Shoes

I was recently invited to attend a two-week leadership development seminar in support of my occupational career path development; the seminar focused on various aspects of personal and professional leadership skills as well as exercises and techniques in communication, personal engagement and mentoring, and determining the right human capital "soft-skills" for leveraging the best output from people, both personally and professionally...

During one of the many exercises, my task was to select a favorite pair of shoes, whether currently owned or from my past, and to write a short-story of an event based from the perspective of the pair of shoes vice my own personal recollection of the highlighted event--here's the reflection of my Adidas Rod Laver tennis shoes from the summer of 1986...may I be mindful of the value and impact of perspective. :-)

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Your fingers laced up my threads with a great sense of determination that day; never in your short tenure as a tennis professional had you ever faced a World Tour pro, but here you are locking eyes across the net with Patrick McEnroe.  If you never returned to San Luis Obispo, CA in your lifetime, THIS tennis tournament day will forever be etched in your memory...

Patrick McEnroe was a sophomore at Stanford University and would often play the "minor league" tennis pro circuits up and down the California tennis terrain; Greg Herpst, the Santa Maria Country Club head professional for whom you worked, had asked you to go represent the Club at this particular tournament, so off we went.  One of your fellow Club members, Dennis McAlister, drove us up to the San Luis Obispo tournament site and viewed the match, cheering and supporting you with fan-like energy and with baited breath hoping for an inspiring outcome.  Knowing his brother's public reputation, I'm sure you had similar thoughts of "Lit'l Mac" being of similar like-minded "hot-headedness" as you entered the match; amazingly though, he was not.  I could feel your previous determination of being ready to stand up to a potential bully morph into a less aggressive and more thoughtful and strategic posture as the match wore on...

The game of tennis is a simple battle--point, counterpoint, call and response, action and reaction.  You have propelled me across many a tennis court surface over the years in similar battles, but never had I observed you be so deliberate, near surgical, with every shot--not trying to be more than you were cable, but knowing you held the skills to compete at a level you'd never previously considered or imagined...

While you learned that day how to stand firm and confident in your own athletic abilities, you also learned not to assume anything about others or about yourself--hold fast to that lesson, Street, regardless of the shoes you wear.

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