Ear ya go: 7 little kernels of joy from the world of sports
🏒 Quote
Jared Bednar, Colorado Avalanche coach, on getting out of a slump:
“Oftentimes, when you start doing things the right way, it doesn’t just turn around overnight. You have to stick with it. You have to believe that will get you out of your slump.”
Source: AP Sports
Bednar spoke generally of slump-breaking, and specifically of his right-winger Mikko Rantanen. Rantanen owns the Colorado record for goals in a season (55, last year) but had gone nine straight games without one coming into Monday night’s contest against Calgary. Bednar applauded Rantanen for taking six shots the previous game, even though none reached the net.
Rantanen echoed his coach’s philosophy, saying: “It’s tough when you want to be effective and you want to score and you want to help because that’s my role, to help the team offensively. It rubs you the wrong way mentally, but that’s when good players, great players — you’ve got to just stick with it. You can’t fold, you can’t quit because nothing is going your way. ... You’ve just got to stay with it.”
⚽️ Story
Unai Emery and Aston Villa: Inside a stunning transformation
By Jacob Tanswell and Gregg Evans, The Athletic
Aston Villa has struggled for more than a decade. After winning just two of their first 11 Premier League matches last fall, they turned to Spanish manager Unai Emery. The Lions saw improvements, pronto, and now this season sit third in the 20-team league.
The Athletic’s Tanswell & Evans have documented how Villa has turned around in such a short time. A few keys:
Meticulous preparation
Pushing through pain barriers
Improving small details
In other words, Emery & Co have been grinding. Their work is not done, but so far they’re nailing it! If you love studying success, you’ll enjoy this story.
🏀 Highlight
Last Sunday Bronny James played his first college game, no small feat considering he suffered cardiac arrest five months ago.
You may remember Bronny’s dad, LeBron. He used to be pretty good back in the day, like a day earlier when he helped the LA Lakers win the first NBA Cup.
LeBron must’ve been proud seeing his oldest kid steal his signature move, the chase-down block. But that’s not what the NBA’s all-time leading scorer and 4x champion reflected on after sitting court-side at Bronny’s debut.
“Can’t even tell y’all how EMOTIONAL today was for me!” LeBron posted on Instagram. “I’m literally drained and all I can say is @bronny you’re simply INCREDIBLE!! Damn the wins and loses that will occur. You’ve already won the ultimate goal/championship and that’s LIFE!!! Proud of you kid and today you’ve given me more life! Thank you and I love you 🤎🙏🏾🤴🏾🥺”
🏈 Stat
0: career punt returns for Baltimore’s Tylan Wallace before he fielded his first in overtime last Sunday night and returned it for a game-winning 76-yard touchdown
🏈 Groaner
How can you explain the Tennessee Titans’ improbable comeback at Miami on Monday Night Football?
When there’s a Will, there’s a way!
Rookie quarterback Will Levis rebounded from a couple costly mistakes to direct two touchdown drives (and a two-point conversion) in the final 4+ minutes as the AFC South last-place Titans edged the AFC East first-place Dolphins 28-27.
In the first quarter, Levis threw a pick-6 that gave Miami the lead. Then in the fourth quarter he made a errant pitch to running back Derrick Henry that resulted in another turnover and allowed the Dolphins to go up 27-13 with 4:34 left.
“That was a nightmare,” Levis said of the fumbled pitch. “No one wanted to look at me. No one wanted to talk to me. I didn’t want to talk to anybody after that. I just wanted to move on — be ready to attack that next two-minute drive that I knew we’d be able to get.”
Completing 10 of 12 passes in the final minutes, Levis showed he was way ready.
🏃🏿♂️ Song
Forever Young by Rod Stewart
This one is for Maros Mosehla, an 81-year-old South African ultrarunner who is the oldest person to complete the Comrades, a 56-mile footrace in South Africa. The Comrades is the largest ultramarathon (race longer than 26.2 miles) in the world. This year about 16,000 people participated.
Not only was Mosehla the oldest to ever finish the race in its 102-year history, he crossed in 9 hours and 26 minutes, faster than 2/3 of this year’s runners. To beat more than 10,000 ultrarunners, all he had to do was run a 10-minute mile and then repeat that 55 more times that day. 🤯
But Mosehla has some experience with incredible feats. A few to note:
Started kindergarten at age 18. Because of apartheid, school wasn’t available to him earlier.
Worked construction while going to school, so he could pay his school fees and help support his family
Fathered 17 kids
Still works contstruction
“God knows everyone’s age,” Mosehla told Ryan Lenora Brown of the New York Times. “And for me he has decided: You are still young.”
🏈 Trivia
What 1988 movie described last week’s Monday Night Football contest 35 years in advance?
Big
Coming to America
Die Hard
Rain Man
Take the Corny Sports Quiz to see.
Aw shucks 🌽. That’s it for this week. Until next week, enjoy a helping of archives. And may we all feel young, celebrate the ultimate championship of life, and stick with it!