Top 5 Storm the Court Games

I'm still emotionally high from last night's Paul VI buzzer beater over Dematha, which probably biases this top five list.   Really, any come-from-behind win, or clutch strike out, or improbable goal is exhilarating.  All coaches have huge lists of when they have been part of such games and all athletes have those moments too.  The kid next door can tell a story about a whiffle ball game at the beach.  The guy at work rants about their softball beer league when somebody made a great play that lead to high-fiving and jubilation.

But to be in the top five,  history and cultural context shape the moment into the extraordinary and make the moment supernatural.  Here is my top five:

5.  The New England Patriots Tuck Rule Game

As Sean Rollins writes here, "That game was seen as just any other on January 19, 2002, but ten years later, it’s seen as a game that sparked a dynasty."  Of course.

But for me, this marks a monumental swing in football allegiance--the kind of which Bill Simmons would gladly exclude me from his fan base for committing such a crime.

from bleacherreport.com

This marks the moment I divorced the Jets for this young, much more sexy enigma.  I was on dorm duty back at St. Andrew's (RI).  The snow storm was burying us and St. Andrew's had already won a basketball game that day, but I couldn't go out and celebrate with the coaching staff because of dorm duty.  I couldn't do the New England snow party routine because of dorm duty.  I was stuck with ten or so kids who were playing Play Station and had no interest in the game and I couldn't invite anybody over because of dorm duty.

I was alone.  I was looking for something to believe in.  I was vulnerable.  Tom Brady took advantage of me and now the Patriots are my team and that game is in my top five.


4.  Game 5 of the 2001 World Series 
The attack on the World Trade Center changed everything.

But on a superficial level, this was the first season I watched Yankees games without any of my long-time Yankees friends. I was fresh out of college and living in the dorms at St. Andrew's and hadn't really had time to make any sense of this new place and this phase of life.


My dorm apartment was a kitchenette with a knocked out wall to bring in an old dorm room to act as my bedroom.  I was in the bottom corner of the dorm at the furthest corner of campus.  I had my college futon against one wall and the TV against the other.  The kitchenette was to my right and the door to the dorm was on my left.  I was surrounded by responsibility and cut off from the irresponsibility of sports bars, bar flies, and college. 

from bleacherreport.com

I jumped from my couch and screamed so loud, so long, that I found something dark in that scream.  Ethereal.  It released the feelings of loneliness, of uncertainty, and fear.  It ushered in excitement and a sense of triumph.   Through Scott Brosius and the Yankees, I was connected to family, friends, and the world.


It validated my memories and made me proud to be me.



3.  Vassar College Men's Basketball over NYU 1999

To this day, this season is the best in Vassar Men's basketball history.  Two other teams came close to breaking our single season wins mark, but our 18-9 record still stands.


We struggled through two seasons of mediocrity in 97-98 and 98-99.  Some dead weight graduated and some new freshmen changed this team.  We caught lightning in a bottle.  For the other two guys in my recruiting class, this was our peak.  I ended up joining the swim team our senior year and the other two guys  suffered through a brutal 8-17 2000-2001 inaugural season in the Liberty League.

In both our freshman and sophomore years, NYU abused us.  Flat out.  We weren't even a little brother to them.  They were a bully and we were the poor wimpy kid they tormented.  We hated this team and this game on the schedule because they demoralized us every year.  The three of us all had great high school success and never experienced losing the way we did in our first two years at Vassar.  Schools like NYU, Wesleyan, and Williams toyed with us.  Those 30+ point loses, especially at home, were impossible to endure.  They made basketball miserable.

But in that 99-00 year, we put it together.  We climbed the regional NY/Metro DIII rankings and were just outside the D3 top 25 that year.  NYU came to our gym and we stunned them.  That pig pile underneath our home basket, in front of our fans, with each other...

We knew what it was like to lose.  We knew what it was like to suffer.  This was the antithesis of the previous two years.  We were validated.  Our efforts meant something.  We proved to ourselves we were as good as we believed.

