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stuvian

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    SI Chronicles the Sad Saga of James Hardy

    in The Stadium Wall Archives

    Posted

    We make Gods out of the men who play this game yet they struggle with their lives as do we. We attribute superhuman confidence and ability to those who perform athletic feats in front of thousands not knowing about the gaps and emptiness they might carry around with them.

     

    It sounds to me like sports was the one and only thing that ever worked for James Hardy and when it was taken away from him he had nothing left to stand on. Such a hard, sad fall.

    11 hours ago, Shaw66 said:

    No, Colin.  The truth that he made bad decisions is only a small party of the story.   

     

    The whole truth, which is only hinted at in the story, is that this child spent the first fifteen years of his life, the years when just about all of his intellectual and emotional development takes place, effectively homeless.  His father was in prison and his mother often wasn't around.    He might have known where he would sleep tonight, but he had no idea where he would be sleeping in  a year.  He was poor.  It's a good bet the world he saw was filled with drugs, alcohol and violence.   

     

    Over the last twenty years, there's been a lot of study that's shown that children who grow up in that kind of environment have close to no chance of making.   Yes, as adults they make bad decisions, but they do so because it's almost impossible for children living in that kind of environment to learn to make good decisions.   Think about the one thing they do tell us - that when he was in high school he'd walk into a clothing store, take what he wanted and walk out without paying and without any consequences.   Not learning lessons about honesty and good behavior when you're a kid makes it very hard to behave as an adult as though you did learn those lessons.  

     

    The truth is very few guys make it out of that kind of life to have productive lives, including athletes.   The few who make it out often get their heads straightened out in prison or in the service.  Some do it because someone takes a really serious interest in them, commits to them.   That's what Michael Oher's story is about.   Whatever the truth is exactly, it's clear that those people who took him in when he was a homeless high school freshman changed his life.   Look at Marcel Dareus.   He continues to struggle trying to recover from that kind of childhood.   From our perspective, it's easy.   In truth, it's much, much more difficult to recover from that kind of a childhood than it is to learn to put a basketball in a hoop or to catch passes at Indiana.   

     

    It's a tragedy.  

    I think it's much tougher than you think.   When everything around you as a kid is a disaster, when it's all poverty, drugs, unemployment, sex and violence, it's very hard to develop pitive life skills.   When your life is as chaotic as his was and you begin to have success in sports, it's not surprising that you'd put all your eggs in one basket.  It's an escape, it's the only thing that gives you gratification.   But it remains extraordinarily difficult to do the rest of things in your life successfully.   

     

    I'm not advocating for anything.   I don't know how to fix the lives of people who live so dysfunctionally.   But I do know that kids growing up in that environment have a very difficult time growing into responsible, positive human beings.   That world is devastating to children.   

    Shaw your post is very eloquent and well considered 

    • Like (+1) 1

    Le'Veon Bell Will Sit Out for the Entire 2018 Season

    in The Stadium Wall Archives

    Posted

    I support Bell in his principled approach to getting the best deal he can get. People have forgotten that this league was so dirty and evil as to cheat injured players out of their injury settlements by trading them to other teams who would collude by cutting them immediately. Corporate America is run by swine and so is the NFL - the multi billion dollar league that thinks cheerleaders should work for free while they beg governments for subsidies.

    Bills Release Peterman

    in The Stadium Wall Archives

    Posted · Edited by stuvian

    8 hours ago, leonbus23 said:

    From Two Corinthians:

    16 Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. 

    17 For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. 

    18 So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.

     

    have you considered the team Chaplain position at OBD?

    I'm glad we Bills fans have our Joe Montana - Steve Youngesque QB controversy behind us. Josh Allen must be relieved not have Peterman breathing down his neck anymore. Instead of developing our own bad QBs we can go back to picking up every retread veteran QB since the forward pass. After all it's the Bills way. Please hold for Matt Flynn, Jason Campbell, Christian Ponder and RG3. 

    QB Position: Do they know what they are doing?

    in The Stadium Wall Archives

    Posted

    13 minutes ago, NoHuddleKelly12 said:

    Part of the issue with DA is his diminished physical skill set—more specifically, his inability to move around in the pocket when pressure comes, which it did early and often when he played. Not his fault, just a symptom of his age and nothing to do with his arm. But a statue taking blunt hits will chip away at performance (even TB12 showed this today) and DA is no exception to the rule. Barkley can still move around back there and I think that was the difference, IMO. Oh, and a strong ground game for a change also helped!

    Well expressed 

    QB Position: Do they know what they are doing?

    in The Stadium Wall Archives

    Posted

    3 minutes ago, Nihilarian said:

    He played against a 3-6 Jets team that has basically given up on the season. Only the Raiders are worse at this point.  Also, the Jets had no tape on Barkley as he hasn't played in the NFL since 2016 so their defense didn't know what to expect.

     

    On another note it seems that for Buffalo, when it rains it pours! Meaning that when the Bills get the lead they get the run game/pass game working well and it's a win. So far that has only happened 3 times this year vs the 7 losses which were mostly blowouts.

     

    Against the Patriots who held a 3 point lead in each of the first three quarters it was a completely different story as the offense couldn't do much except in garbage time. 

     

     

    I would not have pegged the Jets as having quit on Bowles but was very surprised by McCowns poor stats. He's seen the Bills enough to be able to game plan

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