Behind the Mike

The social scientists tell us that we are judged and we judge others on the basis of nine things.

The first is the color of our skin. I grew up in the deep-south in the little town of Lexington, S.C. In those days in the old south, there were three kinds of people- white people, black people and Jews. I am of Lebanese descent and I am Catholic by faith but in the eyes of most of the folks in Lexington, we were considered to be Jews because we were too white to fit in one group and too dark to fit in the other.

Since this kind of prejudice was rampant in those days, you either learned to be a good at fighting or you rolled with the punches. My grandfather, Eli Mack, Sr., was affectionately known as “Jew Mack.” He was not hated; in fact, he was loved by many and was even elected Mayor of Lexington in the late forties. Still, he was called “Jew Mack.” Catholics were also a despised minority, so many of my friends and teammates had a second thing they could use against me. They laughed at me as I ate fish on Fridays after the football game while the rest ate chicken or steak.

The second kind of prejudice is age. In the vast majority of businesses today, there is legitimate prejudice against older workers. There is this perception that they are past their prime. Shame on these organizations; they bully people into “early retirement” only to fatten their bottom line and eliminate higher priced talent in exchange for lower priced college graduates, who will have 14-18 jobs before they are 38 years of age, according to the Department of Labor.

The third kind of prejudice is about gender. Just look at the facts. Women are typically paid less than men in the workplace and have fewer opportunities. Many religions have outright prejudice and hatred of women, evidenced by the fact that they prohibit them from advancing in any way.

We can do little about our skin color, our age or our gender. We have to play the hand God dealt us. However, the other six prejudices on the list we can and should control. After all, we can only be responsible for one-half of a relationship- our half!

The fourth kind of prejudice is your appearance. We can do something about this. Clean up your act. Take a look at yourself in the mirror in the morning and ask “How can I make this look better to others?” Usually, it isn’t much. Pick the right clothes. Put on some make-up. Dress appropriately.

The fifth of our nine prejudices is your facial expressions. Put a smile on your face, whether you’re happy or not. No one wants to be around a grump. Don’t walk around looking like you’ve been weaned on a lemon.

The sixth prejudice comes from lack of eye contact. When you won’t look people in the eye when you’re communicating with them, you immediately create distrust. Lock in with others. It subconsciously says to them “You’re important to me!”

The seventh prejudice surrounds your body language. Body language speaks volumes about you. When you’re positive about life, you have a certain lift in your step. Even if your world is crumbling around you, “Act enthusiastic and you’ll be enthusiastic,” according the Dale Carnegie.

The eighth prejudice revolves around personal space. When you inadvertently invade other’s personal space, you cross a line that can rarely be reversed. Trust, once violated, negates a relationship. Give others plenty of room. Trust me; your breath isn’t as pleasant as you think it is.

The ninth prejudice is about your sense of touch, and I don’t mean physical touch. When you show legitimate care for other’s needs feelings and emotions it shows in how they respond to you. My wife does this as well than any person I’ve ever met in my life. You can be having a terrible day and she will find a way to make you feel better, and it’s all because she has an innate ability to touch others in a positive way.

Are you prejudiced? Study the list and determine how you can improve your relationship with others.

In the past I have written about bullying.  I believe that the recent incidents of reports of child abuse at Penn State University are more about institutional bullying than they are abuse itself.

I believe everyone in society, at one time or another, have been subject to bullying, be it from a superior at work, a member of the clergy, a family member, a spouse, a friend or associate, a teacher or coach or scout leader… you name it.   We don’t tend to interpret it that way, but by its very definition, it’s bullying!

I speak on platforms across North America about your “Telos,” a Greek word that defines “your purpose in life.”  A free society lives by a set of rules, and when those rules are violated it tends to favor those in power.

Our society is composed of four institutions:  family, school, religion and work.  They each have rules by which we have to live; otherwise there would be anarchy.  In every case, when abuse occurs, it is because those who possess the power exploit their subordinates.  The weak and helpless suffer the consequences.

When you hear of sexual abuse of children, one tends to think initially that it is about sex.  I disagree.  It is about the person in power bullying those who cannot or will not defend themselves.

When it occurs in a family environment, hopefully the authorities are there to step in and remove the children from the situation, before further abuse occurs.  When it occurs in schools, church or the work environment, it takes those institutions longer to respond, citing the rites of the abuser over the victim.

