BREAKDOWN 2020: LIFE SCOREBOARD FOR ELEVEN SECONDS

Breakdown 2020 looks at the year’s round up on World Magazine.

Year 2020 included the deaths of notable politicians, academics, theologians, athletes, and artists. 

This is the most notable entry on the list:

Travis Roy, 45 / The Boston University hockey player who was injured and paralyzed 11 seconds into his first college game, he lived for 25 more years, becoming a philanthropist who supported others with spinal cord injuries. 

Eleven seconds on the ice, probably the most important eleven seconds in sports that started with the hidden desire to do something, do anything, and sports gave an outlet.

With so many sports like old wresting sports, and new rhythmic gymnastics sports, and emerging sports like break dancing as an Olympic competition, a person who wants to push themselves, needs to push, finds a sport.

But hockey? Boston University hockey? BU? Not Boston College?

Out west we see BU and figure it for a misspelling of BYU, or BSU Boise State. Adding hard-ass hockey, since there’s no other kind, to BU makes it a tougher school, and Travis Roy a tougher kid. As if Boston needs a tough reminder.

(Travis Roy’s story) is a story about America’s love affair with sports and the people who embrace its never-die spirit. Most of all, it is the story of one young man who surrendered to no limits and defied all odds, both before and after the tragedy that ended his game. –E.M. Swift in Eleven Seconds

Breakdown 2020 With Travis Roy Story

Reading about Roy got to me because of the timing.

He made it through the jungle of hockey camps, leagues, travel, and landed a spot on college hockey ice. We see college sports enough to take it for granted.

An Oregon Duck catches a tip-toe interception on the sideline?

“He’s good, but come on. Still just a college player.”

That we, at least most of us, could never do anything as remotely athletic on our best day seems insignificant.

My special memory is wrestling a match against an Oregon State Beaver front-liner inside Gill Coliseum. They didn’t rename it Gill-aspie Coliseum afterwards, if you’re wondering how it went.

Travis Roy made it onto college ice, then everything changed. Just like 2020.

Eleven Seconds Come And Gone

How long does it take to tie your shoes? Button your shirt? Brush your teeth? By eleven seconds I’m just settling into a good brush rhythm.

It goes by, and it’s fast. Now I know how long ‘in the blink of an eye’ is: It’s a decade, the ’90’s, where I put wife and kids ahead of my selfishness and delivered a steady source of male influence.

If that sounds too easy, it’s because it is. Count the goals, the steps taken to achieve them, and make the call. I wanted my wife to stand tall, my kids to stand out, and all it took was putting in the time.

There’s no substitute for the daily grind of a shared existence, of wondering ‘Is this all there is’ and answering with ‘it’s enough already.’

Show a little kindness, teach with a little humor.

Take time to learn how to present a case in court, who to call, what constitutes evidence, and share it with someone facing a similar future. Leave out the part that none of it matters when the judge gavels guilty on a law violation that isn’t the one cited.

“That’s not right.”

“No, no it’s not. You pay the fine over there.”

Eleven Seconds To Breakdown 2020

It takes eleven seconds to pat yourself on the back, the same time it takes to pat someone else on the back.

Take eleven seconds to decided what to cook, not what to order out. If that doesn’t work, take eleven seconds to find good food.

Take eleven seconds to remember if it’s Push Day or Pull Day, then push or pull the weights. Add a power walk in there, but longer than eleven seconds.

Take eleven seconds to remember why you participate in things when it’s not going the way you want. Use the time to remind yourself your turn is next.

About eleven seconds from . . . right now.