Triumph. 

2.  UConn over Clemson 1990

What else could a 12-year old Connecticut kid want?  I had a blue and white UConn ball I held every game.  I cried because I thought it was over.  I cried when Tate George knocked it down. My mom went upstairs in disgust (funny-even to this day she gets so disgusted with UConn, but gets even more excited than I do over games like this...I think she would leave my dad for Kemba if she had the chance).  Me, my 10 year old brother, and my father stood, arms around each other, and prayed in front of the TV.  One of my favorite memories all time.  Basketball, family, and life intersected.

1.  Paul VI over DeMatha, January 27th 2012

One year ago...courtesy of washingtonpost.com

We were up 17 in this 2011 game and Mikael Hopkins had a tip-in with 3 seconds left to give them their first lead of the game. 

Triumph.  courtesy of washingtonpost.com

Last night after draining a go-ahead 3 with .2 seconds left.










This is why teachers teach and coaches coach.  I cried last night seeing Patrick Holloway so happy.  That moment for me was more about seeing a young man experience a moment that validates what he believes in than the actual winning of the game.  Over the last two years, he wore me out both physically and emotionally.  We all rebounded for him.  We all let him in the gym early.  We all stayed late.  And, we coached him through times when he didn't necessarily believe in himself.  This is why we do what we do and it comes and goes as fast as .2 seconds. 

But this moment runs even deeper for me and is the cathartic release of 10 years of history and an 0-7 record against DeMatha that spans stints at St. Andrew's (RI) and Paul VI.  Each one of those games has memories clinging to it--I think that is true for all coaches,  right?  The game marks chapters of our lives, not just stats and numbers on a page.

DeMatha  beat us with ease during the 2009-2010 quarterfinal WCAC game.  That night, Paul VI was the last team they played in their old, historic gym before they moved to their new epicenter.

That was also the night my Uncle Stan had his funeral and I decided to stay for the game rather than go home to family.  I felt, and still feel, Uncle Stan would have actually been disappointed if I skipped the game.  A unique experience of coaching in a Catholic league is the pregame prayer and on that night,  that moment brought me to tears with memories of Uncle Stan.  It didn't matter we lost that night.  It mattered that the game was played and coaches coached.  A piece of my Uncle lived that night while I was on the sidelines.  Really, that was his funeral and he and I intersected one last time.   Don't get me wrong.  I don't need a DeMatha game to remember my Uncle, but the context behind last night's moment makes this supernatural.

He was the one who taught me to play.  He was the one that made me tough.  He was the one that showed me what I can learn about myself and about life by doing defensive slides with two bricks in my hands on an outdoor court in August. 

Last night, I could not stop myself from running onto the court and diving into the pile.

He, life, and all things between are the reasons why this is my number one storm the court game.

Next Play II

Seamus Heaney has ability to find meaning in something otherwise overlooked. 

One of my favorite's of his is Field of Vision, which ends with these two stanzas:

Face to face with her was an education
Of the sort you got across a well-braced gate--
One of those lean, clean, iron, roadside ones
Between two whitewashed pillars, where you could see


Deeper into the country than you expected
And discovered that the field behind the hedge
Grew more distinctly strange as you kept standing
Focused and drawn in by what barred the way.

There are two distinct things going on here as the narrator stands and studies his nearly catatonic aunt.  He sees a life well-lived in his aunt's face--a life full of experience.

He also realizes that he, too, is becoming catatonic through his pensive examination of this field that expands out further and further and becomes more strange and unusual.  

What the narrator needs to do is get on up over this gate.  The fear, uncertainty, introspection, and hesitation he feels is all just part of living, but only if he is actually living. 

This is his turn to make the Next Play and educate himself. 

Go ahead.

Get out there.

See what this field has to offer. 

Next Play

Basketball taught me to quickly move on from making  mistakes.  Within the game, there is always the emphasis on the next play. 

Don't dwell.

Don't over think.

