This just in: Dads aren’t dimwits.

I have noticed recently that Dads in the media are portrayed increasingly as dolts, dummies and dimwits. This post is going to attempt to alter the course of that nonsense.

How dare you!

As a single Dad to four teens, I have been the grounding voice of discipline, authority, wisdom and common sense in lives of my kids. I'm their Rock of Gibraltar. Now, I'm pretty damn far from perfect. But I can cook, I can clean, I am college educated and I'm the holder of all the highest high-scores in the family. I have the best jump shot and make the best omelet in the house. (butter, not oil).

Sit down, dummy. According to TV, women get the job done better.

So why does Hollywood, TV and advertising portray Dads as clueless dolts and dopey dudes who can barely tie their own shoes, know nothing about fashion and can’t boil a pot of water without their wife or girlfriend? Give me a brake! I'm the first to admit, women offer an amazingly diverse perspective on everything from raising kids to shopping to running a household. I cherish every suggestion my girlfriend has offered over the years. But that's not because I'm some doofus who wouldn’t be able to function without some woman telling him what to do. 

I know how to iron, I know how to tie a half-windsor, I know how to bake bread, I’ve made lobster croquettes and bake a mean lemon cake (yes with lemon-shards and ground vanilla). As a classically trained artist, I can paint, build furniture, organize color schemes and cook better than most women I know. So sorry Hollywood, I’m pounding an angry fist on the BS button on your views of men!

Double tuning the carbondifibulometer with a 3” torque ratchet… thingie. 

I played organized softball, volleyball, football and basketball. I bench-press a considerable portion of my 270+ pounds. I do indeed, enjoy watching sports. Pretty manly stuff, right? But lift the hood of an automobile engine, and you might as well be showing me the operating schematics to a rocket propulsion system. In arabic. Backwards. Upside down. In short, I'm lost. 

I understand (fundamentally) how internal combustion works. But that's as far as it goes. I know nothing, repeat, noting about cars. I did not spend time as a grease monkey, huddled under a hood or a cranked ’72 Chevy Bartooga (or whatever) learning why the chronic flan-ger-ator doesn’t syphon off properly. With today’s computer-driven cars and repair systems, this seems completely unnecessary to me. 

Dad or bust.

Given the mixed messaging from society and the media, men have an increasingly convoluted picture about what it means to be a man. Or a father. Actually its really quite simple. Mothers give a caring, nurturing and loving perspective to life. And so does a man. A woman can have patience, compassion and emotionally ground. And so does a man. What women CANNOT show a child, is what it means to be man. To be there, to be engaged, to be a stern voice of authority when necessary, to show both daughters and sons what manhood really means. To take care of business, problems and your family. 

So, Hollywood, take out your notepads. Anyone can lay down and make babies. The real test of manhood is to stand up and take care of them. Everything else is a careful mix of common sense, fear, intelligence, lede expereince and blind guesswork. We all trip, stumble and make mistakes. Just admit when you’re wrong, apologize for any mistakes and pain you have caused, hold your head up and persevere when you would rather quit. I don't need a woman to help me with any of that. 

So that’s what it means to be a father and to be a man, according to me. Its not easy but its pretty simple, right? That's because it.

P.S., For the record, my Dad was never around. Which taught me the #1 most important part of being a Dad. Being there. 

Life Lessons In The Brackets

So what can the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament teach us about life?

It’s that NCAA Final Four time of year once again. And once again we're all a flutter over filling out brackets and trying to anticipate who will win–and when. It makes us all pseudo-basketball wizards. 

Many in the basketball world believe that tourney hoops is some of the best basketball ever. The passion and emotion exhibited by the fans, the players and even the commentators far surpasses that of the NBA or international rules basketball. Some believe it's because those kids are playing their hearts out for those pro scouts in the stands. Million-dollar contracts are on the line and every shot, every free throw–possibly every dribble–brings them that much closer to a giant payday with the coveted NBA rookie contract. 

