We learn early on that, in order to be a winner, you have to believe in yourself. You have to have the confidence to make things happen. And you have to have personal pride.
Sports are positively essential. It is healthy to engage in sports, they are beautiful and liberal, liberal in the sense that nothing serves quite as well to integrate social classes, etc., than street or public games.
Our success at friendship, business, sports, love--indeed, at nearly every enterprise we attempt--is largely determined by our self-image. People who have a confidence in their personal worth seem to be magnets for success and happiness.
Then might ye see
Cowls, hoods, and habits with their wearers tost
And flutter'd into rags; then reliques, beads,
Indulgences, dispenses, pardons, bulls,
The sport of winds; all these upwhirl'd aloft
Fly to the rearward of the world far off
Into a limbo large and broad, since called
The paradise of fools.
Our point isn't to make an examination of popular film but to illustrate that the yearning for a heroic adventure lies just beneath the surface of our consciousness; film, television, literature, sports, and travel are in a sense vicarious adventures.
It's the bane of both the news and sports businesses, both electronic and print - 'You heard it here first!' Who cares? That's nothing but a vanity play. If it's not right, it's garbage.
I've called Chicago home for nearly 25 years. It's a city of broad shoulders and big hearts and bold dreams; a city of legendary sports figures, legendary sports venues, and legendary sports fans.