Jan

Life’s Challenges on a Football Field

by Meredith Mullins on January 31, 2013

CSD QB, meeting life's challenges and reaching goals on the high school football field

CSD Quarterback Carlos Lopez
© CSD

Reaching Goals Beyond the Goal Line

Football is in the air. The Super Bowl sportswriters are dissecting the matchups, the 49ers and Ravens are practicing their trash talk, and the multi-million dollar commercials are ready to debut.

But before getting lost in the hoopla, take time out for a story about the real value of football. Meet the CSD team, known for facing life’s challenges and reaching goals in an inspired and inspiring way.

Friday Night Lights

Richmond High School vs. CSD of Fremont, CA.

Oilers vs. Eagles.

Some folks are questioning the CSD first-year coach’s decision to play Richmond in this non-league game.

Richmond is ten times bigger in student body numbers and downright scary in player depth and bulk.
CSD has only 19 players on the roster; some team members play offense and defense.
The CSD team is also small in weight—nobody over 200 pounds—facing Richmond, where half the team weighs in over 200.

Add to that the fact that Sports Illustrated is covering the game—waiting for that David vs. Goliath moment.

The CSD players are excited, but nervous. Even though America loves an underdog, the odds are not in their favor.

The locker room is always quiet, but at this particular pre-game moment, it is unusually quiet. Coach Keller looks the boys directly in the eye and signs his message, with fast-flying hands.

He tells them they are ready. Now all they have to do is go out and play their best. There have been many great deaf teams in the past and some great California School for the Deaf football teams, but these teams were never noticed by the media. This is their opportunity to show everyone what they are made of.

CSD Quarterback during game play, meeting life's challenges with good game strategy and reaching goals

The no-huddle offense racks up the points
© CSD

Underdog of the Year

Four quarters later, CSD has logged a demolishing 47–0 victory.

“The boys were on fire,” Coach Keller said. “No one, not even me, expected that kind of game.”

Sports Illustrated got their story and awarded CSD one of the coveted “Underdog of the Year” spots. The media paid extensive tribute to the team—spotlighting a deaf team that had defied the odds. The players got well-deserved respect. And the fired-up CSD Eagles went on to win the league title.

CSD Team Photo, a team known for meeting life's challenges and reaching goals on the field and in life

The California School for the Deaf Varsity and JV Football Team
© CSD

There’s Usually More to Miracles than Meets the Eye

The season seemed miraculous; but, the team’s success is really about three simple strategies—philosophies that work on the football field and off.

1. Hard Work

The team follows Coach Keller’s “work hard” philosophy, for football and life. Reaching goals is not measured by wins and losses, says Keller. The primary objective is to be “undefeated in conditioning.”

2. Driving Passion

The team loves football. They play with huge heart and a drive to prove something—to themselves and to any opponent who thinks CSD might be an easy win because they can’t hear.

3. An Ingenious Game Plan

With a small, quick, and well-conditioned team, Coach Keller uses the no-huddle offense to great advantage. Communication is also a strength. The audibles are visual. The team uses American Sign Language. Other teams have to invent a language to signal plays, but CSD has a common language that is a part of their life.

The CSD players are also immune to trash talk. They can tune out the vocal distractions of the opponent and the crowd, which keeps them keenly focused.

CSD Coach Keller, helping players learn strategies for meeting life's challenges and reaching goals on the football field and in life

CSD Coach Warren Keller
© CSD

New Strategies from an “Oh, I See” Moment

The California School for the Deaf players don’t see themselves as being at a disadvantage. And so, they aren’t. Coach Keller and the team would rather not even draw attention to the detail that they are deaf.

The OIC Moment is not that a small team with a perceived disability can win a league title (although that’s a nice story).

The OIC Moment is: When tackling life’s challenges, you can level the playing field with three simple strategies: hard work, driving passion, and an ingenious game plan.

Strategies we can all use when facing life’s challenges and reaching for our goals.

See the Sports Illustrated Underdog Tribute

Visit the National Association for the Deaf, the USA Deaf Sports Federation, and The American Association of the Deaf-Blind.

VIA Mercury News

Comment on this post below, or inspire insight with your own OIC Moment here. 4397EU56U6HK

Meredith Mullins Comments

Secrets to Life

Oct

The Awe Inspiring “Aha Moment” Defined

by Sheron Long on October 1, 2012

Awe inspiring cartoon about having an aha moment

Watch out! Someone’s having an aha moment!
© xkcd.com

Mathematically, Aha Moments Happen Daily

If I follow the numbers above, it sounds like everyone can learn something new everyday. That’s awe inspiring!

Hey, I’m over 30 and, like the girl in the cartoon, didn’t know about the “diet Coke and mentos thing.” I tried a quick experiment, and it all erupted into an aha moment for me.

Then I found out that not everyone knows what an “aha moment” is. Really? At least, it wasn’t in the dictionary until last August.

Is “Oh, I See Moment” a Synonym?

The concept of the “aha moment” has been around, well, probably forever and in English language usage since 1939. At least, that’s the date assigned to the phrase in August 2012 when Merriam-Webster added it to its dictionary and defined it as “a moment of sudden realization, inspiration, insight, recognition, or comprehension.”