That’s the complex and business side of college round-ball. There is something else, though. In tournament play, it's one-game elimination. One and done. Every game matters. No series, no best of five or seven games. Snooze you lose. Just like in life. Arguably, a powerful lesson for college hoops players and college-bound players alike as well as students of all ages (kids, I'm looking at you). 

But wait! That isn’t even the best part.

The best part is that a # 14 seed can upset a # 3 seed. A number one ranked team (or seed) can be toppled by a relative unknown, a nobody. And you know what the lesson is there, don’t you? That there are no guarantees, no such thing as a sure thing. No matter where you’re ranked, you have a shot at the big time. You have to be a giant-slayer and the road ahead is wrought with the toughest obstacles—but it can be done. Because it has been done. 

The best part of the NCAA tournament is that we can–even secretly–route for the underdog. Since the beginning of this nation’s history, we have been the underdog, the one least likely to succeed, the16th seed. It lifts our hearts and gives us hope that, even the least of us, can be champions.

And there is something pretty damn reassuring about that. 

Half-court Hijinks

My phalanx of teenagers are all presently at various forms of athletic participation. One is vying for a soccer career. The other three are pursuing joining school basketball teams or simply trying to hone their basketball skills. Ironically two of them (two boys) think it is way awesome to spend untold hours practicing half-court shots, while ignoring things like; fundamentals, skills drills, layups and perfecting positioning and jumpsuits. As the Dad and coach-by-default, I have to always call out that practicing this shot is a huge waste of time.

I'm met with disapproving stares, rolled eyes and exaggerated exhales.

Not that I'm not used to any of that (after all I am a Dad to one teenage girl and three teenage boys) but I am floored that this is news. "What does Dad know anyway? Its not like he plays in the NBA or anything…" 

True enough.

Yet, while I don't make a living at putting the ball through the hoop, I have played more street-ball, played in far more city and college intramural leagues and even squared off in a charity game against some pretty darn good ex-NBA players. So what do I know? 

What I DO know is that you don't get very good at something without practice. LOTS of practice. In author Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers: The Story of Success, he promotes the 10,000 hours rule that states it takes roughly that long to become (employable and) proficient at just about anything. 

I know there are no shortcuts to success (ask 80% of all lottery winners how it feels to file for bankruptcy after losing essentially un-earned millions), I know Rome wasn't built in a day (Look at it!) and I know you won't get a spot on the team shooting half-court shots. 

You see children-o'-mine, coaches look for heart, endurance and most importantly, dedication. They want to see you've committed to learning the fundamentals of a five-person TEAM sport, not try and snag all the glory on some lame hail-Mary 30-foot lob that has you looking more like a dork than a b-baller. 

But hey, I'm only Dad. I've only lived through this already and have the answers to these questions. So, ignore me and just keep shooting those half-court shots.

I'm sure it's just as fun watching the game from the bleachers, and hey–even though you won't have any skills worthy of getting you on the team–you'll have a killer half-court shot. 

On Building A Better You

I've been lately working with all my kids on helping them build a stronger, positive mental constitution. We work out together, we discuss the events of our days and we discuss current events. I HIGHLY discourage negativity, teasing and self-loathing. There is no use comparing ourselves to someone else or to calling out each others flaws and weaknesses. We accept shortcomings. They are there. We know it. We move on. 

When we work out, we commonly play basketball together. One of the little nuggets I was taught when I was coached earlier in life was that when shooting around, you never leave the court on a miss. 

In other words. always leave on a make.

Its sort of Zen thing. Leave the basketball court on a swish (a made shot for those that are not familiar this thought). Don't leave on a missed shot. Always leave on a positive—on a win. It helps make the workout and the experience a positive one.

It goes hand-in-hand with some of these other favorites of mine: 

• Always say I love you to at least one person you care about every night

• Do at least one thing everyday that makes you feel good

• Have a Hobby or life passion… then add another one. Repeat.

• Do at least one thing, every year, you've never done before

• Reject bad habits, embrace good ones

• Surround yourself with people that bring you up–release the rest

• Learn the rules before breaking them

• Create something 

… and of course, always leave on a make. 