Don't let it get to you.

Be confident. 

Be ready to make the next play.

As coaches, we always yell, "next play! Next Play!  NEXT PLAY!"  to shake our players out of their funk and get them moving onto the next moment.  

In high school and college basketball,  I felt like this was easy.  I'm starting to grow unsure of myself, however, when I try to make the real world application.

Today I met with an English department colleague about an action my co-chair and I felt was unprofessional and detrimental to the team's morale.  This conversation did not go well.  My colleague quickly became defensive and argumentative thus preventing any chance of me learning about their perspective or this person listening to our perspective.

The only thing I could do was sift through the tone in search of the root of the behavior and leave her with a brief recap of our observation--that we felt her actions compromised the integrity of our team and we felt her decision was unprofessional. 

I know she heard me based on her reaction.  But did she listen to what was said? 

The script I rehearsed about other ways to handle the issue and to open myself up to be receptive of her perspective went right out the door.

As I debriefed with my co-chair, I could not stop myself from dwelling on the poor outcome.  What did I do wrong?  What could I have done to create a conversation rather than trigger the tirade?    I was ineffective and as a result, I contributed to the negativity beginning to swirl in our department by upsetting my colleague. 

I made a mistake.  But why can't I disengage and move on like I was always able to do in the game of basketball? 

I started watching the Syracuse/Cincinnati game and remembered how fast the game moved.  For every missed shot, foul, turnover, or blown assignment, that player was immediately thrust into another situation.  Another opportunity to be successful came within the next second.  Literally.

The school day ended  and now I have all this time to dwell on the day and my mistakes.   My next play my not come for another day, week, or month.  I don't have practice to go to tomorrow to work out the decision.  I don't have a coach breaking down film with me.  I just have me and my reflection. 

How will I know if I will be ready next time? 

Locker Room Culture

Most would agree a locker room becomes the team's pious place for  revitalization, focus, clarity, and accountability.

This locker room is clean.

 The locker room is also haunted and we've all experienced the spirit of a place.


Sometimes we walk down into our basement and need to sprint back up the stairs because we feel like something malevolent is about to swallow us.  We've also sat on a beach with the sun massaging our melanin, calming our minds, and swaddling us with unconditional love. 




What is the spirit of your locker room?  I found a great resource from Chris Edmonds here.  I plan to post his 12 indicators in our English department work room.

But, what is the spirit of your locker room?  The effective leader needs to know if the locker room is the dark basement, the warm tropical beach, or somewhere in between.  Is their a Beast lurking, waiting, and timing its attack or is your house clean?

Look for sects within your team.  People will naturally group themselves based on similar backgrounds and familiar experiences. 

Then, spend time with each of these sects away from the locker room and find out what each sect believes.  Make sure they are forming a collective psyche that can be a positive force in your locker room.  Coach them.  Lead them to other sects and be ready to exorcise any Beasts that are absorbing power.

The effective leader is vigilant.

The effective leader knows the dark corners.

The effective leader is prepared to make quick decisions.

Be ready to exorcise any demon.

What are my [dis]Illusions?

No, this is not about  Use Your Illusion I 

or  Use Your Illusion II, although I stumbled upon a sweet  heavy metal blog 

looking for  FREE and unrestricted Guns N' Roses images.


Oppose SOPA.


As we get into THIS time of year (and maybe this only speaks to teachers and basketball coaches), there is something about mid-January and mid-term exams and the heart of your conference basketball schedule and the day-in-day-out muddle it all becomes...

Don't we seem to lose ourselves?

I just revisited my copy of Richard Bach's Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah.  Oh, and if you haven't checked out his blog yet, feel free to postpone your time on this page.

Three lines that resonate with this mid-January grind:

"There was a Master come unto the earth, born in the holy land of Indiana, raised in the mystical hills east of Fort Wayne" (1).

Love it.  Don't take yourself seriously.  Have a sense of humor.  Recognize who you are and what you are doing.

"You teach best what you most need to learn" (48).