The Penn State situation is particularly sad.   By nature, a small-town environment, which certainly defines State College, PA, typically deny first and then start building walls of defense, hoping the problem will disappear.

I think it’s more about the “circling of the wagons” by those who are in a position to take action.  The Penn State example tells us now that the cover-up is as much at fault as those who failed to take enough action initially, causing scores of other victims to be abused because of their neglect.

In the end, it’s about bullying.  The person accused of abusing a child bullies that innocent victim into submission.  The authorities who took the reports did what all bullies do… they thought of themselves first.  They then “circled the wagons” and tried to sweep it under the carpet.  Shame on the bullies.

The proper authorities, who learned of the abuse, are themselves bullies in that they deliberately ignored the accusations and covered it up to preserve the precious institutional integrity that Penn State sings about in their Alma Mater.   Shame on the bullies.

The police and prosecutors who failed in their responsibilities should be removed from office.  If they were caught stealing they would be prosecuted for malfeasance.  Their negligence stole something far more precious, the innocence of young boys who could not defend themselves.  Shame on the bullies.

Perhaps the greatest fault of all lies with all of the hypocrites that sit in positions of power at Penn State University who failed to act on a situation that was properly and appropriately reported through the proper chain of command.  Instead, let’s make the people who reported it the sacrificial lamb.  Shame on the entire Board of Regents.  They all should resign!

Institutional bullying has been going on for years.  In one of my management speeches titled “Helicopters, Drill Sergeants or Counselors, Which Are You?” I define the drill sergeants’ bullying tactics.  I sometimes call it Attila the Hun Management. It could also be called threat management or ambush management because these people, who are in power, bully everyone one under them.  Shame on the bullies.

In the end, the entire mess won’t be cleaned up with the firing of Coach Joe Paterno or the dismissal of those who reported the abuse.  It won’t be fixed until the power structure that allowed it all is torn down completely and rebuilt, this time on a transparent foundation of integrity which Penn State so boldly espouses.  Shame on the bullies.

Among my many imperfections, I snore. Not as badly as I used to when I weighed close to three and one half bills, but I still do the nighttime growl from time to time.

I used to snore so loud that I would wake myself up. Go figure. If you go to the Mayo Clinic’s website to get a definition of snoring they’ll tell you that “It is the hoarse or harsh sound that occurs when breathing is obstructed in some way while you’re sleeping. Sometimes snoring may indicate a serious health condition. In addition, snoring can be a nuisance to your partner.” Duh! You think?

I’m still trying to figure out why Christine married me some 37 years ago. Counting the extending courtship, we’ve been together for close to four decades. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out why I’ve hung on to her, but one has to question what she saw in me and why she’s stuck around all these years.

It can’t be my good looks. I have a set of ears that make me look like a taxi cab with the doors open. My nose is double the normal size for the average human being. My head size is half again that of a typical guy, the contents of which are about half that of a normal human being. I have hair everywhere on my body with the exception of the aforementioned head, where it is disappearing day by day. Hair club for men… here I come.

I have serious food addictions that I have had to address with bariatric surgery, and I still have to take the guy’s word for it when I get my shoes shined.

My addictive behavior is not limited to my food intake. It transfers very nicely into other areas of my life that involve denial of responsibility every time I screw up and say or do something that I shouldn’t say or do, which is multiple times per day. You can’t do bariatric surgery on your brain.

Really, what did she see in me? She’s an educated, Registered Nurse with her Bachelor’s Degree; I barely finished high school. My kids accuse me of writing more books than I’ve read, which is probably true. Book number seven, “It’s the Customer, Stupid!” hit the shelves earlier this year. To be candid, I can’t recall reading seven serious books in my life, unless you call Nora Roberts serious reading.

I recently told my publisher, John Wiley and Sons, that I want to start writing trash novels when I formally retire. Fiction doesn’t require as much research and documentation as non-fiction. My wife suggests that most of what I currently write is fiction. Go figure. I call it literary license and she calls it lying.

I told Richard Narramore, my Wiley contact, that I even have my new pen name selected for my romance novels, Norbert Roberts. You’ve heard me say in the past, “All I want out of life is an unfair advantage.”

So as I rolled over after being yelled at last night for snoring, I thought to myself, she has to be nuts for hanging around this long and putting up with my many deficiencies. Perhaps she feels sorry for me. I can go with that.