Always.

My Random Life–Installment Two: Rim-Hanging at Basketball's Mecca!

Note: The following blog is the latest installment of my mini-series (a 'sub-blog' if you will) of the totally random events that happen in my life. This one goes back to the early 1990's when a good friend and I went on a six-week cross-country excursion that was a life experience that changed both our understanding of this great country.

Ever had an impromptu, self-imposed dunk contest at the Basketball Hall of Fame while the building was empty? I have!

It was the summer of 1993 (cue Wayne and Garth doing there whole "doodly-doo, doodly-doo" memory bit) and a good friend of mine had decided he had enough of the relentless New England winters and that it was time to move back to his home in sunny Calabasis, California. I was envious. Mike was (and still is!) a very good friend. As big a basketball fan as I am (which is how we met – playing for opposing schools in intercollegiate hoops) and an all-around kindred spirit. Hearing that he was moving was a real downer. Then, Mike made a suggestion that changed our lives forever. "Dude, we should get a car and drive cross country!'

At first I thought it was a pipe-dream. I mean, who just picks up and drives cross country? No one does that anymore, right? Where would we get a car? How much for food and gas? I couldn't go anyway, I had a roommate, a full-time job, etc. It just wouldn't work.

Then, I got laid off. With a fat severance package. Enough cash for the rest of the year and no sense of urgency about finding a new job. Maybe this was a sign?

Then, after about a month of kicking it around, Mike's parents offered to ship a car clear cross-country to get their boy home. A sign for sure!

Now, spiritual convictions notwithstanding, that is a sign no matter how you look at it. I decided, what the heck, let's do it – America, here we come! We quickly made some calls and charted a course across the country peppered with stops from arranging for crashes on the couches, living rooms, floors and spare bedrooms of friends, relatives and acquaintances across the country. Was this really doable? It appeared so.

We were soon on our way… first stop? A pilgrimage to basketball's Mecca in Springfield Massachusetts. In all my (then) years on earth, I had yet to make the trip cross state to The Basketball Hall of Fame where Dr. Naismith invented our infamous American pastime with peach baskets and a leather, hand-sewn ball back in 1896.

The museum was awesome.

We arrived on a Thursday afternoon with about an hour left before closing. It was barren, with only a handful of workers who were all super eager to shuffle us through so they could go home. It's a big place if you've never been, two stories and a genuine museum. Lots of displays, memorabilia, endless plaques and installations of people who have broken (or established) basketball records throughout the years. Coozy. Bird. Jordan, Johnson. Dr. J. Abdul-Jabar. All living legends of the game. All well represented. But the best part was yet to come.

"Dey playin' Bas-ket-baaaaalll–!"

At the time, there was an installation that had a moving sidewalk, a kind of conveyor belt—like you find at the airport, with an endless rack of balls in front of you, where you could grab a ball and shoot at a sea of rims ranging in height from about four feet to well over 10. This was fun. This is what we had come for. Basketball was so much a part of our lives we were in heaven. Then out of nowhere, with a load "CLANG!" the conveyor stopped. A young woman appeared out of nowhere and told us we had 10 minutes before closing time and disappeared just as quickly. What? Are you kidding?

Now I don't remember who leapt over the rail first, Mike or me (I am going to guess it was me since that is NOT uncommon behavior for me), but in an attempt to gain a few more balls for taking another shot, I scurried about the installation, about a full court in length, and grabbed a few balls. On the way back, I found a little six-foot rim and couldn't resist. TWO-HANDED REVERSE, DOUBLE-PUMP JAM! That, as my southern friends say, was all she wrote! Mike is about 6' 6" and I'm about 6' 2" and we were officially in heaven. An impromptu dunk contest – hanging on 6', 7' and 8' rims screaming out stuff like; "Dude, check this out – WINDMILL!" We must have been there at least another 20-30 minutes. Easy.