I wish all of the people spouting negativity and defeatism and pontificating about whatever gets them all riled up could take a step back, remember where they are from and who they are and that they "teach best what [they] most need to learn." 


And finally, "Live never to be ashamed if anything you do or say is published around the world--even if what is published is not true" (48).

Your Interview Advice

I was asked for some interview advice last week.  I suppose the teaching profession may be thankless, or so people say.  But, a young man coming up and asking for some advice made my day.  Really, the question made my year.  I often feel lost within the career and that I may not even bring anything valuable to the conversation--and maybe I don't.  But to this young man (I changed his name), and to this teacher...well, I felt this should go into a blog and was worthy of a click on the "publish post" button.

Dear Matt,

I'm honored you asked for some advice and let me know if there is anything else I can do for you.

One thing I've noticed on the college basketball side is how important the managers are to the program.

Some key traits I would suggest trying to highlight, whether in your resume or in the interview, are:

1.  Initiative.

Demonstrate to the staff how you take pride in a job well done and like to see things getting done.

2.  Foresight. 

Can you predict upcoming problems?  How?  Something as simple as not having enough water at practice or knowing mail needs to go out, or the website hasn't been updated, can you run the score clock at practice?  What past experience has developed these templates for you to predict upcoming problems?

3.  Can you help with recruiting? 

Even though student-assistants or managers can't be on the recruiting trail per say, do you know all of the top prospects?  Do you know what your current team's needs are?  Maybe you were a great high school player from a strong league and can be an asset to the staff based on those ties.  Who was your high school coach?  Does he have recruitable players?

Demonstrate your value.

But you need to casually work this into the interview...maybe not even in the formal interview
but while you are being escorted in or out.  Can you notice something on the wall, on the desk, or wherever, and throw your two cents in?

4.  Do some early networking.

Befriend, if you haven't already, members of the managing team.  Maybe you can get them to drop your name?

4b.  The head coach won't be in charge of placing managers--someone else has that responsibility.     This is the guy you need to research.  Find out where he went to school, what traits he likes in the managers...hell, I once got a job because the coach and I both love Pearl Jam...research him. 

5.  Know the rapport of the coaching staff.

Uh, house was built in 1825 by General Custer.

Are they professional and all business all the time?

Do they use humor in their communication
with each other?  Everyone I've met loves Step Brothers?
Do they?

In order for you to demonstrate you can fit in,
you need to know their rapport.

I hope this helps and let me know if you need anything else.

Best Regards,
Chris Norkun

5 Keys to Victory

My favorite passage from The Art of War begins, Thus there are five factors from which victory can be known:




1.  One who knows when he can fight, and when he cannot fight will be victorious. 

This first thought is the essence to successful leadership and  drives the individual to truly explore their own strengths and weaknesses.  After doing that, one must be able to detect the strengths, weaknesses, and most importantly, the commitment level of the opponent.

Any person that is challenging a line or rocking the boat is doing so for a reason.  Is it worth engaging this challenge, or letting it pass and not risking a loss?  Can you actually affect change and victory or is this a brick wall of resistance that needs to be revisited another day?

2.  One who recognizes how to employ large and small numbers will be victorious.

Is this something you need the entire team to execute or is this something a small group can accomplish?  Does the entire team even need to know about this initiative? 

If you march through the door with your guns blazing, you are asking for a fight--and maybe this is the only way to achieve victory.  Or, maybe a series of diplomatic conversations to foster  a trust and an alliance is the best strategy.

3.  One whose upper and lower ranks have the same desires will be victorious.

This element is elusive and may take time for the leadership to build and establish a culture.  Recruiting the right people, embracing energy and initiative, and letting people walk away are crucial to establishing a common set of goals and desires.   

4.  One who, fully prepared, awaits the unprepared will be victorious.

This recalls the John Wooden quote, "Failure to prepare is preparing to fail."  However,  Sun Tzu pushes deeper.  To be fully prepared, one has to experience failure.  A person has to know what failure feels like, what the road to failure looks like, and needs to develop early recognition skills to avoid such paths. 

