As a coach, my perspective on people and personal relationships, from an athletic perspective, is somewhat simplified for the athlete; there will be only two types of people who come into purview: The Givers and the Takers.

My first year of high school was spend at a small private all-boys boarding school tucked away in space and time along the western edge of Connecticut in a place called South Kent.

Just outside the tunnel entrance of the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, there is a statue of Terry Donahue, the winningest coach in Pac 12 and UCLA Football history.

Often times, the circumstances we are faced with in life seem to be out of our control. The impact of what is done by one individual can have a direct affect upon others. Over time, life has taught me to “run with the herd” or “stay with the pack.”

Every day, we make decisions that contribute to our own personal histories, and these kinds of decisions also contribute to the momentum of our collective pendulum experience. Sports, and the sports athlete, are not at all spared from the swings of the pendulum.

Today as a coach, I can understand with greater appreciation just how much balance is needed between finding the magic and building a solid game plan, while also preparing the team.

My roommate saw the world much differently than all of us ever did, and I was about to learn just how boundless his vision of the world and himself in it truly were. Those who were blessed to know my roommate, knew him to be a rambunctious 9 year old boy trapped in the body of a titan gladiator.

The truth is witnessing triumph and defeat in the eyes of opponents; it is seeing love, respect, appreciation, happiness or sorrow in another human being without them ever having said a single word in any spoken language. This is real language and one that never needs to be translated. Attempts to translate this language into spoken or written words leaves room for error.

And the one lesson that towers above all others is this: What we perceive as being our limitations or the limitations of others, are nothing more than our own mindset.