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On Your Knees

May 5, 2012 By BonesBall Leave a Comment

“Bringin em’ to their hands and knees

In two short weeks the fortunes of three of the most storied professional sports teams were turned upside down, possibly for the foreseeable future and beyond. Mariano Rivera of the New York Yankees, Derek Rose of the Chicago Bulls and Amare Stoudemire of the New York Knicks, all went down with injuries that make us go, “Hmmm—how did that happen and why?”

When Mariano Rivera, the all time saves leader in major league baseball, went down with a torn ACL while shagging fly balls in the outfield most people cried, “What A tragedy!” At age 42, how can he possibly come back from such an injury and pitch again? What a terrible way to go out for one of the class acts the sport has ever known.”

The sports psychology experts will crow about the ultimate end that comes to every great athlete – and the surefire depression and even suicides that can follow the loss of the battle with father time or Karma. Was Junior Seau’s apparent suicide a destiny fulfilled? Rest in peace Junior.

Somehow the lives of elite athletes are now thought to be societal barometers for the game of life and the day to day soap opera that it entails – starring all of us in our self generated personal, societal and even political dramas.

But wait! What if Mariano – in line with a destiny embedded in his soul from the beginning – was preordained to go out not in the heat of battle but in the innocent playground of shagging fly balls in the outfield? What if it was his destiny to leave the game in such a way that he will learn a great life lesson that he could have learned no other way? And what if he says that he must come back from this injury that has literally brought him to his knees –clutching one knee in tremendous pain? If we knew that either scenario was true for sure, we might quietly rejoice for Mariano rather than have a pity party for a great player and scandal free athlete who has reached the ultimate in his sport.

We are sure of nothing in sports except that we love the nothing we know. We love the experience, the fun of telling each other that we know the unknowable about our beloved and hated heroes. If only we were so certain about our own lives as we are about the why and what for of everybody else who we think were put on the earth for our pleasure.

This is the beauty of sports that BonesBallers understand. The “game” is the playground for life lessons and the fulfillment of undiscovered destiny we had from the beginning – “To get beyond the limits of a body that could break or die. Who would sell who would buy that kind of need?” (Lyrics from the “BonesBall theme song). Well, we all have “The Need” whether we like it or not. Sports Psychologists, preachers, teachers, fans, mothers and fathers try to sell us on the ultimate marketer of this “need,” the one who’s somewhere out there urging us to make signs at games like, “We believe.”

But for Mariano Rivera, Derek Rose, Amare Stoudemire and even the new, all time great of the moment Jeremy Lin, being brought to their knees with torn ACL’s etc, it’s all just another chapter in the destiny book
Tomorrow – the BonesBall “inside” scoop on the Derek Rose knee injury and the Chicago Bulls attempt to write their own chapter. Hint, hint. It’s already in the books.

Barry Orms
Former NBA player and now BonesBaller

Filed Under: Sportsology, survival

WHEN WORLDS COLLIDE

May 2, 2012 By BonesBall Leave a Comment

It’s a great time of the year in 2012 for sports fans and fans of politics. Only every four years do these worlds collide in terms of their individual obsessions with dominating our very stressed and possibly limited attention spans. This is such an intense time in our society that there really should be a college course that brings every area of study together under one umbrella I would call, When Worlds Collide 101.” We would learn so much about ourselves just by taking this course where we could study the events that are current and those soon to come. We would look at the media coverage and write a group term paper analyzing the complete and unabated obsession with being number one in the hearts and minds of everyone.

Everyone would get to grade themselves just by participating and helping to complete this paper. Here are the participants in the May-June battle to be number one in our minds:

One World Trade Center. As of tomorrow, it will be the tallest building in the U.S. Take that you terrorist wannabees – try to bring that one down! Yes, it’s easier to see and I know all the reporting on how proud we are of it excites you. But don’t try it cause now you know we will just build another one even taller. So we are still – and will remain – number one no matter what you do.

The NBA playoffs are in full effect after the lockout. Everyone has something to prove albeit from a different perspective. No one knows who will win. We love it. The stakes are so high. Forget the Mayan Calender – End of the World Playoff in December. The world ends for the defeated NBA teams and players by end of their playoffs in June.

But wait there’s more! The NBA draft just finished this weekend and now we have a full-fledged battle between the NBA and the NFL for our love and devotion. The sports world wants to be our religion as it pumps us up to have faith that our team can win against all odds. Just take a look at that new World Trade Center building.

Let’s not forget that the Baseball season is going full steam. Baseball is our American pastime. And Baseball will not be denied it’s place as the sport that best exemplifies that we are indeed number one, at least until the football season officially starts in September. Of course he NFL ignores all that, and as mini-camps gear up and Tim Tebow speaks to thousands on Sunday, the NFL pumps out its chest and says “We’re number one!”

Let’s not even go into the political fight between the Republicans and Democrats. These in and out fighters push the same “we must be number one “ message from totally different points of view (they say). We stare transfixed at the TV watching the polls which are our political game scorecards as they predict victory or defeat.

But wait! The Olympics are coming to London in June and we have rocket launchers to be placed on the roofs of buildings to take out any terrorist air attacks. Religious psychos, the “best of the best” athletes from all over the world, and whole countries will be fighting to be number one in London. Worlds collide!!!!
But if the slugfest among your favorite sports and politicians is wearing you Bonesballers down, take heart. It’s only an opportunity for us to realize that we’re all in college studying how to transcend all the messages aimed at our heads by all the sports, all the politicians, all the religions and just enjoy the game of life.

As the sports and political, religious and all other “worlds” collide, let’s just sing that great American favorite – “It’s a wonderful time of the year.”

Kaboom!

Barry Orms
Former NBA player and now BonesBaller

Filed Under: Smack Talk : Voice Your Opinion, Sports Issue Tagged With: sport stress, sports, sports and competition, sports and religion

Metta World Peace? – Part 3

April 26, 2012 By BonesBall Leave a Comment

In order to survive the Metta World Peace debacle,we need help so that we don’t make judgments based on media hyping of an incident that gains more importance than it should. What do we need to do? We need to play some BonesBall .

“BonesBall is the game of life played in the mind, where standard definitions of right and wrong and the traditional oppositional ‘them against us’ mentalities are understood as inadequate to serve the moral issues of the day. It’s the BonesBallers in every walk of life, with their unbridled need to succeed, who are everywhere adjusting the scales of judgment, playing a day-by-day, moment to moment game of life to become heroes, sometimes in the world but more often, in their own souls.

As I was writing this I realized that I had forgotten that I was once a pro basketball player and was often feeling very stressed about the need for redemption through excelling in sports – especially after my team lost. Where was psychotherapy for athletes when I was playing? Well, it may have helped me but now we know that such man-made tools don’t solve the problems of our challenging global society. As James Hillman, the father of Archetypal Psychology has remarked about Psychotherapy. “It makes every problem a subjective, inner problem. And that’s not where the problems come from. They come from the environment, the cities, the economy, the racism. They come from architecture, school systems, capitalism, exploitation. They come from many places that psychotherapy does not address. Psychotherapy theory turns it all on you: you are the one who is wrong. What I’m trying to say is that, if a kid is having trouble or is discouraged, the problem is not just inside the kid; it’s also in the system, the society. I don’t think anything changes until ideas change. The usual American viewpoint is to believe that something is wrong with the person. We approach people the same way we approach our cars. We take the poor kid to a doctor and ask, ‘What’s wrong with him, how much will it cost, and when can I pick him up?’ We can’t change anything until we get some fresh ideas, until we begin to see things differently. My goal is to create a therapy of ideas, to try to bring in new ideas so that we can see the same old problems differently.”