Talent

There is no substitute for it.

You can be driven, persistent, and personality up the ying-yang (wherever that is), but someone with that special something, the God-given talent, will prevail.

It’s on display with athletes in almost every sport.

Cream rises.

I hosted the second Open Mic for the River Edge Sports Grill and Bar tonight and it started out very slow so I played most of a set before seats started filling up and we got some players in the room.

It was bomb and the talent was definitely on display with the two brothers who kicked ungodly ass. I really enjoyed listening to them. The guitar-playing bro had a perfect country voice and they were very entertaining. They live in the area, so I am hoping we get some more great musicians like them and a singer-songwriter- guitarist that absolutely brought the house down with his emotional delivery.

Chills.

So we gained steam and had some great music.

I am not going to go all ape-shit about Tiger and his opening round of 71 in The Masters. There’s a lot of golf left and he managed his round well, I just don’t know that he still has the closing ability.

As a hopeless romantic, I want the whole enchilada: I want Tiger in red, contending on Sunday, I want the roars and the fist pump.

But I also wanted Coach K to go out in a blaze of glory, waving the nets of his final championship.

But no.

Carolina had other plans.

Talent.

Things don’t always work out the way you want, but with all things being equal, I believe it is talent that is the difference.

What do you do when there is no difference in talent?

Impossible.

Talent, by its very nature, is elusive.

It is smoke.

Inside every competitor is a voice of truth. It tells you what is what. If you get humiliated in a wind sprint, you know you can’t beat this individual. It might start fucking with your head because, it could be a person that you know you can beat their ass, but they get the clock.

The clock.

End of story.

How fast are you?

Clock.

In England, in the year that England last ruled the football world, 1966, I played for a team of Americans in an English Youth League.

We were not treated as friendly guests in the country, more like strangers in a strange land. We would win a match very decisively in league play, but the press would report of our “narrow” 6-0 victory, or a “sloppy” 8-0 defeat of Chipping Norton.

When we won our first nine matches to tie for the top of the table with perennial powerhouse Stoke, they had to take us seriously.

We were bigger, faster, taller, stronger, meaner, and we absolutely hated the thought of losing.

Talent.

They beat us 1-0 in a match for the ages.

Stay well.