Now that Merriam-Webster has had its aha moment about “aha moment” and listed the phrase in its pages, we want to see OIC moment (short for “Oh, I see” moment) added as a synonym.

The term came into existence in 2012 with the start of our company. Like “aha moment,” OIC moment is a realization, but on a broader spectrum, from the practical to the epiphany.

The Full Range of OIC Moments

In my view, an OIC moment can be as everyday as the one in the cartoon above. Or, it can be a significant, eye-opening, awe inspiring experience like the one recounted by will.i.am, front man for The Black Eyed Peas, in a statement in Oprah Winfrey’s magazine O.

Here will.i.am tells how traveling across cultures to countries outside the USA helped him see America with new eyes and decide how to show the world what Americans are like.

How OIC Moments Inspire

Now will.i.am’s new song “Reach for the Stars” has traveled even farther than the famed musician. Transmitted from Mars through the speakers on Curiosity’s rover, the song not only has enjoyed an inter-galactic debut, but surely has become the number 1 song on Mars. Take a listen and see the lyrics:

If the video does not display, watch it here.

The song was purposely recorded with an orchestra to show human collaboration and to present a timeless sound that translates into different cultures.

I love how the lyrics make you question if even the sky is a limit. And I can imagine this song inspiring a long reach for the stars. That’s what will.i.am intended when he said,

“Today is about inspiring young people to lead a life without limits placed on their potential and to pursue collaboration between humanity and technology. . . .”

It is will.i.am’s kind of inspiration that leads to OIC moments or aha moments, whatever you want to call them.

And now that Merriam-Webster has weighed in with official recognition, we can give them their due. After all, here’s the defining characteristic of an OIC moment—when it hits you, your life is never quite the same again. Now something that powerful is awe inspiring.

Comment on this post below, or inspire insight with your own OIC Moment here.

Sheron Long Comments

Crossing Cultures/Language & Culture/Secrets to Life/The World's Music

Sep

Life After Technology: To Correct or Auto-Correct?

by Sheron Long on September 20, 2012

Help key, symbolizing challenges of life after technology, especially with the auto-correct feature

How I Got the Wrong Spelling and the Right Answer

The other day on a talk show about cars, the caller identified herself as a software engineer for Microsoft in charge of spell-check.

The car conversation made a sudden U-turn into how technology affects our lives, specifically the perils of spell-check. Finally, the software engineer wriggled her way out of a tight spot and shared one of life’s secrets: for spell-check to work, “you have to get close.”

For me, one who almost won the school-wide spelling bee in sixth grade, getting close is not the problem. It’s the technology advancements that moved manual spell-check into rapid-fire Auto-Correct, or “Oughtta-Correct,” as I call it.

Somehow the technology thinks it knows what you oughtta say and takes over, changing a perfectly good word into an embarrassing moment.

Technology and Life—Not Always a Good Mix

Take for example, a colleague of mine who was in charge of manufacturing books for a publishing company. He worked against one deadline after another, and printers (who are generally not an understanding lot) were pressuring hard for the final files.

man embarrassed by an auto-correct error and dubious about technology advancements

We had been late with the delivery for four consecutive weeks, and our reserved press time was evaporating.

After one last promise to deliver failed, my colleague wrote a lovely letter of apology with a new file-to-printer date. Right above his signature lurked the words:

Sorry for the incontinence.

Now, of course, he meant “inconvenience,” but Auto-Correct converted his message to use a more appropriate word. He had peed on the printer yet again.

For more on such life experiences, see this recent Auto-Correct post on Here and Now, especially the Comment section.

Love and Divorce After iPhone

I still remember when I got my first iPhone, I was sure that my life after technology would be rosy. And I did really love my iPhone, but I fell in and out of love with Oughtta-Correct.

If the suggested word was right, I was grateful. It saved me time typing on that flat keyboard. But when it was wrong, I kept forgetting to hit the little x, and the word popped in. Then I ended up spending even more time deleting the wrong word and starting over.

I began to ask my oh-so-smart phone, “What makes you think you know what I want to say?”

Divorce came after Oughtta-Correct guessed wrong big-time, and I was sure I oughtta apologize.

I apologized. Then I went to Settings to General to Keyboard, flipped ON to OFF by Auto-Correction, and—ahhhh—I was back to thinking for myself again.

Now I Know: Being Wrong Is More Fun than Being Right

Life went on, but something was missing in my life after technology. I began to long for the daily chuckles I used to get from Oughtta-Correct’s brain.

In an Oh, I See Moment, I realized another of life’s secrets: more laughs in the day are worth the miscommunications. And besides, having to apologize for life’s little typos are a good way to cement a friendship.

That’s when I went back to Settings and gave Auto-Correct new life.

I also adopted a new regimen to build up my WRS (Write-Read-Send). It’s better for avoiding embarrassment, but maybe not as good as WSR (Write-Send-Read) for sharing Auto-Correct’s funnies with a friend. Do U agree?