I got this arti­cle from BNET. Some­times, we think that lead­er­ship prin­ci­ples are only found in books. There are a lot of things we could learn about man­age­ment and life in sports. In sports, the best and worst of man, his poten­tials and his psy­chosis become even more appar­ent than any­where else.

This is one of the really cool videos and cool events ever. I used to play pick-up base­ball (it was really stick­ball, but who cares?! hehehe) back when I was a kid in our neigh­bor­hood, and I could totally empathize to the feel­ing a young boy feels with all the atten­tion given them, spe­cially when they’re play­ing a game they love.

We’ve seen The Fight that made the world stand up and watch. Manny Pac­quiao has silenced doubters with a scary anni­hi­la­tion of Ricky Hat­ton inside Two Lop­sided Rounds that made the Eight Lop­sided Rounds last Decem­ber against Dela Hoya no longer a fluke (if it ever was con­sid­ered one).

It is 1936. Amer­i­can Jesse Owens seems sure to win the long jump com­pe­ti­tion in the Olympic games. The pre­vi­ous year he had jumped 26 feet, 8 1/4 inches — a record that will stand for 25 years.

As he walks to the long-jump pit, how­ever, Owens sees a tall, blue eyed, blond Ger­man tak­ing prac­tice jumps in the 26-foot range. Owens feels ner­vous. He is acutely aware of the Nazis’ desire to prove “Aryan supe­ri­or­ity.” As a black son of a share crop­per, he knows what it is like to feel inferior.

When I was in Grade School, I played for my school team in a national league called Small Bas­ke­teers Philip­pines spon­sored by a choco­late drink called MILO. It is a com­pe­ti­tion grown from the grass roots level, and so many of the stars we see on tv play­ing col­lege ball and the pro­fes­sional league (called the Philip­pine Bas­ket­ball Asso­ci­a­tion or the PBA—the old­est pro­fes­sional bas­ket­ball league in Asia) came from that competition.