Tuesday, March 2, 2010

8th Grade Basketball

I am five feet and four inches tall. That’s about 163 centimeters for you Euros. Basketball is a tall person’s sport. Sometimes I don’t understand things terribly quick. I used to think I was quick learned, I'm not so sure anymore. For some reason I thought I could make a decent basketball player. So when my basketball coach told our team to quit drinking pop (soda, coke, mountain dew, etc.) for the season I quit drinking pop. I was never a heavy drinker and after the first month I didn’t even miss it.

Since then in the late fall of 1999 I have not drank anything carbonated on purpose. I had a Red Bull once and I had an upset stomach for two days. I have also tired punches and beers since that time but the bubbles are just too much for me to handle. I will have an upset stomach if I drink anything carbonated.

This was a significant event in my diet. Each can of soda has 10-12 teaspoons of sugar. How much sugar I have not drank in the last 10 years I have no idea.

It’s strange how one sentence in a 20 minute speech has altered the course of my life. Obviously I have no proof that I would be any different than I am now if I drank soda or beer but I think I would be different. I am convinced that those are calories that would have just never ended up on my midsection. Perhaps when I took six months off of running my freshman year of college I would have gained more weight and never gotten back into competitive running and then were would I be now?

I read a little of Malcom Gladwell’s Tipping Point book where he suggests that small actions can have huge consequences if they come at the right time. Well, an eighth grade basketball coach telling the team to quit drinking pop for the season seems to have lasting consequences for me.

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