Team Mates Quotes

For the longest time I couldn't understand the meaning of the cliche "being compatible" - whether about a lover, colleague, team mate or friend. I now get it. There is so much more behind this superficial nauseatingly-pragmatic diplomatic phrase -- it goes deep down to the true essence of someone, how they see the world, how they see and position themselves, how prepared/capable they are to back you, whether they can understand who you are and if they are prepared to break walls for you. Anything else is details.

Since the dawn of time, women have been attracted to mates with strong survival skills—like intelligence and physical prowess—because men with these qualities are more likely to bring home dinner at the end of the day.” He stuck his thumbs in the air and grinned. “Dinner equals survival, team.

Drama free workplace and ego free team mates are crucial for a healthier workplace

The odds were incredibly stacked against a werewolf ever meeting his one-in-a-billion soul mate. There was no way Becker could have met his in the midst of an armed robbery. That kind of crap didn't happen in the real world.

If your soulmate can't teach you a few things then what is the point of having one? I don't need someone to tell me I am right. I don't need someone to tell me I didn't screw up. I don't need someone to not push me to reach for my dreams. I don't need someone to not take an interest in making me better. I need a team mate, a best friend and someone that allows me enough room to have off days. I am allowed to be as silly, corny, upset at times, excited, scared and a million emotions, but still loved. I need someone that will be that way for me, also. I don't want perfection. I don't want to build my world around what other people think. I want to build it around positive experiences, spiritual growth, and adventure. That requires something deeper than just acting the way someone requires. It means finding someone imperfect that I have the ability to help and someone that sees my imperfectness and is willing to help me. If a soulmate is anything, it better be useful. Otherwise, it is simply a made up fantasy that has no place in God's plan for me.

Meaning that loving a werewolf can be difficult. They’re big and strong, but that only means their luggage is a whole hell of a lot heavier. It takes a good soul mate to help them figure out how to carry it all. And right now, you suck in the soul mate category, dear.

A Scotch half-breed took charge of him and his mates, and in company with a dozen other dog-teams he started back over the weary trail to Dawson. It was no light running now, nor record time, but heavy toil each day, with a heavy load behind; for this was the mail train,

Selfishness sinks ships: friendships, partnerships, relationships, championships, even leaderships. Like an iceberg tearing through the hull of an ocean liner, selfishness will inevitably send all of those ships plummeting to the depths of the abyss. Selfishness sinks ships.

~Here’s to kick-offs, goals, assists, shootouts, livin’ on the road, the smell of wet grass, early mornings, breakaways, crossbar shots, countless hours of practice, Nike cleats, , shin pads, big passes, loud chanting, new equipment, sniping shots, corner kicks, coaches, passion in our numbers, living with your team mates, the girls you trust become your second family, pick up, fights, let downs, miracles. Some people say soccer’s a matter of life or death, but it isn’t, it’s much more then that, and most of all – the best game in the world, our passion, our life, our future, our love, our game .. SOCCER.~

Then I’m the team dictator,

For few matters you need to be solo, for some matters you need soul mate and for many matters you need society,

The legend of ‘The One’ had been clear that the connection between a werewolf and his mate could never be denied. The fact that it could be destroyed had never come up in conversation.

All I’m after is a few square metres to be myself. A space where I can continue to profess my creed: take the ball, give it to a team-mate, team-mate scores. It’s called an assist and it’s my way of spreading happiness.

What's Toraf's favorite color?" She shrugs. "Whatever I tell him it is." I raise a brow at her. "Don't know, huh?" She crosses her arms. "Who cares anyway? We're not painting his toenails." "I think what's she's trying to say, honey bunches, is that maybe you should paint your nails his favorite color, to show him you're thinking about him," Rachel says, seasoning her words with tact. Rayna sets her chin. "Emma doesn't paint her nails Galen's favorite color." Startled that Galen has a favorite color and I don't know it, I say, "Uh, well, he doesn't like nail polish." That is to say, he's never mentioned it before. When a brilliant smile lights up her whole face, I know I've been busted. "You don't know his favorite color!" she says, actually pointing at me. "Yes, I do," I say, searching Rachel's face for the answer. She shrugs. Rayna's smirk is the epitome of I know something you don't know. Smacking it off her face is my first reflex, but I hold back, as I always do, because of the kiss I shared with Toraf and the way it hurt her. Sometimes I catch her looking at me with that same expression she had on the beach, and I feel like fungus, even though she deserved it at the time. Refusing to fold, I eye the buffet of nail polish scattered before me. Letting my fingers roam over the bottles, I shop the paints, hoping one of them stands out to me. To save my life, I can't think of any one color he wears more often. He doesn't have a favorite sport, so team colors are a no-go. Rachel picked his cars for him, so that's no help either. Biting my lip, I decide on an ocean blue. "Emma! Now I'm just ashamed of myself," he says from the doorway. "How could you not know my favorite color?" Startled, I drop the bottle back on the table. Since he's back so soon, I have to assume he didn't find what or who he wanted-and that he didn't hunt them for very long. Toraf materializes behind him, but Galen's shoulders are too broad to allow them both to stand in the doorway. Clearing my throat, I say, "I was just moving that bottle to get to the color I wanted." Rayna is all but doing a victory dance with her eyes. "Which is?" she asks, full of vicious glee. Toraf pushes past Galen and plops down next to his tiny mate. She leans into him, eager for his kiss. "I missed you," she whispers. "Not as much as I missed you," he tells her. Galen and I exchange eye rolls as he walks around to prop himself on the table beside me, his wet shorts making a butt-shaped puddle on the expensive wood. "Go ahead, angelfish," he says, nodding toward the pile of polish. If he's trying to give me a clue, he sucks at it. "Go" could mean green, I guess. "Ahead" could mean...I have no idea what that could mean. And angelfish come in all sorts of colors. Deciding he didn't encode any messages for me, I sigh and push away from the table to stand. "I don't know. We've never talked about it before." Rayna slaps her knee in triumph. "Ha!" Before I can pass by him, Galen grabs my wrist and pulls me to him, corralling me between his legs. Crushing his mouth to mine, he moves his hand to the small of my back and presses me into him. Since he's still shirtless and I'm in my bikini, there's a lot of bare flesh touching, which is a little more intimate than I'm used to with an audience. Still, the fire sears through me, scorching a path to the furthest, deepest parts of me. It takes every bit of grit I have not to wrap my arms around his neck. Gently, I push my hands against his chest to end the kiss, which is something I never thought I'd do. Giving him a look that I hope conveys "inappropriate," I step back. I've spent enough time in their company to know without looking that Rayna's eyes are bugging out of their sockets and Toraf is grinning like a nutcracker doll. With any luck, Rachel didn't even see the kiss. Stealing a peek at her, she meets my gaze with openmouthed shock. Okay, it looked as bad as I thought it did.

Mallory.' He stops me. His expression is solemn. 'It's lonely, chess. You may have a team around you, but when it really comes down to it, you're on your own. You play on your own. You lose and win on your own. You go home, and you're on your own.

What if you wake up hung-over the following morning, not dead, but realizing that you had killed somebody? Even worse, what if you wake up in the morning realizing you destroyed the things you loved most in your life? When she regained consciousness in the hospital scared and alone, Kate realized the nightmare was a reality… her parents were dead… her soul-mate was in prison… her life would never be the same. Through the eyes of many, Troy Trindle had it all… he was good-looking, popular, captain of the football team and dating the head cheerleader. What he lacked were the basic necessities; food, shelter and a family. Kate and Troy’s worlds collide when she moves to Alabama to resume training for a spot on the Olympic Gymnastics Team.

The fact that parts of Biden’s base had pushed for him to pick Representative Barbara Lee of California as his running mate had helped the Trump team with its messaging, since Lee was known for her ties to far-left groups and being openly pro-socialism.

