Following Up

I wanted to follow up regarding my previous post on the looming deposit deadline at University of San Diego. I appreciated the feedback I received and was set to spend the $150 to “buy a little piece of mind” and go from there. Yesterday I attended an admitted students day at the law school with my checkbook in my pocket ready to get my money in at the eleventh hour. The event proved to be useful however as not 2 hours in I was able to say with confidence that paying the deposit would be akin to lighting $150 dollars on fire, something I try to only do when impressing the ladies.

I arrived at USD and experienced the same reaction I seem to have anytime I set foot on a campus of higher learning. There is an excitement in the air, a palpable buzz of people learning and growing. It reminds me of a simpler time in my life where the beauty of theoretical and liberal concepts had not been shattered by the cruel, and decisively real world. So needless to say those first few minutes flustered me. I began to think that this was something I wanted to get back to and dammit if law school wasn’t starting to look good once again. We were whisked away to an enchanting breakfast where we listened to speeches about public interest law and all of the good the USD Law alumni do in the world. The person in the back of the room who asked how public interest lawyers pay off their 120K in student loans may or may not have been clubbed and dragged out of the room, although I did not see them again.

Next it was a brief 35 minute class session where we discussed the origins of self-defense homicide and how the element of necessity factors in. (Tangent: We discussed the case of Regina v. Dudley and Stephens, two men marooned on a boat who chose to kill a third man, Richard Parker, in order to survive. They were later tried and convicted of murder despite their plea that the killing was done to prevent their own demise. From this I discovered that the novel Life of Pi, the wildly overrated best seller, was based  on this court case which explains why a tiger trapped on a boat was named “Richard Parker”.) Now I was feeling in my element. I could sit around for days discussing concepts like these, or anything else completely theoretical and philosophical. Hey, I lived in Europe once, you know what I mean? So at this point I was feeling pretty confused. But then, as I have learned over the past few years tends to happen, reality set in.

We were taken to a lunch where we were given the privilege(?) of meeting current professors and students. Students regaled me of their hardship in finding a job and joked about their first heart attack which would come at age 40 after spending 10 years reading contracts for 80 hours a week. Nothing too philosophical about that I imagine.  The professors who were not too senile to hold a conversation (ask me about the bus schedule story) came off as aloof and elitist, that quintessential nerd who has spent the last 30 years proving everyone of their fellow high school alumni are unintelligent cretins. Immediately my feelings began to change. We were inundated by a career services presentation that had an eerie “George Bush” quality to it. Every question that challenged her notion of the golden land of opportunity that awaited USD grads was met with reciting “the best law firms in the country want you guys, and they will pay to get you, oh will they pay to get you.” This elicited excited response as people convinced themselves it was worth it. I felt like I was at an Amway presentation.

All of these developments forced me to think about this in a new light and I must say I am glad I went. I left the campus quickly with an unused checkbook in my pocket and a feeling like I didn’t belong. As soon as I made that release and acknowledged it wasn’t for me, it felt good. So here I am today no closer than I was six years ago to knowing the career path I want to pursue. But it feels right and to stir up response, I await your suggestions…..

Mr. Destiny

Most of the people in my life have always had some form of experience or passion for a sport of some kind. Many have maintained it as a hobby while a select few have gone on to the higher levels of inter-collegiate and professional athletics. Within this group we have all had those moments where we feel good about our place in the world of sports. I have played in pick-up basketball games where for whatever reason I was just feeling good, had a great game, and started thinking that if I had just put the time in maybe I could have made it in the NBA. I am sure that a lot of people out there have had similar experiences. But then I come across things like this video and I am reminded that when the framers of our Constitution proclaimed we are all made equal, that was strictly in terms of governance and not the world of sports.

In case it is not clear,  the video is a young Allen Iverson playing football in high school. Most people know Allen Iverson as a former MVP and probably one of the fifty greatest basketball players in the history of the world. I watch video like this and it just amazes me the difference between today’s athletes and average people like me. The truth of the matter is that I could have been pulled out of kindegarten (in the form of the old USSR) and placed in an elite training center where I focused only on basketball, and I still could never have made the NBA. But here is a guy who if he had been so inclined could probably have been the MVP of the NFL as well. It is not just Iverson either. Deion Sanders, Bo Jackson, Dave Winfield, Randy Moss, Tony Gonzalez are just a few more prominent examples of multi-sport stars, and when I say multi-sport, I mean people athletic enough to literally play at the highest level imaginable in more than one sport. And for those Ferraro supporters out there, it is not just people of African heritage. Danny Ainge, the old Boston Celtic, was drafted by the Toronto Blue Jays. Kelly Slater, the winningest surfer of all time (yes it is a sport) is a scratch golfer who thought about pursuing a career on the PGA. Jason Williams, he of White Chocolate fame, spent his fall high school sports season quarterbacking passes to Randy Moss as the two of them won the state championship.

My sophomore year of high school, Sac-town was pretty excited abou the prospects of Matt Barnes, who was starring in both football and basketball at a local school. I remember being pretty excited to go watch him play and being amazed at his athleticism. He was destined for stardom I thought. Well today, as some of you know, he plays limited minutes in the NBA and minus a few instances of success, has led a fairly non-descript career. Which puts the athletic abilities of people like Allen Iverson into more perspective. What would it have been like to see him play in high school? Or to see a young Ken Griffey Jr.? I thought I had seen the real deal with Matt Barnes, and he has had no where near the success that he hoped he would (and is pretty much thought to be a sub-par athlete in the NBA).

So you see videos and hear some stories and you get reminded that not all of us are meant to be professional athletes. For me it brings out deeper thoughts regarding destiny and fate. I mean, Shaquille O’Neal, the 7′0″ 350 pound basketball player who is likely far quicker and agile than myself sure seems like he was clearly built to play basketball. But can we really say this was his destiny? Are we really going to believe that our Creator (whomever it is) really takes sports into consideration when ascribing our life paths? I really don’t know if I believe in destiny or the concept that all of us have a calling that we were put on this earth to do. But I do feel secure about some things. A guy like Allen Iverson was not put on this earth to work in an office. A guy like me probably was. But hey, there are always weekends I guess…..