Do you think it’s my pleasant demeanor? I always look like I’ve been running a 100-yard dash in an 80-yard gym with a persistent frown on my otherwise ugly face.

Christine will say to me, “Why don’t you smile?” I am smiling. I have one of those faces that hide my smile well. I look like I was weaned on a kosher pickle when I was a baby.

Just call me “grumpy,” who happens to be the one dwarf I resemble the most. I have “Dopey’s” ears and “Bashful’s” way with women. “Happy” I ain’t. I don’t know enough about the other three- “Sneezy, Doc and Sleepy” to suggest there’s any connection whatsoever. Just call me grumpy!

“Grumpy” was the most capable and competent of the dwarfs and he resented “Doc’s” position as leader, often doubting his capabilities in the 1937 hit show “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.” He was always annoyed by “Dopey’s” antics and “Bashful’s” shyness and “Sneezy’s” nasal explosions. Though stubborn, “Grumpy” has a compassionate heart, though he rarely admitted it. Perhaps that’s the bill of goods my wife bought 37 years ago!

There is an old expression: “When your values are clear, decisions come easy.”

What happens when situations you face are not so clear? My late high school football coach, James Wyman Ingram, whom I often write about in this column, committed what would now be called a major rules violation back in the fifties, punishable by suspension and/or termination.

Coach Ingram’s touching story resounds even today about a young man he coached named Tillman Craft, who came to Lexington, South Carolina from the nearby Edmund community. He was a product of a broken home, causing him to be separated from his seven brothers and sisters in the fifth grade. Coach Ingram learned of the young man’s plight and became his surrogate father.

He took in a youngster, one of eight children from the broken home. He fed him illegally, clothed him unethically, unlawfully took him to doctors for medical care and criminally helped him get an education. Shame on him for being a human being first and a football coach second.

Unable to put him up in his own small home because of young children of his own, Coach Ingram quietly let the boy move into the old Lexington gym that stood some two blocks from the coaches’ home in Lexington. He fed and clothed Tillman, never asking for assistance or permission.

In return, Tillman slept at night in the gym at night, bathed in the showers there and kept the floors cleaned as his rent. Coach and Mrs. Ingram kept him in clean clothes, fed him and saw to his medical and physical needs.

Soon the authorities found out about it and forced Coach Ingram to move the youngster out of the gym. Coach found him a room over a doctor’s office next to his home. Ingram continued to feed and provide for Tillman’s needs. Years later, he excelled as an athlete for the Lexington Wildcats.

After graduating from high school, Tillman enrolled at the University of South Carolina, where he studied law enforcement. He graduated with honors from USC, the first in his family to go to college. He enlisted in the US Army, where he served his country and also excelled as a multiple sport standout on the armed forces athletic teams. After completing his military duty, Tillman returned to South Carolina where he entered the University of South Carolina School of Law, earning a Juris Doctorate.

He later went to work for the FBI and where he built a remarkable career as one of J. Edgar Hoover’s finest. After retiring from the FBI, he opened his own security agency in Houston, Texas that named among its clients the Houston Rockets and the Houston Astros. He later retired a second time and bought an oil company.

You have to ask yourself the question: Which side of the law would a homeless fifth grade child have ended up on were it not for the love and concern of James Wymon Ingram? Coach Ingram clearly violated a rule that under today’s standards should have caused him to be terminated.

When your values are clear, decisions come easy. The greater good of serving another human being, who could not help himself, is what drove his decision.

Fast forward to today. Coach Bill Buldini of St. Cloud High School in St. Cloud, Florida is in hot water over taking in a homeless player. My son, Cory, is an Assistant Football Coach and the strength and conditioning coach for the Bulldogs, in addition to his teaching duties in the science department and head weightlifting coaching activities. I am intimately aware of the facts behind the situation and was even delivering the motivational pre-game speech to the team moments after the coach had been suspended.

The athlete in question has played for this school for some three years and is considered a mid-level athlete. From all reports, he is an A-B student from what could be best described as a “difficult” home situation. No, he was not recruited for his athletic prowess and brought in to build a championship team. He did not have hundreds of colleges chasing after him to go to their university to play football. No, it is much simpler than that. His father lost his job and the family had to move north to find employment.

The young man clearly loves his high school and wanted to finish there. The coach took in this homeless kid and illegally put him up in his home, unethically fed him and shamelessly provided for him. It may now cost the team victories and the coaches’ career could be blemished. Shame on this man; he is guilty of being a caring human being. He placed his values over victories.