You came.” My voice is hoarse, scratchy, and layered with disbelief. He pauses, turquoise eyes raking over my body, cataloguing the burns at my wrists, the black lines in my skin, and the torn fabric of my dress. Caed’s answer, when it comes, is a broken, resigned whisper. “You called.

I had a lot of adventures as a child, but one that stands out is when I was cut under my eye while playing at Shivaji Park, the breeding ground of cricketers in Mumbai, and had to return home covered in blood. I was captaining my team in a match at Shivaji Park when I was twelve and after our wicketkeeper got injured I asked my team-mates if anyone could keep wicket. No one volunteered and somewhat reluctantly I stepped up to the challenge, even though I’d never tried it before. I was uncomfortable standing in the unfamiliar position behind the stumps and soon missed a nick. The ball came at me fast and, even before I could react, it hit me smack in the face, just missing my eye.

For such people, finding a mate is like scoring a goal. You have to develop skills like talking cheesy, praising generously, and targeting properly. They are unable to see the opposite person as a human being. All they focus upon is their own strategy and tactics. For them, all the people on the opposite team are alike - except for looks, education and career.

Most of this fixation was easy to explain. Brady was a midfield player, a passer, and Arsenal haven’t really had one since he left. It might surprise those who have a rudimentary grasp of the rules of the game to learn that a First Division football team can try to play football without a player who can pass the ball, but it no longer surprises the rest of us: passing went out of fashion just after silk scarves and just before inflatable bananas. Managers, coaches and therefore players now favour alternative methods of moving the ball from one part of the field to another, the chief of which is a sort of wall of muscle strung across the half-way line in order to deflect the ball in the general direction of the forwards. Most, indeed all, football fans regret this. I think I can speak for all of us when I say that we used to like passing, that we felt that on the whole it was a good thing. It was nice to watch, football’s prettiest accessory (a good player could pass to a team-mate we hadn’t seen, or find an angle we wouldn’t have thought of, so there was a pleasing geometry to it), but managers seemed to feel that it was a lot of trouble, and therefore stopped bothering to produce any players who could do it. There are still a couple of passers in England, but then, there are still a number of blacksmiths.

The eccentric passion of Shankly was underlined for me by my England team-mate Roger Hunt's version of the classic tale of the Liverpool manager's pre-game talk before playing Manchester United. The story has probably been told a thousand times in and out of football, and each time you hear it there are different details, but when Roger told it the occasion was still fresh in his mind and I've always believed it to be the definitive account. It was later on the same day, as Roger and I travelled together to report for England duty, after we had played our bruising match at Anfield. Ian St John had scored the winner, then squared up to Denis Law, with Nobby finally sealing the mood of the afternoon by giving the Kop the 'V' sign. After settling down in our railway carriage, Roger said, 'You may have lost today, but you would have been pleased with yourself before the game. Shanks mentioned you in the team talk. When he says anything positive about the opposition, normally he never singles out players.' According to Roger, Shankly burst into the dressing room in his usual aggressive style and said, 'We're playing Manchester United this afternoon, and really it's an insult that we have to let them on to our field because we are superior to them in every department, but they are in the league so I suppose we have to play them. In goal Dunne is hopeless- he never knows where he is going. At right back Brennan is a straw- any wind will blow him over. Foulkes the centre half kicks the ball anywhere. On the left Tony Dunne is fast but he only has one foot. Crerand couldn't beat a tortoise. It's true David Herd has got a fantastic shot, but if Ronnie Yeats can point him in the right direction he's likely to score for us. So there you are, Manchester United, useless...' Apparently it was at this point the Liverpool winger Ian Callaghan, who was never known to whisper a single word on such occasions, asked, 'What about Best, Law and Charlton, boss?' Shankly paused, narrowed his eyes, and said, 'What are you saying to me, Callaghan? I hope you're not saying we cannot play three men.

As engine vibrated under him, he tried to tell himself it was all going to work out. It had to. Now that he’d found The One, there was no way in hell he was letting her get away. If that meant he had to move heaven and earth to find a good life for her and her pack mates here in the city, he’d do it. If being with Jayna meant he had to empty out his bank account and sell everything he owned, he was okay with that too. He had friends in other places he could turn to, Family too. His parents owned a huge house and a lot of land outside of Denver. If he showed up with Jayna, her pack, and no job, his family would welcome them with open arms. Okay, maybe his mom would be a little shocked when she found out his girlfriend came with an extended family, but she’d overlook it if there was a possibility of a grandchild in the near future. Becker was still daydreaming about kids with Jayna someday when headlights suddenly appeared in his rear- view mirror. He glanced over, swearing when he saw two vehicles speeding up behind him and closing fast.

16 November 2013, my cricketing journey finally came to an end at the Wankhede Stadium. After somehow managing to complete my farewell speech, I was having a conversation with my family, trying to soak in every moment, when my team-mate Virat Kohli walked up to me. He said, ‘Paaji aapne kaha tha aap ko yaad dilane ke liye ki aapko pitch pe jana hain.’ (You asked me to remind you that you had to go to the pitch one final time.) To be honest, I hadn’t forgotten; I was just trying to put the moment off for a little longer. It was to be my final visit to

rock Moore Brock has enough on his hands as alpha bear shifter and Lieutenant of his firefighter rescue team, handling a serious case of dangerous fires around the Reno-Sparks , Nevada area. Family has always come first, and when his mother phones him with a cryptic message, he knows something's up. It's another reason he's hesitant to take the next step with Sky, the shapely, captivating and feisty bombshell he wishes he could one day call his one true mate ... if only there weren't so many barriers and secrets standing in their way. Somehow, all those hurdles start to seem small when

Okay, let's look at it like this: you could meet a twenty-five-year-old guy who is your soul mate. You fall in love and have wild fun, maybe date for a few years. You're a team. You decide together where your home will be and you save for one. You get married, have children, and be on equal grounds for the rest of your lives." My eyes fall to hers in the mirror and I watch her. “Or… you could hook up with Mr. Masters, who has already fallen in love with his soul mate and lost her. He’s a widow and you will always come second to her no matter what. His house, his job, his children… and you’re left to fit in somewhere around them.

History generally records that Michael Vaughan quit the England captaincy in tearful circumstances following the Test-series defeat to South Africa in 2008. But the Top Spin can reveal this version of events is little more than a smokescreen. For it appears that what actually tipped Vaughan over the edge was a phonecall from a stricken team-mate - a call so harrowing Vaughan decided he could cope no longer. The ex-skipper was enjoying a barbecue at home with friends two summers ago when he took a rare call from Monty Panesar. 'Hello, Monty.' 'Hello Vaughany. I've got some bad news for you.' 'Oh?' 'Yes, you know I was telling you about my parrot Gary last week?' 'Er...' 'Well, he's gone missing. Just thought you'd like to know.' 'Sorry to hear that Monty.' 'Bye.' 'Bye.' So aghast was Vaughan that captaincy duty now extended to fielding calls from team-mates about escaped pets that he knew his time was up. Sure, the tears at the farewell press conference left an impression on us all. But it was Monty's ex-parrot that sealed the deal.

Where do you go to make friends when you’re an adult? No, honestly, I’m asking, where do you do this? There are no more late-night study sessions or university social events. And while meeting friends at work is the obvious answer, your options are very limited if you don’t click with your colleagues or if you’re self-employed. (Also, if you’re only friends with people at work, who do you complain about your colleagues too?) I don’t volunteer. I don’t participate in organised religion. I don’t play team sports. Where do selfish, godless, lazy people go to make friends? That’s where I need to be. Nearly all of my closest friends have been assigned to me: either via seating chats at school, university room-mates, or desk buddies at work. After taking stock, I realise that most of my friends were forced to sit one metre away from me for several hours at a time. I’ve never actively reached out to make a new friend who wasn’t within touching distance. With no helpful administrators, just how do we go about making friends as adults? Is it possible to cultivate that intense closeness without the heady combination of naivety, endless hours of free time on hand and lack of youthful inhibitions? Or is that lost for ever after we hit thirty?