5.  One whose general is capable and not interfered with by the ruler will be victorious.

Mark Brumley addresses the problems with public school reform in his blog.   But what about athletic programs?  At any level, does a coach truly have freedom to work with his team?  Do parents, alumni, sponsors, AAU coaches, and other forces have an interfering influence?

The chain of command needs to be transparent.  To whomever is entrusted with responsibility and leadership, get out of their way and let them execute.  Otherwise, trust someone else. 



The passage is from Ralph D. Sawyer's "The Complete Art of War."

5 Things You Need to Know About Your Job

Dear Coach O'Brien,

Teachers and coaches everywhere wish you the best.  As we have all taken new jobs, first jobs, difficult jobs, we came up with a few things to get you started as you finish your time with New England.

1.  People that do not know you are already evaluating based on what they've heard.  Where did you grow up?  Where did you play?  What did you do last?

These are all questions they are grinding down over coffee while you get ready for the Broncos. Penn State fans and your new colleagues think they know you.



2.  People will talk about you every time you leave the room. 

People will re-evaluate you every time they speak with you, see you on campus, or see you on T.V.  Be mindful.  Control your emotions.  Treat everyone the way you would want your grandparents to be treated by the mechanic.  Honesty, patience, and understanding are crucial.

Most people generally advise the same things about a new job.   But, teachers and coaches our here want you to know how important it is going to be for you to build early relationships.  We've all found that secretaries and grounds crews are the best people to befriend.  They are the magic mirrors that will tell you all you need to know while everyone else is scrambling and playing their own games behind smiles and hand shakes that may linger just a bit too long.

3.  Upper management and administration always have other options.

Your are replaceable; we are all replaceable.  The guy's over at ESPN all seem to be writing that you may not have even been the best candidate.  You got the job, so forget that nonsense.  Just be careful--I'm not sure you can aggressively coach up  Matt McGloin like Tom Brady.

4.  People depend on you.

Yes, people in Red Sox Nation and Patriot Nation depend on you...but really Belichik and Brady will be the faces of this post season.

Though at University Park, students at the bars, alumni, youth football teams across towns, moms, dads, parents of your student athletes...the list goes on forever.  Be a role model and be open to all of the people that are watching.  As the St. Andrew's School (RI) basketball coach Michael A. Hart always says, "Be a helper."

5.  Culture is uncanny.

You will need to give up some of Bill O'Brien and become part of Penn State before Penn State gives up some of itself to allow the Bill O'Brien era to begin.  Pick one or two things a year to work on making your own.  Building and changing culture is uncanny. 

Best of luck Coach,
Coaches and Teachers world wide

Seek Perfection or Go Home

Over the years I've taught and coached for a diverse range of schools and teams.  Two things that remain constant, though, are staff meeting agenda items about a desire to build a culture of success and a mix of effective leaders.


Coach Walsh introduces an idea in his blog that "someone who leads by example doesn't lead."  I don't necessarily agree with this statement that, admittedly, is out of context.  So to re-contextualize the statement, I believe the first step of leadership is modeling a behavior of growth.  Leading by example is the first step over the line the separates a leader from the rest of the team.  I would say a good teammate, in athletics or in the workforce, shows up on time, displays a positive attitude, and displays a willingness to exert energy towards the goals of the team.  If a person doesn't do these things or cannot do these things, then their time with that team has come to an end and they need to leave, or be asked to leave.

A leader, though, needs to lead by example because they have transcended those basic attributes of a good teammate and are now becoming agents of change.  A good leader seeks out innovations that can improve the team.  A good leader spends time every day reflecting on the performance of their team and tries something new to spark improvement.  A good leader is never satisfied--even with success.

     I am inspired every time I watch Coach Boone give this speech.  "We will be PERFECT in every aspect of the game."