Sweaty, exhausted, hungry and hands sore from dunking on more rims than we could count, we lumbered toward the front. At this point the museum was closed and the folks who worked there were all congregating in the lobby, shutting down lights, getting ready to lock up. They had completely forgotten about us! They stared in wide-eyed disbelief at the two of us panting and sweating as we said pleasant goodnights and headed to the parking lot.

I am sure what we did was immoral in the eyes of fans, if not borderline illegal. At the least, we violated the purity of basketball's greatest destination – and I would do it all again! It was a perfect storm of opportunity–meets double dare– meets all out fun! I will never forget it. Never. Neither of us will.

After all, have you hung from the rims during a dunk contest in the basketball hall of fame? I have. If you ever get the opportunity... I highly recommend it. 

Bullies suck.

"I hate the kids at my school, they're always mean to me!"

What parent hasn't heard this one before? Ironically, it appears that more kids feel this way than not. Which is news to me, since this is the kind of stuff I would say when I was going to school. Elementary, Middle School, High School and even College. New Job? They must hate me! Carrying some deep-seeded, emotionally charged, childhood memories with me into adulthood, I felt the sting of bullying early in my adolescence, too.

These were words I've heard from the mouth of my then 11-year old son, Aaron, who is convinced no one in his school at the time liked him. Going to a fairly secluded, small private school, he believes that every kid in his 10-student grade dislikes him. He claims the other boys, who are taller, bigger, stronger and faster than him all bully him. While I doubt that the situation is as dire as that, I shared a story about overcoming bullying that I thought might be cool to share here, too.

Bullys suck. 

They are a fact of life and in many ways, they are around us our entire lives in some fashion or another. Largely, as TV has taught us, it is how we deal with them that defines us and gets us through their BS. I shared a story with Aaron that helped him put things in perspective.

In my neighborhood growing up, in Boston's affluent Back Bay, there was a little bit of everybody. White kids, Black kids, Hispanic Kids, Asian kids, bi-racial kids, all ages and creeds. When you grow up in a city neighborhood, you experience a lot. The family that lived above us for years had one boy who was three years younger than me. He had a Mom and a Dad who were divorced but chose to live together. The Mom had a live-in boyfriend... and the Dad had a live-in boyfriend. Like I said, a little bit of everybody. It's all good.

About age 10 or so, most of the kids my age started to move away, never to be heard from again, mostly moving out of state or moving too far to stay connected with. There were still plenty of kids but most were either a few years older, or a few years younger. That was OK, I went to school with plenty of kids my age. So weekends, holidays and snowstorms were with my neighborhood friends. Life was pretty good.

Enter Reginald.

Ow.

"Reg" and his friends, were a small neighborhood click that terrorized me from age 8 until I reached high school. Reg, a bi-racial boy who was tall, lanky and about a year older than me. There was Tyrone, a very scary dark-skinned Black boy who NEVER smiled and Tommy, a HUGE Asian kid, who had to be 250 lbs by age 14. The three of them combined to comprise of my own personal little Axis of evil. This multi-national coalition of local terror would chase me around the neighborhood, take my lunch money, throw ice-balls at me in the winter, fling small rocks via sling shots at me in the summer and generally make my life a living hell, often leaving me screaming in a frenzied panic for my Mom at the top of my lungs.

This scenario continued for years. However, eventually, things changed. I got less concerned about hiding from them (or was it they were too preoccupied with being teenagers to concern themselves with such an easily intimidated target). I got a new set of friends locally and I started lifting weights. 

Now, by no means was I some hulking powerhouse, but after some time in CYA football, YMCA basketball leagues and even a summer in a rigorous sports-based camp for young men in Juvie. [To this day, I'm not exactly sure why my Mom put me in a camp for young felons, as I was far from one myself but I actually loved hanging with those guys and learned how to fight (who am I kidding, learned how to take an ass-kicking) and talk real nasty street slang. Might explain a thing or two about me today]. I also started playing sports more regularly with friends and along with a budding dedication to better personal fitness, started transforming from a pudgy, reclusive, TV-addicted house-slug to a somewhat fit, toned young man who at age 17 was pushing 6' 1". I started working out, weight-lifting, bench pressing... getting big. 