When we get down to potential versus reality in relationships, we often see disappointment, not successful achievement. In the Church, if someone creates nuclear fallout in a calling, they are often released or reassigned quickly. Unfortunately, we do not have that luxury when we marry. So many of us have experienced this sad realization in the first weeks of our marriages. For example, we realized that our partner was not going to live up to his/her potential and give generously to the partnership. While fighting the mounting feelings of betrayal, we watched our new spouses claim a right to behave any way they desired, often at our expense. Most of us made the "best" of a truly awful situation but felt like a rat trapped in maze. We raised a family, played our role, and hoped that someday things would change if we did our part. It didn't happen, but we were not allowed the luxury of reassigning or releasing our mates from poor stewardship as a spouse or parent. We were stuck until we lost all hope and reached for the unthinkable: divorce. Reality is simple for some. Those who stay happily married (the key word here is happily are the ones who grew and felt companionship from the first days of marriage. Both had the integrity and dedication to insure its success. For those of us who are divorced, tracing back to those same early days, potential disappeared and reality reared its ugly head. All we could feel, after a sealing for "time and all eternity," was bound in an unholy snare. Take the time to examine the reality of who your sweetheart really is. What do they accomplish by natural instinct and ability? What do you like/dislike about them? Can you live with all the collective weaknesses and create a happy, viable union? Are you both committed to making each other happy? Do you respect each other's agency, and are you both encouraging and eager to see the two of you grow as individuals and as a team? Do you both talk-the-talk and walk-the-walk? Or do you love them and hope they'll change once you're married to them? Chances are that if the answer to any of these questions are "sorta," you are embracing their potential and not their reality. You may also be embracing your own potential to endure issues that may not be appropriate sacrifices at this stage in your life. No one changes without the internal impetus and drive to do so. Not for love or money. . . . We are complex creatures, and although we are trained to see the "good" in everyone, it is to our benefit to embrace realism when it comes to finding our "soul mate." It won't get much better than what you have in your relationship right now.

Did dinosaurs sing? Was there a teeming, singing wilderness with all the species thumping around, tuning up for the next millennia? Of course, dinosaurs sang, I thought. They are the ancestors of the singing birds and cousins to the roaring crocodiles…turns out, no. Turns out the syrinx, the organ that produces birdsong and the larynx, the organ that produces operatic arias, didn’t evolve until after the dinosaur extinction event…Some dinosaurs blew air into their closed mouths and through nasal cavities into resonance chambers, which we see in fossils as bony crests. They made the forest echo with clear, ominous tones, eerily like a cello. I have heard it in recordings scientists made of the sound they produced when they blew air through crests constructed to mimic lambeosaurus’s. Some dinosaurs cooed to their mates like doves…turns out that even if dinosaurs didn’t sing, they danced. There is evidence in vigorous scrape marks found in 100-million year old Colorado sandstone. From the courting behavior of ostriches and grouse, scientists envision the dinosaur males coming together on courting grounds, bobbing and scratching, flaring their brilliant feathers and cooing. Imagine: huge animals, each weighing more than a dozen football teams, shaking the Earth for a chance at love. What the story of the dinosaurs tells me is that if the earth didn’t have music, it would waste no time inventing it. In birds, tantalizing evidence of birdsong is found in 67-million-year old fossils, marking the first know appearance of the syrinx. Now the whole Earth can chime, from deep in the sea to high in the atmosphere with the sounds of snapping shrimp, singing mice, roaring whales, moaning bears, clattering dragonflies, and a fish calling like a foghorn. Who could catalog the astonishing oeuvre of the Earth? And more songs are being created every year.

THE ORIGIN OF INTELLIGENCE Many theories have been proposed as to why humans developed greater intelligence, going all the way back to Charles Darwin. According to one theory, the evolution of the human brain probably took place in stages, with the earliest phase initiated by climate change in Africa. As the weather cooled, the forests began to recede, forcing our ancestors onto the open plains and savannahs, where they were exposed to predators and the elements. To survive in this new, hostile environment, they were forced to hunt and walk upright, which freed up their hands and opposable thumbs to use tools. This in turn put a premium on a larger brain to coordinate tool making. According to this theory, ancient man did not simply make tools—“tools made man.” Our ancestors did not suddenly pick up tools and become intelligent. It was the other way around. Those humans who picked up tools could survive in the grasslands, while those who did not gradually died off. The humans who then survived and thrived in the grasslands were those who, through mutations, became increasingly adept at tool making, which required an increasingly larger brain. Another theory places a premium on our social, collective nature. Humans can easily coordinate the behavior of over a hundred other individuals involved in hunting, farming, warring, and building, groups that are much larger than those found in other primates, which gave humans an advantage over other animals. It takes a larger brain, according to this theory, to be able to assess and control the behavior of so many individuals. (The flip side of this theory is that it took a larger brain to scheme, plot, deceive, and manipulate other intelligent beings in your tribe. Individuals who could understand the motives of others and then exploit them would have an advantage over those who could not. This is the Machiavellian theory of intelligence.) Another theory maintains that the development of language, which came later, helped accelerate the rise of intelligence. With language comes abstract thought and the ability to plan, organize society, create maps, etc. Humans have an extensive vocabulary unmatched by any other animal, with words numbering in the tens of thousands for an average person. With language, humans could coordinate and focus the activities of scores of individuals, as well as manipulate abstract concepts and ideas. Language meant you could manage teams of people on a hunt, which is a great advantage when pursuing the woolly mammoth. It meant you could tell others where game was plentiful or where danger lurked. Yet another theory is “sexual selection,” the idea that females prefer to mate with intelligent males. In the animal kingdom, such as in a wolf pack, the alpha male holds the pack together by brute force. Any challenger to the alpha male has to be soundly beaten back by tooth and claw. But millions of years ago, as humans became gradually more intelligent, strength alone could not keep the tribe together.

Reaching out, he took her hand. “We’re going to be ready. Whether it’s tonight, tomorrow or the next day . . . we’ll be prepared. I won’t let anyone hurt you or the kids.” Relief flickered across her face. “This isn’t your fight. I feel guilty for making it seem like it is. But I’m also glad you’re here and that makes me feel guilty again, so . . . ” “Guilt’s a useless emotion.” He made peace with that much in rehab. It was useless to feel guilty that he’d made it home alive from Pakistan when some of his team mates hadn’t been so lucky. Equally worthless was his guilt over his sense of loss about his leg when Colton hadn’t come home at all. “You need the kind of help I can provide. And I don’t mind helping. I’ve always . . . ” Liked you, is what he meant to say. Maybe cared a little. But his throat stopped working and the words remained trapped in his brain. Which had become strangely disconnected with logic. Because instead of saying more, he leaned in slightly and kissed her.