A good teacher leader will look at test scores, for example, and acknowledge scores that meet No Child Left Behind benchmark goals are great, but will then look for ways to EXCEED those benchmarks. 

A good leader in athletics doesn't just prepare for the best opponent on the schedule, but seeks to move their team to perfect execution in all aspects of the game.

The overlooked second step of a strong leader is the development of a common, success-driven vocabulary for their team.  Some words I loath and feel are detrimental forces to the quest for perfection are meeting, tutoring, remediate, accommodations, modifications, extended time, practice, and role. 

Don't say meeting when an effective leader means collaboration.
Don't say tutoring or remediating when an effective leader means accelerating.
Don't say test-accommodations or test-modifications when an effective leader means test-scaffolding. 
Don't say extended time when an effective leader means flexible scheduling. 
Don't say practice when an effective leader, like Coach Boone, says, "let's go to work."

And coaches, please don't tell your team that everyone has a role when an effective leader means everyone is vital to the quest for perfection.

The Goonies, Sandra Cisneros, Immigration, and Our Wishing Well

Not only do I love this clip for all of the nostalgic reasons any kid of the 80's does, but also for the uncanny way it popped into my head during one of my sheltered English 10 classes.


For those of us not in the education field, a sheltered core class is solely comprised of English language learners.   Most sheltered classes contain students that range in English proficiency levels from conversational-only up to just about No Child Left Behind grade level reading and writing mastery.

A unique cultural trend in public schools that have large populations of Hispanic families (my school, Freedom High School in Woodbridge, VA consists of close to 70% Hispanic students) face the same phenomena--the extended November/December through January family vacations back to the countries from which they immigrated.  Our county regulations force us to withdraw a student that is truant for fifteen consecutive academic days.  Unfortunately for a good amount of our students, their families leave for Central and South America the week of Thanksgiving and return sometime in mid-January; thus, these students do not receive credit for the first semester at all and pending on their time of re-enrollment, may not receive credit for the second semester either.

One of my students returned to school today from Honduras.  She was tan, looked emotional wrecked, and sat in her old assigned seat.  It was ghostly to see her walk in the door.  She told me her mother still lives in Honduras and she lives in Woodbridge with her father.  When I met with her about her academic situation and what the midterm exam situation is going to look like, she registered a sincere nothingness.  Her academic GPA meant nothing to her; she just wanted to check  out a text book, a novel, and pick up from where she left and probably avoid the emotional waterfall pouring down on her.  And that's what got me thinking about The Goonies.

This is her time, her time down here.  Up there, up there in the land of her parents chasing down their dreams, of superintendents and No Child Left Behind legislators, it's there time, there time up there.  On-time graduation rate?  Passing standardized tests?  It all just seems trivial.  Her life and its meaning is being defined by larger cultural forces of Hispanic immigration while she tries to hold on and forge her own way to happiness.

But then I thought about her mom...who in my mind became Troy waiting for Andy to ride up that bucket.  What about her mom that might have been aching to see her daughter and found a very Americanized young Latina?  Andy, you Goonie!  How could you do this to me?  Or, this student could be Troy waiting to see her mom again to find that her mom is not the same way she left her last year.  Mom, you Goonie!  Then I felt really guilty for speculating upon and equating their relationship to that of Troy, Andy, and the schism between one person's subconscious wishing well and the other's. 

My mind then jumped to Sandra Cisnero's character, mamacita, in the vignette "No Speak English" in The House on Mango Street.  The "no-speak-English" Mamacita loses it when her little baby boy starts speaking English, thus rendering the two unable to communicate and connect.  The tragic irony is that Esperanza realizes how much freedom a bilingual education can bring if mamacita could just find some moxie to get out there and...just get out there and...go out there and...maybe its not that doable after all.   

And then I was jealous of her Kerouac-esque lifestyle.  She may or may not score well on our No Child Left Behind standardized ENGLISH reading and writing tests, but the depth of her education  dominates that of her general education peers that may never go on vacation and to travel the twenty some-odd miles to Washington D.C. seems unfathomable.  She somehow seems much more real and interesting than the American, general education student that sits in that same desk next period and complains about how much work I make the class do.