If this is starting to sound like an ABC after-school special, oh just you wait.

Flash forward to the summer 1986. I just graduated high school and I was accepted to the school of my dreams, The Massachusetts College of Art and most importantly, at least to us at the time, the Celtics had just beat the Lakers for their 16th NBA Championship! Everyone was jazzed up to hit the city courts and show off their best street hoops moves. I was with a few of my hommies, waiting to play in a pick-up game at one of our favorite little basketball courts, a little single hoop, side-alley court on the campus of Northeastern University tucked in-between the 6-to-8 story brick-faced dorms. There were three things that made this court an all-time favorite with us. 

First, it was shaded, so playing in the summer wasn't unbearable as it got no real direct sunlight. Second, while it hosted it's fair share of giant young college dudes showing off their moves, the real draw was the Northeastern Co-eds who would show up and watch the boys play. We loved beating some the college boys to try and impress these young women that were clearly WAAAYY out of our league. But the most attractive feature to his court was the fact that it was a single rim mounted to the side of a 150 ft. brick wall. This made layups rather interesting. Resourceful young urbanites that we were, it didn't take us long to realize that just one or two steps off the wall at the right speed and angle, and you had all the air-time you needed to dunk. Especially in a game when someone else didn't know about it. My heart races just thinking about all the off-the-wall dunk contests we used to have. [sigh].

So one weekend afternoon, my fellow wall-dunkers and I are playing against some Northeastern University boys and a scrawny young guy, not quite 5' 10" comes along and asks to play. I pay him no mind. Two of my guys and I (all of us were between 5'10" and 6' 5") are waiting on the sideline to play next.

"Arthur?" The guy says. I turn and what do you know–it's Reg. It appears while I was pushing on to what would become a healthy 6' 2", 250 lb. frame, well... let's just say Reginald didn't quite continue to pursue an athletic, muscle-building lifestyle.

In my iciest low-toned voice I say; "Hey Reg. Haven't seen you in a while–what up?", the suppressed trauma of a thousand ice-balls to the back of the head and countless afternoons without lunch flooding my consciousness.

"I got next!"

"Wow dude, you got BIG!" He says, looking up at me. 

I grinned.

"You got next?" I add? He replies; "Yeah, let's see what you got. Go easy on me ok?" I couldn't help the next few words. "Oh, just go ahead and start some s**t now Reg..." He smiled a nervous smile. I saunter over to my crew and let them know I need to take the lead on scoring in the next game. They just nod. 

Then, it's game on.

I match up with Reg and post up on him scoring a couple quick shots, shooting over him as though he weren't there. My teammates were all very good so we had no problem man-handling Reg and his two random teammates. And then it was time to bring it home. With Reg guarding me, I took the ball, dribbling around him and one of his guys. He runs to catch up and tries to stop an obvious coming lay up, stepping back assuming the giant wall will do something to help his cause.

I swear, I still see the next event in my head in slow-motion like an ending to a bad 80's movie...

Like Spider-man, I run up along the wall, leap away and power a two-handed dunk through the rim that knocks Reg sideways and has him reeling in a dumb-founded stupor. "Holy s**t!!" he stammers, trying to keep his footing. The game ends quickly and he wanders off. I must say, it was one of my life's greatest little victories.

That brings us back to the story at hand. The message to my son was clear. If you just keep your wits about yourself, stay upbeat and plow through the tough times, you just might live to see the day where the tables are turned on the very people who make our lives miserable. It remains to be seen what Aaron's true take on the story will be, but he was entertained and was relieved to hear his Dad had gone through similar circumstance and came out on top. While revenge is not something I want him to fully embrace, there is no shame in allowing a single, vaguely cynical smile to cross your face when payback becomes a bee-yotch for your nemesis. 

We can revel in such events in our lives. We are, after all, only human.