Ethan slumped on the bench in the change room, ignoring the ribald behavior around him after yet another foregone win. A hard slap on the rear of his head roused him and he whirled, his lip curled back as he growled menacingly. “Don’t you dare show me your teeth,” Javier warned with a dark look. He ran his hand through hair, already tousled and sweaty from the match. “What the fuck happened out there? I passed you the perfect shot, and instead of grabbing it and scoring, you crashed into the g**damn arena glass. What are you, a rookie? Been watching too many Bugs Bunny cartoons?” Heat burned Ethan’s cheeks in remembrance of his mishap before dejection— along with a large dose of disbelief— quickly set back in. “I missed. It happens and besides, it’s not like we needed the point to win.” “Of course we didn’t,” Javier replied with a scoffing snort. “But it’s the point of it. What the hell distracted you so much? And, why do you look like your best friend died, which, I might add, is an impossibility given I’m standing right beside you.” Javier grinned. “I think I found my mate,” Ethan muttered. A true beauty with light skin, a perfect oval face framed by long, brown hair and the most perfect set of rosebud lips. Javier’s face expressed shock, then glee. “Congrats, dude.” Javier slapped him hard on the back, and while the blow might have killed a human or a smaller species, it didn’t even budge Ethan. “I know you’ve been pining to settle down with someone of the fairer sex. You must be ecstatic.” “Not really.” Although he should have been. Finding one’s mate was a one in a zillion chance given how shifters were scattered across the globe. Most never even came close to finding the one fate deemed their perfect match. His friend’s jovial grin subsided. “What’s wrong? Was she, like, butt ugly? Humongous? Old? Surely she can’t be that bad?” “No, she appears perfect. Or did.” Ethan groaned as banged his head off the locker door. “I am so screwed.” A frown creased Javier’s face. “I don’t get it. I thought you wanted to find the one, you sick bastard. Settle down and pop out cubs.” Ethan looked up in time to see Javier’s mock shudder. “Me, I prefer to share my love among as many women as possible.” Javier mimed slapping an ass then humping it with a leering grin. Ethan didn’t smile at Javier’s attempt at humor even if it happened to be the truth. Javier certainly enjoyed variety where the other sex was concerned. Heck, on many an occasion he’d shared with Ethan. Tag team sessions where they both scored. Best friends who did just about everything together. Blowing out a long sigh, Ethan answered him. “I do want to find my mate, actually, I’m pretty sure I already have, but I don’t think I made a great impression. She’s the one they took out on the stretcher after the ball I missed hit her in the face.” Javier winced. “Ouch. Sucks to be you, my friend. Don’t worry, though. I’m sure she’ll forgive you in, like, fifty years.” Ethan groaned and dropped his head back into his hands. Now that I’ve found her, how do I discover who she is so I can beg her forgiveness? And even worse, how the hell do I act the part of suitor? Raised in the Alaskan wilds by a father who wasn’t all there after the death of Ethan’s mother, his education in social niceties was sadly lacking. He tended to speak with his fists more often than not. Lucky for him, when it came to women, he didn’t usually have to do a thing. Females tended to approach him for sex so they could brag afterward that they’d ridden the Kodiak and survived. Not that Ethan would ever hurt a female, even if his idea of flirty conversation usually consisted of “Suck me harder” and “Bend over.” If I add “darling” on the end, will she count it as sweet talk?

I need to find out who she is,” he told Javier as he entered the shower room with the rest of the team. “If they had to take her out on a stretcher, then chances are someone knows her name.” “Good for you, my friend, for not giving up in the face of obvious adversity. And because I am such a good friend, I shall come with you when you visit her so I might laugh when the female retaliates against you for messing up her face.” Javier flew backward with the force of the punch Ethan laid on him. Rubbing his jaw, his friend glared up at him. “That wasn’t very nice.” Ethan snarled. “Maybe if you hadn’t thrown the ball so damned hard, I wouldn’t be in this position in the first place. I’m glad you find my situation so g**damned funny.” Jumping to his feet, Javier raised his fists. “Alright, my friend. Let’s go. You obviously need to work off some tension, might as well do it now. Think of your coming beating as a courting favor because I’m going to give you some black eyes to match those of your mate.” “I’d like to see you try.” With a feral grin, Ethan lumbered at his friend, paws swinging as the other players in the shower room scattered. Old habits died hard, and when it came to working out frustration, the easiest route still involved violence. Ethan refused to view it as stalling out of fear. Kodiak bears feared nothing, especially not one fated female. But just in case, perhaps once he de-stressed, he would pick up flowers, or buy a whole damned floral shop for her.

I don’t suppose you’d care to explain the we-don’t-have-a-choice aspect to Naomi?” Javier rejoined sarcastically. “Why bother? She’s bound and determined to fight her beast and in turn, her shifter nature. I say let her.” Incredulity marked Javier’s expression. “Isn’t that counterproductive to your, make that our, goal?” “No, it is simple biology,” Ethan explained. “She will eventually come to us. Keep in mind, the longer she denies the pull to mate, the harder the desire to claim us will ride her.” “That sounds kind of callous,” Javier remarked. “I’m surprised. I expected more of you.” “You didn’t let me explain what my plan was while she fought her nature. I plan to stay glued to her side, apart from practices and games, of course. I will get to know her, and in turn, she will come to know me. Befriend her, in other words, and if I’m lucky, perhaps she’ll even come to love me. I know I’m already half way there.” A romantic like his father, Ethan believed in love at first sight despite his more pragmatic friend’s comments. Javier snorted. “Gods, don’t let the opposing team ever hear you yapping like a woman. For a giant bear, you’re awfully sentimental.” A dark look shot Javier’s way made his feline friend grin. Ethan growled. “You are lucky I am holding her, or I’d make you swallow your words.” “Down Smokey,” Javier joked. “Actually, your plan is a good one. She is most definitely intriguing, and if we’re going to spend the rest of our lives with her, then I guess becoming her friend before her lover is a good start. But I warn you, if she insists on sex, I will sacrifice myself for the greater good to please her.” “Whatever,” Ethan scoffed. “You might be the oral master, but I will still always have the bigger cock.” And with that parting shot, Ethan stood with his precious burden and lumbered upstairs to find her bedroom.

I wasn’t afraid of crossing into what some of the players might have considered their private territory–hairstyles and jewellery. I never understood why players would want to have long hair when they spend so much effort trying to be as fit and quick as possible. Anything, even a few extra locks of hair, just didn’t seem sensible. I had my first issue with a player on this topic when Karel Poborský came to Manchester from Slavia Prague in 1996, looking as though he was going to play for Led Zeppelin rather than United. I did manage to persuade him to trim his locks but, even so, they were always too long for my taste. There were other players who would be wearing necklaces carrying crosses that seemed heavier than those the pilgrims carry up the Via Dolorosa in Jerusalem. I banned all those. However, there wasn’t much I could do about tattoos since it was hard–even for me–to argue that they added any weight. Eric Cantona started that particular craze when he arrived one morning with the head of an American Indian chief stencilled on to his left breast. Since Eric was venerated by his team-mates, several other players followed suit. I was always struck by the fact that Cristiano Ronaldo never chose to deface his body. It said a lot about his self-discipline.

My mate loves to play with his food.” Noah shot a look at the two bound rogues as the rest of the team laughed.

Ignore insults and provocations from the enemy, it's psychological warfare.  Ignore the same from team mates if they accuse you of camping: as soon as your kills begin to pile up, they'll shut up.

I could hardly sleep and even when I did drop off, I awoke to a grim thought: I’m disgusting. I can’t play any more. I went to bed with Dudek and all his Liverpool team-mates.

Glowing technology was also used to track success while engineering the first transgenic dog, Ruppy, short for Ruby Puppy. Ruppy was born in South Korea in 2009, one of a litter of four cloned beagles engineered by scientists at Seoul National University to express a red fluorescent protein gene. The experiment was a proof of concept; the team only intended to show that transgenic dogs could be cloned. Ruppy and her genetically identical littermates looked like perfectly normal beagles under natural light. But under ultraviolet light, they all glowed a charming, bright, ruby red. When Ruppy was mated to a non-transgenic dog, half her puppies inherited the red protein gene, indicating that the transgene had incorporated successfully into her germ line.

LORE Anagram 25 By patience. I tap ence. Deemed a deed me. That may and way. With the Nur and run. Be the mate and team. A scene in quest; The quintessence. In life of file. Now and won.

By the time I get off and make it a couple blocks towards my apartment building, I realize just how exhausting this week has been. An entirely new team, a wild situation, and a handsome alien that thinks I’m his hormonal soul mate. I sigh, knowing there’s no easy way to explain this one to the girls over drinks tomorrow.

Climate tugs at the individual threads of conflict too; personal irritability, interpersonal conflict, domestive violence. Heat frays everything. It increases violent crime rates, swearing on social media, and the liklihood that a major league pitcher, coming to the mound after his team mate has been hit by a pitch will hit an opposing batter in retaliation. The hotter it gets, the longer drivers will honk their horns in frustration. And even in simulations police officers are more likely to fire on intruders when the exercises are conducted in hotter weather. By 2099, one speculative paper tabulated, climate change in the United States would bring about an additional 22,000 murders, 180,000 rapes, 3.5 million assaults, and 3.76 million robberies, burglaries and acts of larceny.