The internet is all abuzz about the entire situation with thousands of hits, 99.9% of which are praising the coach and calling for the heads of the bureaucrats that stand in judgment of him.

The question is simple, when you stand before your maker to be judged, will you choose values over victories? Will you choose career over caring for others? Will you put your needs ahead of another’s? Or will you do the right thing? Will you be bitter or better because of it?

We can only hope that those who sit in judgment on this coach will take this into consideration before they lay to rest a good man’s career.

I have been blessed over the years to have the privilege of speaking to dozens of high school and college football teams and even a professional team or two. I love sports so I always do it for free for educational institutions.

Occasionally you get a surprise when you show up at a speaking venue. I was about to deliver the motivational keynote speech to Atlantic Electric in the early eighties when the CEO announced a layoff of 15% and an across-the-board pay cut in the same amount. “And now, ladies and gentlemen, here’s the motivational speaker!” Talk about being cold-cocked.

My son, Cory, is the Head Weightlifting Coach at St. Cloud High School in St. Cloud, Florida. He is also an Assistant Football Coach in charge of strength and conditioning for the Bulldogs. His Head Football Coach, Bill Buldini, recently invited me to do the motivational pre-game speech for their opening conference game with Edgewater High of Orlando.

Cory arrived in the cafeteria where I was to speak with the players in tow. He quickly pulled me off to the side. “Dad, we have a problem. Coach Buldini has been suspended for providing housing for a homeless player. You need to know that before you speak.”

Out the window went the prepared speech. Thank God for Toastmasters! For me, getting through this was easy. For the players and the remaining coaches it was hard. Clearly distracted, they lost a close game that night that they should have won.

Coach Buldini was suspended for helping a homeless player who could not help himself. The rule is clearly there to prohibit coaches from recruiting star players from other districts to play for their team. The young man involved here comes from a difficult family situation. The father lost his job and their home and moved north to find work.

This young man didn’t walk onto campus last week. He has been a member of the St. Cloud Bulldogs for three years now. With due respect to him, at best, he is a mid-level player who is probably better in the classroom than on the gridiron. I’m told he’s an A-B student who is more likely to earn an academic scholarship than an athletic grant. There aren’t hundreds of schools begging for his playing services in college. All the kid wanted to do was finish high school with his classmates, earn a diploma and play out his senior year. Now he has lost his temporary housing and his eligibility has been suspended as well. Unless reversed by the powers that be, he will never play again.

St. Cloud High School may now have to forfeit two hard-earned victories over teams they beat earlier in the year. In addition, the school may have to pay significant fines. The fact that the school self-reported the violation should lessen the fines and should be in their favor. However, it is fair to expect sanctions will be levied.

Thousands of people are up in arms and are pounding the internet with indignation over this situation. Cory personally asked me not to write about this until the process had run its due course and I respected his wishes.

Coach Bill Buldini, who is a teacher of modest means, reportedly receives a $3,850 stipend as head coach. At the time of this writing, he is subject to financial penalties and severe sanctions that will forever blemish his coaching record. This is a shameful situation. It penalizes a coach for doing the right thing.

Coach Buldini has temporarily been reinstated. When I spoke to him before his team’s victory over Evans of Orlando, I put my arm around him and told him that he did the right thing. He chose values over victories. When he stands before his maker, he will be judged kindly for reaching out to help another human being, for feeding, housing and caring for a homeless player.

The bigger question here is what will happen to this young man now? I’m the ball boy for Cory’s freshman team and I get to see the young man as he prowls the sidelines slapping kids on the helmet and coaching them up at freshman, junior varsity and varsity games. He has been deprived of his passion of playing for the rest of his high school career, but it doesn’t mean he cannot be an inspiration to others. Perhaps he will find a new calling as a coach and a mentor to others. Will this make him bitter or better? Only time will tell.

My main concern for him now is his personal welfare. He was to take his SAT’s recently. Hopefully the team Chaplain, who is a local Youth Minister, can assist him in getting to the testing site.

Hopefully, he can find some housing and sustenance that doesn’t violate some law or rule.

Hopefully, this young man won’t end up on the streets on drugs because all his other options have been exhausted.

Hopefully, the system will come to its senses and put a stop to any further sanctions or penalties.

Hopefully, this will make him better, not bitter.