MKA Challenge Revisited

I was accused this weekend by MKA's father, Sherman, that I did not give enough credit or blog space to the fact that MKA beat me in the MKA challenge. I told him that I really don't know what else to say about it. MKA called me out on my blog and clearly stated that he would handily beat me in a race on rollerblades. And you know what? He did. I posted the video which not only shows MKA handily beating me, but to add insult to injury shows me falling in the back stretch. If a picture is worth a 1000 words, I am sure that a video is worth even more. But I want to keep my readers happy. I always try to fill any request that I get on my blog. I did a little research for you Sherman. I found that I poked and prodded MKA 10 times to set a date for the MKA Challenge. So for the next 11 postings I will post a link to the video of MKA beating me. I would post the video but it takes way too much time to upload. I have always felt that a lesson in humility can never be learned often enough, especially in this age that we live in where everyone is a winner.

Allow me to go off on a tangent here on the topic of humility. I was at a number of basketball games this past weekend. I learned that if the score got too one sided that they failed to keep score the remainder of the game. I am firmly against this. I can recall getting smoked in soccer games 13-0. This also reminds me of one of the first Freeman Parties when I held the musical chairs contest. My sister-in-law, Jody, asked me why I wasn't having the musical chairs for the kids. I told her because the kids will cry when they get kicked out of the contest. She told me that that wouldn't happen. But you know what? I was right and nearly every kid cried when they were kicked out of the game. But I was also wrong. By throwing them out of the game and making losers out of all but one of them, I taught all of those losers a lesson in humility. And now years later, when I hold the kids musical chairs, while they are disappointed when they get kicked out, they take losing much better. We live in a world where society is trying to tell us that everyone is a winner and everyone should be given a trophy, but that is not how the real world is. Trust me, there are tons of losers out there. I recall talking about this one time with my friend, Basketball Dave. He told me about the time when he was 8 years old and his baseball team was in the championship game. His team ended up losing and his team had to stand there and watch the other team get presented with trophies, while his team got nothing. And while it sucked that he lost and didn't get a trophy, it made him practice and play even harder the next year. And that next year, his team made it back to the championship game and this time they won. The moral of that story is that losing can be good for you.

So to get back to the MKA Challenge, yes MKA handily beat me. I, a 35 year old, fat, well past his prime, middle aged man, lost in a race to a National Champion All-American college athlete that is close to half my age. Here is the video.