Being a Connected Leader transforms loved ones into soul mates, families into havens, groups into cohesive teams, and workplaces into gateways that usher us and those we serve into possibility.

For a long time, I have been the one to say ‘checkmate’ until it occurred to me that it could be 'check on your mate'.

Mr. Phone took a swim when I was dropping the kids off at the pool.” “What?” Megan held up a bag of rice containing her damp phone. “Mr. Phone went for a dive and a backstroke in Mr. Toilet. Don’t worry, I’d already flushed when it happened.” “Not again,” Tina said, exasperated. “Why does that always happen to you?” “I blame Mr. Toilet. He has a gravitational pull that cannot be explained by modern science. We should get a team of researchers into the house to conduct tests.” Megan plopped the bag of rice and phone on the counter. “What were you calling me about?” Tina did an excited dance. “Your dentist came by looking for you.” “You met him? You met my Drew?” “Oh, Meenie, he’s so cute. Why didn’t you tell me he was so cute?” “I’m not shallow like you.” Tina said, “He’s a good one, Meenie. I think he might be the one.” “Don’t be gross. You know I hate stuff like that. If you and Luca start saying you’re soul mates, I’m going to throw up every time.” “Aren’t you going to ask what we talked about?” “He’d better not be buying me flowers from my own store. It’s cute when Luca does it, but he’s Luca. That sort of behavior from a man as dignified as Dr. Drew Morgan will not stand with me.” “Don’t worry. I told him not to ever buy you flowers or chocolates or any of that romantic stuff.” Megan frowned. “None of it?” “And I didn’t say anything embarrassing to him about our past.” Tina chewed her lower lip in that telltale way she did when she knew she’d done something Megan wouldn’t like.

My eyes locked on the hand Devin had placed so gently on Thea's. They were a pair, a team. I didn't know their story, but whatever bond had mated them had clearly made a decision that the two of them could live with. A bond, two souls meant to find each other. Was that something I could really have? Reach for? My attention drifted to the dragon sitting next to me in the booth, and under the table I slid my fingers next to his until I could hook my pinky with his.

Finally an idea came to him. He would return and see how his own team mates were making out. To his astonishment, they had disappeared. Again he wandered about through the great camp, looking for them, and again he returned. Were they in the tent? No, that could not be, else he would not have been driven out. Then where could they possibly be? With drooping tail and shivering body, very forlorn indeed, he aimlessly circled the tent. Suddenly the snow gave way beneath his fore legs and he sank down. Something wriggled under his feet. He sprang back, bristling and snarling, fearful of the unseen and unknown. But a friendly little yelp reassured him, and he went back to investigate.

Brad catches me staring and arches an eyebrow. "Are you seriously checking me out right now? I look like I swallowed the rest of the football team." "Of course I'm checking you out. You're my mate," I remind him. "And I happen to think it's hot. It's proof you're carrying my pup. Proof I bred you." His face grows noticeably red, and I can't help but find the signs of embarrassment adorable in his expression as he looks away, clearly flustered. "Oh, for fuck's sake," he mutters.

his leadership skills must not be forgotten either; as it soon became evident in his playing career; he didn’t just pass the ball to his team-mates, he talked to them constantly. ‘Keep it simple, Michael!’ shouted a twenty-year-old Guardiola on one occasion to Laudrup, the international superstar. The Danish player had tried to dribble past three players too close to the half-way line, where losing the ball would have been dangerous. ‘That was simple,’ Michael replied with a wink. But he knew the kid was right.

My role was to move the ball around the pitch for my team-mates to finish off the move,’ he says. The

He continually learnt from everything he saw around him, from other teams, from coaches, from older team-mates. On one occasion, he asked a couple of his colleagues to repeat a free-kick routine he had seen the B side perform the previous weekend. The move led to a goal and their coach asked, ‘Whose idea was that? And where did you pick that up?’ ‘From the grown-up players,’ responded a fifteen-year-old Pep Guardiola.

Look at him! Him, that one there! He’s hiding! Your team-mates need to know that you are always available!’ he’ll shout, pointing a finger at the culprit. ‘Before passing the ball, you need to know where you’re passing it to; if you don’t know, it’s better to keep it; give it to your goalie, but don’t give it to your opponent

When we have the ball, we can’t lose it. And when that happens, run and get it back. That is it, basically.’ The squad, the group, was seduced. Not for the last time; far from it. Upon leaving the room, Xavi commented to a team-mate that everything that they had needed to know was there in that talk. A breath of fresh air, order and discipline. A reminder of the style he wanted to reinforce. All that was established from day one.

He represents the values and feelings of Barcelona. Attacking football, respect for team-mates, respect for the fans. And now he was going to be my coach!

he wanted to confirm a personal theory: that a reserve team, like any other, could serve as a university of football; because all teams behave, react and respond the same way. Whether superstars or Sunday league, there’s always a player who is jealous of a team-mate, another who is always late, a joker, an obedient one fearful of punishment and eager to please, a quiet one, a rebel . . . It was also educational because it helped prepare for the fact that every opponent is different: some are offensive, others timid, some defend in their own box, others counter-attack. Working with the B team gave Guardiola the perfect opportunity to try and find solutions to the kinds of problems he would encounter working with a higher profile team; yet enabled him to do so away from the spotlight and glare of the media.

Each player must be convinced that what he does is the best thing for him, for his team-mates and for the general idea. The goal is to pass the “ABC” of football on to each player. For example, you are an inside player, you must do this and not that, and nothing more. Once you learn what an inside player must do, you can then think of variations. And when it doesn’t work, you must go back to the “ABC”. The main thing is to have rules. You can only ask a player to do something that he knows and nothing more.

In recognition of his standing and commitment to conservation and research, the University of Queensland was about to appoint him as an adjust professor, an honor bestowed on only a few who have made a significant contribution to their field. Steve didn’t know this had happened. The letter from the university arrived at Australia Zoo while we were in the field studying crocs during August 2006. He never got back to the pile of mail that included that letter. I know he would have proudly accepted the recognition of his achievement, but I also suspect that he would have remained humble and given credit to those around him, especially Terri, his mum and dad, Wes, John Stainton, and the incredible team at Australia Zoo. A year later, in 2007, we are back here in northern Australia, continuing the research in his name. There is a big gap in all our lives, but I feel he is here, all around us. One sure sign is that the sixteen-foot crocodile we named “Steve” keeps turning up in our traps. My life has been enriched by my friendship with Steve. I now sit around the fire with Terri, his family, and mates from Australia Zoo chatting about crocodiles and continuing the legacy Steve has left behind. Terri and Bob Irwin are now leading the croc-catching team from Australia Zoo, and Bindi is helping to affix the tracking devices to crocs, and so the tradition continues. I miss him. We all do. But I can sit at the campfire and look into the coals and hear his voice, always intense, always passionate, telling us stories and goading us on to achieve more. The enthusiasm and determination Steve shared with us is alive and well. He has touched so many lives. His memory will never fade, and this book will be one of the ways we can remind ourselves of our brush with the indomitable spirit of a loving husband, father, and son; a committed wildlife ambassador and conservationist; and a great mate. Professor Craig E. Franklin, School of Integrative Biology University of Queensland Lakefield National Park August 2007

