Learning is Fun

The question at hand today, is learning fun? Can learning be fun? Well the simple answer in my mind is yes. There is fun in learning, for example, if you play sports then playing the game you love is fun, if you have a favorite subject in school you find it interesting and fun, or you could be a devoted musician and you find fun in learning how to play a new song or instrument. Whatever it may be the simple answer is yes there can be fun in learning. I'm an athlete and I love playing sports in general but nothing beats football, or comes close in comparison of fun. I also find math fun. You are probably laughing saying you think math is fun? Yes, I do find math fun it took me all of my high school career and now in my first semester of college to realize I find math fun. It's fun to be given a problem and failing at it so many times until you get it right. One more last surprise, I am not a musician but I have played guitar for a couple months. Well not a couple months but anyway the point is the three things I find fun all bring their own challenges. You can't say oh I like watching football on television I'm going to go try out. Well you could do that but you probably won’t get the results you were expecting. Football brings its fair amount of challenges and failures, but if you love something so much no matter how many times you fail you keep trying. We find great satisfaction when we finally figure out the answer to the problem or accomplish the task at hand. Same thing with math. You can't just walking in ad know everything there is to know about math. It takes time and a lot of practice to become decent at math, once you figure out and understand the concepts that is when math is fun. You can start looking at problems differently and see if there are different ways to get the same answer. That is when the fun begins is when you are able to experiment. Last but not least, learning how to play guitar is fun begin able to express yourself with music is always fun. Learning new songs to play for family, friends, and girl’s haha, but music really relaxes me and learning how to play is a struggle. I'm not the best guitar player, probably not even halfway decent, but it’s the failure and problems that make it fun. I can play a couple chords that don't make any sense to a person who is well involved with music. But the point is when you can take something you love no matter how horrible it may seem, if you really enjoy it you can make learning the important things about it fun. I believe you make it fun in your own way if you choose to do so. I look forward to math because I can make it fun, you can do the same if you try hard enough. So the next time you find something that sparks your interest whether its school related, sports, music, food, cars, etc., you can make learning it fun.

Mistakes Bring Out Character

Being an athlete mistakes are always destined to happen, you just hope and pray they don't happen to you in a big situation. I remember the biggest mistake of my high school football career. Senior year my coach moved me from linebacker to defensive end because the tackle for the opposing team was tall and it took him by surprise when a 5'11" 195 pound guy lines up opposite of him. He probably weighed about 250 pounds at best and stood about 6'5". He actually laughed at me and said that he can't believe how small I was and that he couldn't wait to use me on his highlight reel. I just gave a grin and got into position, ball gets snapped and I beat him bad got in the backfield to and took down their quarterback giving me my first sack of the season. This was my first start ever, I normally played only special teams but my coach gave me a chance and I took advantage. The next play resulted in the same outcome helped my teammate into a pass break up, which left them in a third down and long distance to a first. Even though we were only two plays into the game I had made this tackle eat his words. The third down play will haunt me forever, because this play is what made everyone start to believe that I wasn’t' good enough. I got in the back field to meet the running back 5 yards behind the line of scrimmage, and we made contact, I tired frantically to take him down. He slipped through my fingers and ran for almost 85 yards to get within our end zone and set up a scoring drive. That mistake brought doubt into everyone’s mind including my coach. He took me out of the game and benched me till the second half. I beat myself up about it all the way until the second half started. It put me in a mindset of deep failure; my next two plays were just as bad as the missed tackle. The offensive tackle who laughed at me took me to the ground twice in humiliating pancake blocks. I let that one mistake start to ruin my whole tempo. My head coach and teammates gave me a pep talk on the side line and well the rest of that game I did great. I ended that night with 1.5 sacks, 5 solo tackles, and 1 missed tackle. That one missed tackle basically put me on special teams the rest of the year. Since that game I did nothing but practice wrapping up the player and getting a firm grip and taking them to the ground. That one huge mistake where everyone saw it made me the player I am today. Many people doubt me; say I'm too small, not big enough, and not strong enough to play football. That one mistake turned me into a monster, because now I get to play college football, and all I do is work harder and harder. That one mistake replays in my mind over and over, to remind me why people doubt me. That one mistake helped me become a better football player. It showed me my weakness and I focused on that weakness until it became one of my greatest strengths. Failures and mistakes teach us a lot about who we are on the inside, what kind of character we have. Obviously after that mistake, up until my coach came to talk to me, my character was poor and weak. After that mistake, my character is strong and can't be broken. No matter how many times you fail you can always bounce back. You can fall a thousand times, but you will always stand up a thousand and one times. Let your mistakes guide you; I had to learn that the hard way, not only in sports but in education too. Let your mistakes give you that inner drive to prove yourself wrong and your teacher wrong. One grade doesn't determine your whole school year; just like that one bad play didn’t determine the end of my football career. Never give up, if anything when you fail strive that much harder to succeed. Let your mistakes be your motivators, don't let them limit you from the person you can become.

What Matters Most in Life

What matters most in your life? This is a common question people are asked a lot, most of the time it’s a rhetorical question that we hear at funerals. TLU lost a great professor in Dr. Hettinger. When comparing school to athletics, to me Dr. H was one of the most influential coaches in an academic sense. Professors on this campus are influential in their own individual ways, and they are the coaches in the classroom. They are the ones you go to if you have questions about a paper, problem, assignment, etc. As coaches like to see their athletes succeed on the playing field, professors like to see their students succeed academically. The older I get the wiser I become, and when this question about what matters most in my life starts to mean more to me. When I was a freshman in high school I'm sure I would answer that question with football is what matters most in life. Now in a sense I am right, but football is just a game, there is a beginning and an ending. The thing that sticks out to me from that answer is the relationships established from not only football but any sport. Athletes have friends then they have their teammates, and teammates become family. Shoot the more I think about it during the football season I think I saw my teammates more than my actual family. That is the beauty of sports, because the most important learning experience from football is the relationships you established with people who have completely different backgrounds and views than you do. But you can put those aside and walk out on that field to go win a game together or stand up for one another when one gets backed into a corner. What matters most in life are not the things you accomplished or the money you have earned. Sure those are important, but what matters most are the relationships you established. Leaving behind a legacy that you can be proud of, a kind of legacy where people can only say great things about you. Dr. Hettinger did just that, she impacted so many people’s lives in a positive manner that her legacy will forever remain glorious. The funny thing is she took everything I said about football and sports and, without even knowing me, she was able to establish relationships with her students. She created a family with in her classroom. That’s something to be proud of, I wasn’t lucky enough to know Dr. Hettinger but the stories people shared with me really said she was a great person. That’s what matters most in life, how someone can take their job, sport, or whatever and leave a legacy behind like Dr. H did. She impacted so many lives in such a positive way that her legacy will continue to be spread and grow throughout the TLU community and further. Whoever knew Dr. H will carry her story with them to their hometown. Establishing relationships with people and impacting their lives positively so that is how you are remembered that is what matters most in life.