God loves Tom Jones.           U: God loves people from the United States, the United Kingdom, and the United Arab Emirates; Ukrainians and Uruguayans, the Unemployed and Unemployment inspectors; blind baseball Umpires and shady Used-car salesmen. God loves Ushers, and God loves Usher.           V: God loves Vegetarians in Virginia Beach, Vegans in Vietnam, and people who eat lots of Vanilla bean ice cream in Las Vegas.           W: The great I AM loves will.i.am. He loves Waitresses who work at Waffle Houses, Weirdos who have gotten lots of Wet Willies, and Weight Watchers who hide Whatchamacallits in their Windbreakers.           X: God loves X-ray technicians.           Y: God loves You.           Z: God loves Zoologists who are preparing for the Zombie apocalypse. God . . . is for the rest of us. And we have the responsibility, the honor, of letting the world know that God is for them, and he’s inviting them into a life-changing relationship with him. So let ’em know.

Acting outwardly strong produces actual inner strength. Putting on a brave face builds a strong heart. It’s the “soldiering through” that makes you a soldier. It’s like dressing for the job you want and not the job you have. Putting on a suit does more than just make you look like an executive—it makes you feel like one. And once you start feeling like one, you start thinking and behaving like one. It’s playacting, but it’s playing the part that turns you into a player.

The relentless perseverance of these men was matched by some players on the pitch. Three for whom I developed great admiration were Tony Adams of Arsenal, Gianfranco Zola when he played for Chelsea and Jamie Carragher of Liverpool. I always thought Adams was a United player in the wrong shirt. Alcohol has ruined the careers and lives of many footballers, and at United the sad legacy of George Best will always loom large in our collective memories, so Tony’s brave confrontation with his demons at the end of the 1990s was, in itself, extraordinary.

We must remember that we are practicing. We are learning, and we will not be virtuous overnight. Just as “men become builders by building and lyre players by playing the lyre; so too we become just by doing just acts, temperate by doing temperate acts, brave by doing brave acts”3. You may very well say that practice makes perfect, and in our case perfection is what we are striving for.

Well, young fellow, I hope you’re not trying to see what cards I’m holding,” one of the cardplayers said with a twinkle in his eye. “Your eyes are bigger than my ice-cream bowl.” Benny felt his ears get red. “Are you playing Go Fish?” he asked. “That’s what we played in the car when we drove from Greenfield. Only now it’s time for Go Eat Ice Cream, not Go Fish.” Everyone at the table chuckled. “I’m getting chocolate ice cream,” Benny continued. “And know what? We’re going to Skeleton Point. Grandfather’s cousin Charlotte bought it--even the skeletons. She asked us to help her fix up the house. We might even get to stay there overnight.” The players looked up from their cards when they heard this. “Well,” one silver-haired lady said, “you must be very brave. A lot of strange things have been going on at Skeleton Point ever since Charlotte bought Dr. Tibbs’s old place.” Another man at the table put his finger to his lips. “Now, don’t go scaring the boy with all that foolish talk about the Walking Skeleton.” The woman ignored the man. “Well, don’t say we didn’t warn you. I heard from William Mason, who’s working out there, that there’s a skeleton in the house trying to turn into a real person again. If you ask me, that’s why some of those statues have missing parts.” Now Benny’s eyes were bigger than dinner plates. “Everything’s been falling down at Skeleton Point for years, especially those statues. I was glad to hear Charlotte’s going to fix up the place. That’ll stop all this Walking Skeleton nonsense.” “Maybe the Walking Skeleton is a real person already,” Benny said. “I’m a walking skeleton, too. Only I have muscles on top of my skeleton.” The cardplayers laughed again and returned to their game. When the Aldens got their cones, they sat on the front porch of the general store to enjoy their ice cream. “Where to next?” Grandfather asked when everyone had finished. “As if I didn’t know.” “Skeleton Point!” the children cried at the same time. “Skeleton Point it is,” Grandfather said. The Mystery at Skeleton Point

People come to be builders, for instance, by building, and harp players, by playing the harp. In the same way, by doing just acts we come to be just. By doing self-controlled acts, we come to be self-controlled, and by doing brave acts, we become brave.

There’s no question that it’s easier to manage a “fitting-in” culture. You set standards and rules. You lead by “put up or shut up.” But you miss real opportunities—especially helping your team members find their purpose. When you push a “fitting-in culture” you miss the opportunity to help people find their personal drive—what’s coming from their hearts. Leading for true belonging is about creating a culture that celebrates uniqueness. What serves leaders best is understanding your players’ best efforts. My job as a leader is to identify

The player looked over at the Virginian, doubtfully. "Well," he said, "I don't know what you folks call a dangerous man." "Not him!" exclaimed the dealer with admiration. "He's a brave man. That's different." The player seemed to follow this reasoning no better than I did. "It's not a brave man that's dangerous," continued the dealer. "It's the cowards that scare me.

Chipper, you are really good,” she said. “Don’t let anybody ever tell you otherwise. When you walk out on that field, act like you’re the best player out there. Don’t do it with words. Do it with your presence. Walk up to that plate like ‘I’m going to hit this ball nine hundred feet.’ Sometimes you’re not going to be the best player on the field, but don’t let anybody else know that.” That is where I learned what Mom, Dad, and I call necessary arrogance, and I took that mentality to the plate from the time I was a kid to my last at-bat as a Brave.

When a collective comes together at the expense of others—for example, to bond over the devaluation or debasing of another person or group of people, or to bond despite this—it does not heal the spiritual crisis of disconnection. In fact, it does quite the opposite by feeding it. It is not true collective joy if it’s at the expense of others, and it is not true collective pain if it causes others pain. When soccer fans yell racist taunts at players or when people gather in hate for any reason, the practices of true belonging and inextricable connection are immediately voided and bankrupted.

The main racial drama of the Berlin Olympics, at the time and in its retelling, was, of course, the victory of Jesse Owens, the black American sprinter and long jumper who won four gold medals and beat the best of the Germans in unequivocal style.1 However, there were also quiet victories for the Jewish athletes who braved the games. Jewish Hungarians alone won six gold medals, including Ibolya Csák in the high jump, two members of the water-polo team, Karoly Karpati in freestyle wrestling, and the fencers Ilona Schacherer-Elek and Endre Kabos. There were also medals for two Austrian Jews, Ellen Preis and Robert Fein, as well as the American and Canadian basketball players, Samuel Balter and Irving Maretzky.

But developing fundamental skills through disciplined practice is what gives players the grounded confidence to dare greatly.