We trapped several smaller females, all around the nine-foot mark. That’s when Steve stepped back and let the all-girl team take over: all the women in camp, zoo workers mainly, myself, and others. We would jump on the croc, help secure the tracking device, and let her go. At one point Steve trapped a female that he could see was small and quiet. He turned to Bindi. “How would you like to jump the head?” Bindi’s eyes lit up. This was what she had been waiting for. Once Steve removed the croc from the trap and secured its jaws, the next step was for the point person to jump the croc’s head. Everybody else on the team followed immediately afterward, pinning the crocodile’s body. “Don’t worry,” I said to Bindi. “I’ll back you up.” Or maybe I was really talking to Steve. He was nervous as he slipped the croc out of its mesh trap. He hovered over the whole operation, knowing that if anything went amiss, he was right there to help. “Ready, and now!” he said. Bindi flung herself on the head of the crocodile. I came in right over her back. The rest of the girls jumped on immediately, and we had our croc secured. “Let’s take a photo with the whole family,” Professor Franklin said. Bindi sat proudly at the crocodile’s head, her hand casually draped over its eyes. Steve was in the middle, holding up the croc’s front legs. Next in line was me. Finally, Robert had the tail. This shot ended up being our 2006 family Christmas card. I look at it now and it makes me laugh out loud. The family that catches crocs together, rocks together. The Irwin family motto. Steve, Bindi, and I are all smiling. But then there is Robert’s oh-so-serious face. He has a top-jaw rope wrapped around his body, with knots throughout. He took his job seriously. He had the rope and was ready as the backup. He was on that croc’s tail. It was all about catching crocs safely, mate. No mucking around here. As we idled back in to camp, Robert said, “Can I please drive the boat?” “Crikey, mate, you are two years old,” Steve said. “I’ll let you drive the boat next year.” But then, quite suddenly and without a word, Steve scooped Robert up and sat him up next to the outboard. He put the tiller in his hand. “Here’s what you do, mate,” Steve said, and he began to explain how to drive the boat. He seemed in a hurry to impart as much wisdom to his son as possible. Robert spent the trip jumping croc tails, driving the boat, and tying knots. Steve created a croc made of sticks and set it on a sandbar. He pulled the boat up next to it, and he, Robert, and Bindi went through all the motions of jumping the stick-croc. “I’m going to say two words,” Robert shouted, imitating his father. “’Go,’ and ‘Now.’ First team off on ‘Go,’ second team off on ‘Now.’” Then he’d yell “Go, now” at the top of his lungs. He and Steve jumped up as if the stick-croc was about to swing around and tear their arms off. “Another croc successfully caught, mate,” Steve said proudly. Robert beamed with pride too. When he got back to Croc One, Robert wrangled his big plush crocodile toy. I listened, incredulous, as my not-yet-three-year-old son muttered the commands of a seasoned croc catcher. He had all the lingo down, verbatim. “Get me a twelve-millimeter rope,” Robert commanded. “I need a second one. Get that top-jaw rope under that tooth, yep, the eye tooth, get it secured. We’ll need a third top-jaw rope for this one. Who’s got a six-millimeter rope? Hand me my Leatherman. Cut that rope here. Get that satellite tracker on.” The stuffed animal thoroughly secured, Robert made as if to brush off his little hands. “Professor Franklin,” he announced in his best grown-up voice, “it’s your croc.

We trapped several smaller females, all around the nine-foot mark. That’s when Steve stepped back and let the all-girl team take over: all the women in camp, zoo workers mainly, myself, and others. We would jump on the croc, help secure the tracking device, and let her go. At one point Steve trapped a female that he could see was small and quiet. He turned to Bindi. “How would you like to jump the head?” Bindi’s eyes lit up. This was what she had been waiting for. Once Steve removed the croc from the trap and secured its jaws, the next step was for the point person to jump the croc’s head. Everybody else on the team followed immediately afterward, pinning the crocodile’s body. “Don’t worry,” I said to Bindi. “I’ll back you up.” Or maybe I was really talking to Steve. He was nervous as he slipped the croc out of its mesh trap. He hovered over the whole operation, knowing that if anything went amiss, he was right there to help. “Ready, and now!” he said. Bindi flung herself on the head of the crocodile. I came in right over her back. The rest of the girls jumped on immediately, and we had our croc secured. “Let’s take a photo with the whole family,” Professor Franklin said. Bindi sat proudly at the crocodile’s head, her hand casually draped over its eyes. Steve was in the middle, holding up the croc’s front legs. Next in line was me. Finally, Robert had the tail. This shot ended up being our 2006 family Christmas card. I look at it now and it makes me laugh out loud. The family that catches crocs together, rocks together. The Irwin family motto. Steve, Bindi, and I are all smiling. But then there is Robert’s oh-so-serious face. He has a top-jaw rope wrapped around his body, with knots throughout. He took his job seriously. He had the rope and was ready as the backup. He was on that croc’s tail. It was all about catching crocs safely, mate. No mucking around here.

As we idled back in to camp, Robert said, “Can I please drive the boat?” “Crikey, mate, you are two years old,” Steve said. “I’ll let you drive the boat next year.” But then, quite suddenly and without a word, Steve scooped Robert up and sat him up next to the outboard. He put the tiller in his hand. “Here’s what you do, mate,” Steve said, and he began to explain how to drive the boat. He seemed in a hurry to impart as much wisdom to his son as possible. Robert spent the trip jumping croc tails, driving the boat, and tying knots. Steve created a croc made of sticks and set it on a sandbar. He pulled the boat up next to it, and he, Robert, and Bindi went through all the motions of jumping the stick-croc. “I’m going to say two words,” Robert shouted, imitating his father. “’Go,’ and ‘Now.’ First team off on ‘Go,’ second team off on ‘Now.’” Then he’d yell “Go, now” at the top of his lungs. He and Steve jumped up as if the stick-croc was about to swing around and tear their arms off. “Another croc successfully caught, mate,” Steve said proudly. Robert beamed with pride too. When he got back to Croc One, Robert wrangled his big plush crocodile toy. I listened, incredulous, as my not-yet-three-year-old son muttered the commands of a seasoned croc catcher. He had all the lingo down, verbatim. “Get me a twelve-millimeter rope,” Robert commanded. “I need a second one. Get that top-jaw rope under that tooth, yep, the eye tooth, get it secured. We’ll need a third top-jaw rope for this one. Who’s got a six-millimeter rope? Hand me my Leatherman. Cut that rope here. Get that satellite tracker on.” The stuffed animal thoroughly secured, Robert made as if to brush off his little hands. “Professor Franklin,” he announced in his best grown-up voice, “it’s your croc.

The women, sans Kerry, closed ranks once again, and from the cool, considering look of Hannah to the enthusiastic and plotting smiles of Grace, Alex, and Delia and now the unbridled glee of bride-to-be Fiona, he wasn’t exactly sure what he might have just gotten himself into. He glanced back at Logan. “Should I be afraid, mate?” “Oh, very, very afraid. Mate.” Then a slow smile spread across Logan’s face, transforming him from stern police chief and protective brother to a far more relaxed and, if Cooper wasn’t mistaken, surprisingly relieved-looking comrade in arms. “You know, I just realized I haven’t been looking at this the right way at all.” Logan looked from Kerry to the group of women and then to Cooper. “Strength in numbers.” Kerry turned to her brother, hands limp at her sides now. “Wow,” she said flatly, turning the word into two drawn-out syllables. “Just…wow.” “Hey, a minute ago you were jumping all over me for interrogating the guy. Which, you know, think about that. And I’m just saying that maybe, at times, it wouldn’t hurt to have another guy on the team.” “You’ve got all kinds of guys on ‘your team,’” she retorted, making air quotes on the last two words. “Every other person here has another half who is on your man team.