Then I felt like Mickey.  What the hell, right?  Goonies never say die and this is our time, our time down here.    Down here...down here where life really is and our public school legislators don't really seem to know what's going on in our wishing well of a classroom; its our time down here and that's all over the minute we go riding up Troy's bucket. 

Walk Abroad and Recreate Yourselves

I wanted to name this blog after my favorite line from Caesar.  And then I became self conscious over who would or wouldn't know the reference and the context.  And then I became more self conscious because people might think of me as pretentious, as arrogant, or think of me how I used to think of my peers in literature classes making obscure references during their diatribes to show off to or try to relate with the professor.  This line of thinking hindered me from moving forward with the creation of this blogspot because I couldn't name the page Walk Abroad and Recreate Yourselves and I couldn't really move on with my life without getting in this line.  So here it is.  

 "He hath left them you, and to your heirs forever--common pleasures to walk abroad and recreate yourselves."

What I love about this line is Antony's relationship to the mob.  The mob is powerful and influential and drives the politicians' psyches.  First, we see the mob in Act I enjoying the holiday without any regard for the on-going political shuffle.  One day they drink in merriment for Pompey; the next for Caesar.  It doesn't matter to them who rules Rome as long as the mob's status quo remains. In Act III, the mob is so stereotypical and easily swayed by political rhetoric they love Brutus one minute.  Next they riot because Antony hinted there would be no legal consequence, and if they don't burn Rome, they lose their recreation and their freedom.  Then, they disappear for the rest of the play while the handful of politicians go to war to see who gets to call themselves emperor.  In the end, the outcome doesn't matter to the mob; all the mob knows is they will keep on being a mob and as long as they maintain the ability to recreate themselves, all is well.  Also, the cobbler in Act I, with his pun about being a "mender of bad soles," is so much more witty and with it compared to the dweebs Flavius and Marullus.  This seems to suggest the mob has a deeper understanding of their place in the world than these stuffy politicians and the mob understands the meaning of life.  Dare I say the mob in Caesar is like Randall "Pink" Floyd, Wooderson, Mitch, and the whole crew hanging out at the Emporium in Dazed and Confused ?  Teachers, police, coaches, parents and anyone else that struggles for power are all just peripheral shadows that seek the support of these Texas high school kids in order to have meaning in their adult lives.

 

 L-I-V-I-N.

 Even these cats figure out they need to stop preparing and planning for something their parents,   teachers, and authorities feel is important and get on with recreating themselves. 

  Anyway, back to Antony and his relationship to the mob.  Maybe Antony is like Wooderson--as Antony gets older, the players of the game (like Octavius) stay the same age and to keep himself relevant, Antony needs to recreate himself.  Or, Antony is envious of the mob's freedom, power, and balanced lives that allow them to take the day and hang out in the parks and recreate themselves--or he knows that is important to the mob and they have life  figured out.  Or, Antony needs to live vicariously through the mob and he needs them to burn Rome because he couldn't do it while maintaining his status quo in the political game.  There is something proverbial about this line that makes Antony a deep character.  Antony is the guy with whom the cobbler wants to drink beers because Antony gets the value of the arbors, orchards, and recreation.  Cassius feels threatened by Antony's prowess.  Brutus sees altruism in Antony.  Caesar trusted Antony with his life and now Octavius trusts Antony with his.  Antony has it.  Antony is one of them--he gets it and knows how to maintain status quo and keep L-I-V-I-N. 

My point is, I don't know what this blogspot is really going to be do as it matures.  I don't really know what I'm going to do with my life as I mature.  

I do know that I always want to be able to recreate myself.  I do know I need to find a better balance of work and recreation in my life.  I do know I would vote for Antony and if he told me to burn Rome, I would do it.  Like Antony says, "Mischief thou art afoot; take thou what course thou wilt."