First Week of January 2013 Continuation of my Message to Andy (part 5)   Hi Andy, Are you back from your Tasmanian rowing expedition? Did your team win? I hope so. If I remember correctly, you were always an excellent rower and your teammates at Daltonbury Hall venerated your feathering mastery. I’d love to hear your adventures.☺   Back To My OBSS Escapades   As we headed to Jules’ makeshift office (a classroom temporarily converted), Kim was overtly skittish. He had surmised we would be consigned to cleaning the OBSS lavatories as punishment for our playful misdemeanour. I assured the teenager that that wouldn’t be the case; a more propitious outcome would be in order. Yet, he continued to brood, blaming me for my impertinence. Instead of arguing with him, I kept silent.               I couldn’t help but notice a sardonic smug on Jules’ handsome face when we entered. “Young, will you keep watch outside while I have a word with this young man?” he instructed. I sat on a nearby bench, waiting my turn. Minutes passed, and I needed to use the restroom. I wasn’t sure if I should leave, in the event I would be called upon, but I decided to go. Just as I was finishing my business, I heard a commotion outside. In states of disarray, my leader and tent-mate were being escorted out of the office by a couple of burly guards from the senior officer’s HQ. I was shocked to witness such an unanticipated occurrence. For a brief moment, Kim looked my direction before they marched into the darkness. The unforgettable terror on his face was of a man about to be hanged. It didn’t take long for rumours to circulate around camp that the two were caught red-handed doing unspeakable things to one another. Yet, none of the gossipmongers could provide a definitive account. The next day, Jules and Kim were gone. They had both been hastily expelled without having a chance to say goodbye. My three remaining days at OBSS, I was flummoxed. It was my final evening in Singapore when the truth came to light. My ex-OBSS leader was coming out of a bar in Bugis Street when I stumbled upon him. It was then that I heard the entire narrative from the horse’s mouth.

I reached under the table to taunt his hardness. He squealed, causing a few team members at the next table to glance in our direction. Kim’s face went red. He quickly stared at his plate as if nothing unusual had happened.               I seized the opportunity to stroke his covered erection again. This prompted his lower body to squirm uncontrollably while he shrieked for me to stop. I continued joshing the boy (I found his mortification amusing). His silly screeching and fidgeting created such a ruckus that all eyes were on us now. Jules was standing in front of us, and before Kim could find composure, he said, “Stop behaving like silly children. Grow up or I’ll send the two of you to detention.” But amid his stern reprehension, I detected a smirk. He was obviously enjoying his role as a reprimanding doyen.               As soon as Jules walked away, I taunted my buddy again, stirring another rumpus from squealing Kim. This time our instructor barked, “Both of you, come see me after dinner! We need to talk!” We immediately quieted down. As soon as his back was turned, Kim muttered, “We are in deep shit.”               “Really?” I said, smiling to myself.               “You’re truly inscrutable, you moron! He cried. “He’s sending us to clean the toilets.” I sniggered at his assessment but did not respond.               When the hoopla finally subsided, I said to my tent-mate, “You didn’t finish telling me what transpired between the two of you.”               Not wanting to have anything to do with me, the boy walked away.

Can you give money a new set of conscious instructions so it can be our team mate? Imagine that, money on our team as we help the planet and people thrive.

(the difference between a good and bad footballer, according to Cruyff, is how well you control the ball and where you place it with your first touch, accommodating it for yourself in the right direction or sending it accurately to your team-mate). It needed players who were able to be in the best positions to receive the ball, capable of constantly assisting, of one-twos, of keeping their heads up, of looking for the next pass before receiving, of anticipating play. But, more importantly, they had to be footballers capable of understanding the game.

We’re all members of one tribe or another—bonded by culture, family, religion, class, education, employment, team affiliation, or any number of other criteria. An essential first step in discerning the cultural from the human is what mythologist Joseph Campbell called detribalization. We have to recognize the various tribes we belong to and begin extricating ourselves from the unexamined assumptions each of them mistakes for the truth.

Remember, you are going to run out in front of the people who pay your wages. Their expectancy of you is high, their value of you is high and their opinion of you is high. So do not let them down. Entertain them and you can only do that by being honest with yourself, respecting your team-mates and your opponents, and by, as a team, playing as one.

Perhaps Brainbusters is still within reach. Maybe I could even be team-mates with Jake. If I have to. After the judging is complete everyone gathers round the front desk in the science lab to hear who the winners are. As I go over I catch Mrs Chen’s eye and she gives me a HUGE grin. A sign? Once again I feel quietly confident. Brainbusters, here I come! Then Mrs De Souza arrives to announce the winners. I am bursting to hear my name. She begins with some chit-chat about how it’s not the winning that’s important, it’s the taking part. She goes on to say that the standard is very high in this competition and that it is a shame there can only

When people leaving their job, they are not leaving their company but the are leaving their boss and team mates

never let anything bother me – not the crowd, not the opposition, not my own team-mates. It was one of the first and most important lessons taught to me as a professional footballer: don’t let anyone know what you’re thinking. Being dispassionate and staying calm are the hallmarks of a good goalkeeper but they’re traits that serve me well as a teacher too.

When you saw the exquisite pair team of Ekaterina Gordeeva and Sergei Grinkov, whether on ice or off, you wished everyone could know a connection, partnership, friendship and romance so effortless, harmonious and pure. Ekaterina knew of the terrible things in the world but felt safeguarded from them because Sergei was always by her side and that is the exceptional gift and strength of man – to feel safe with one, and her gift to him was what you see in their photos, captured in time and poetically immortalized.

Both boys played soccer in the Etzgadol City League. They were on different teams, of course. Zev’s team was all shifters. He was sure the pack would have forced them to play in an all-shifter league, if there were such a thing. But the shifter population didn’t have enough boys in his age group to make up a whole league, so the pack formed its own team in the Etzgadol City League. When Zev had learned of the integrated league two years earlier, he’d immediately developed what his parents called an “almost maniacal obsession” with both soccer and baseball—not coincidentally, the two sports in the Etzgadol City League. He’d never bothered with other sports because he’d seen no point. The only reason to participate, as far as Zev was concerned, was the chance to play with his human friend.

Question two: * Do you think your overly protective mother had an influence on you disliking your father? Answers: a) The answer to this 2nd question is a resounding ‘Yes’ and a reverberating ‘No.’ My mother was protective of me because she had nurtured a deep, strong relationship with me. She loved me for who I was and not for what she thought I ought to be. It was her unconditional love which drew me to her, whereas my dad never provided me the moral or psychological support I needed from an understanding and encouraging father. b) I was afraid of Foong Senior and I saw him as a dictator, which did nothing to endear me to the man. He wanted me to change into a person I was not and never will be. I could never ever live up to the image he had for me. In my eyes, I would never be good enough to gain his approval. c) On the other hand, my mother raised me to think for myself. Never did she coerce me not to be who I was. She nourished me and encouraged me to work on projects I loved and felt passionate about. On the contrary, my father tried to ‘butch me up’ into what he desired his sons to be. I was a victim of his own desires and I felt no urge to participate. I went to the sports-related activities solely to salivate on the handsome macho men who were often my tutors or fellow team mates.

It takes a very secure man to watch another man pleasuring his mate. To truly become a team rather than simply taking turns, well, that takes talent. And practice,

Yes, I am holding this powerful lady to my more powerful body. We're glued at our feet, thighs, abs and chest. My large shoulders are acting in full protection mode. I'm still sporting a rock-hard boner, which is sandwiched and slammed upright between us. That appears insignificant to her, luckily. Well, we respect that our bodies kick in suitably when needed. Welcome to the world of athletics. Jerome Kremers, book 1, TEAM MATES

Right then, that very second, with her face breaking with excitement, her eyes almost shut with cheekiness, her magnificent pink lips only centimetres away and her body rocking with bliss from her right leg to her left, I take half a step forward, hold two cups high above her head, invade her space, push her to the wall with my chest and kiss her as genuinely as Crocodile Dundee took on New York. And that was some serious genuine. How can we be mates and kiss like this? Jerome Kremers, book 1, TEAM MATES

Nicholson was both stern and critical in training. He knew the weaknesses of all his players and he exposed them so their team-mates could help to cover them in matches.

It's barely 8:00 a.m., but my train mates waste little time in breaking out the picnic material. But this isn't standard Japanese picnic fare: not a grain of rice or a pickled plum in sight. Instead, they fill the varnished wooden tables with thick slices of crusty bread, wedges of weeping cheese, batons of hard salamis, and slices of cured ham. To drink, bottles of local white wine, covered in condensation, and high-alcohol microbews rich in hops and local iconography. From the coastline we begin our slow, dramatic ascent into the mountains of Hokkaido. The colors bleed from broccoli to banana to butternut to beet as we climb, inching ever closer to the heart of autumn. My neighbors, an increasingly jovial group of thirtysomethings with a few words of English to spare, pass me a glass of wine and a plate of cheese, and I begin to feel the fog dissipate. We stop at a small train station in the foothills outside of Ginzan, and my entire car suddenly empties. A husband-and-wife team has set up a small stand on the train platform, selling warm apple hand pies made with layers of flaky pastry and apples from their orchard just outside of town. I buy one, take a bite, then immediately buy three more. Back on the train, young uniformed women flood the cars with samples of Hokkaido ice cream. The group behind me breaks out in song, a ballad, I'm later told, dedicated to the beauty of the season. Everywhere we go, from the golden fields of empty cornstalks to the dense forest thickets to the rushing rivers that carve up this land like the fat of a Wagyu steak, groups of camouflaged photographers lie in wait, tripods and shutter releases ready, hoping to capture the perfect photo of the SL Niseko steaming its way through the hills of Hokkaido.

Player: Sir, I don’t think we will win this match, every team member is convinced about the loss, the discussion is only about how badly. Coach: What do you think? The player: I think we only win if we decide to win, but I am just one member of the team, I can’t do anything on my own. At the end of the day it’s a team game. One person can make a difference, but the games are won by the teams. Coach: So, go there and make a difference. Player: How? Coach: It’s difficult but not impossible, you not only have to fight the opponents but also the fear of your team-mates, pretend it’s not difficult, stand firm, just over-look the refusals & denials, keep trying & make them believe it’s a cake-walk even if you are bruised, petrified or tired. Player: But what about the negative mind-set of some players. Coach: Don’t worry about them. They are like sheep, will anyways follow the majority. Keep trying, and most of them will feel ashamed of not doing anything, at least they will pretend to try, and that will give a positive signal to other players. Player: But I also feel de-motivated at times? Coach: Well, find your motivation in fighting the loss of hope, picture yourself in a post win situation, go for the win & take others along, even if some needs to be carried on your back.

Ummer was humbled; it was a deep lesson indeed. He understood now why he was punished when he wasn’t the one smuggling pen drives and why his team-mates were penalised when he couldn’t maintain the squad formation.

Married couples are not competitors against each other but team mates defending and supporting each other to combat any adversity against their union.

We only have red wolves here at Sandy Ridge now,” Ryan says. “Summer is our slow season. But by fall, this place will be packed with wolves and coyotes.” “Why do you hold coyotes here?” I ask. “If we know one is holding a territory, we trap it, sterilize it and put a radio collar on it,” Ryan explains. “They stay here at Sandy Ridge while they recover, and then we release them back to their territory.” By sterilizing coyotes that set up territories in the red wolf recovery area and then tracking them, the red wolf biologists protect the red wolf’s unique genome from hybridization with coyotes. But a sterile coyote doesn’t solve the red wolf’s propensity for running with and mating with coyotes. It only prevents conception. It is an elaborate birth-control scheme to ensure the survival of an endangered species. One of the quirks of the genus Canis is that the various species within it can interbreed and produce fertile offspring. Historically, hybridization of the last wild red wolves with coyotes was the single biggest threat that prompted the FWS to begin capturing the last wolves for breeding in captivity. When the first red wolves were reintroduced to Alligator River in 1987, the nearest coyotes were 500 miles west. Experts thought it would take them eight to ten years to pad their way to the coast - plenty of time, they thought, for red wolves to build up a big population and keep the invading coyotes at bay. But coyotes soon infiltrated the red wolf’s recovery area in the early 1990s. Suddenly, the Red Wolf Recovery Program had a problem on its hands: red wolves were once again hybridizing with coyotes. “Why don’t you just trap all the coyotes out of the recovery area?” I ask. “Even if we could remove them all, then more coyotes would likely just come in and take their territories,” Ryan replies. Plus, the team simply doesn’t have the manpower to trap all of the coyotes off the peninsula, though they put significant effort into patrolling certain areas to keep coyotes out. Coyotes are too adaptive and elusive for a large-scale trapping program to work permanently. In one of their biological quirks, coyotes are known to have more offspring survive to adulthood when their population is persecuted through lethal control efforts. The rascals can live on practically nothing, and they are prolific breeders to boot.

she’s a bit of a Billy No-Mates, too. She’s only here because no one else would have her. Her inability to get in on time doesn’t go down too well with most team leaders.

Champion... being a champion has nothing to do with sports... its a mindset.. A skill of looking at challenges that seem impossible, and Rising Up To Overcome.. You don't quit, you don't give up.... You get it Done no matter what.. No matter how many losses you get,, No matter how big the obstacles are.. You outlast until you are the one on top with your Team Mates.. Period.. IT takes a Leader and a Championship Team... but you only get that with The Mindset of a Champion...

Studies led by neuroscientist Lisa Feldman Barrett and her team suggest that people who are more skilled in figuring out what they’re feeling are likelier to use strategies to reduce negative emotions and increase positive ones than people less able to distinguish their emotions.

Oklahoma was overrun, at various times, by dinosaurs, mammoths, rhinos, horses, and camels, all running wild, eating and mating, owning the land outright. Again, to someone who knows only modern Oklahoma City, to someone who has watched a tennis shoe float down the Bricktown Canal past Toby Keith’s I This Bar & Grill, none of this will seem possible.

A leader doesn’t just tell, he spells out what should be done and follows through with examples. He’s not done till he is convinced that his team mates clearly understand how, when, where and what should be done. He is every inch a leader.

My name is Krzysztof SlotMate, and I’m a senior in college with a strong interest in cryptocurrency trading. Over the years, I managed to grow my Bitcoin assets to a substantial value of $400,000. I was excited to share my successes with my close friend, who always seemed supportive. However, my trust in her would soon lead to a painful betrayal. WhatsApp info:+12 723 328 343 One afternoon, I logged into my crypto accounts and was alarmed to find numerous transactions that I hadn’t authorized. I couldn’t believe my eyes—money was disappearing at an alarming rate. I immediately suspected that something was seriously wrong, and after digging deeper, my worst fears were confirmed. My friend had somehow infiltrated my accounts. She had gained access to my email and changed my passwords, effectively locking me out of my own investments. Email info: Adwarerecoveryspecialist@auctioneer.net The realization that someone I trusted had betrayed me hit me like a ton of bricks. In my state of panic, I turned to a fellow student who had previously dealt with a similar situation. She recommended ADWARE RECOVERY SPECIALIST, a service I had never heard of before but was desperate enough to try. From the first conversation, I felt a sense of relief. The team at ADWARE RECOVERY SPECIALIST was compassionate and fully understood the gravity of my situation. They quickly sprang into action, securing my remaining accounts and investigating the breach. Their thorough approach revealed that my friend had used social engineering tactics to gain access to my information, exploiting the trust I had placed in her. They worked diligently to reverse the unauthorized transactions and successfully recovered a significant portion of my funds. Beyond the financial recovery, ADWARE RECOVERY SPECIALIST provided me with crucial lessons on enhancing my online security. They removed any potential malware from my devices and helped me set up stronger passwords and two-factor authentication, ensuring I was better protected against future threats. This experience served as a harsh reminder of the importance of digital security and trust. While I did manage to regain most of my assets, the emotional toll was heavy. I learned the hard way that even those we consider friends can turn against us. However, I also discovered that there are dedicated professionals who can help you navigate through these dark moments. I am incredibly grateful to ADWARE RECOVERY SPECIALIST for their swift action and invaluable support. If you ever find yourself in a similar situation of online theft or betrayal, I highly recommend reaching out to them. They were a guiding light during a tumultuous time in my life, and thanks to them, I can move forward with renewed confidence in securing my digital investments.