In two weeks our new football stadium will host the 2018 NCAA Division II Football Championship.  After opening the facility last August to cross-town rivals and completing regular season play earlier this month, landing a college championship game has made this inaugural year definitely one to chronicle!

Aside from all the legend and lore that surrounds high school football in this state, the atmosphere and energy unique to the game is really something you have to experience to understand.  It’s a time when communities come together and share their passion for something, whether that “thing” is the competition itself, or the half time show, maybe the traditions, the sounds, the memories – something. And then there are the people, often as diverse as the reasons that brought them there to begin with.  Let me tell you about one game you likely didn’t attend and probably have never even heard about.

On March 24, 2007, the Winona State Warriors entered the MassMutual Center in Springfield, Mass., on a 57-game winning streak, were the reigning Division II basketball national champions, and were led by the two-time D-II player of the year.  They were overwhelmingly favored to defend their title against Barton College, a tiny school from Wilson, North Carolina, with an enrollment of less than 1,000.  The Bulldogs were led by Anthony Atkinson, a largely overlooked point guard whose 5’9” frame made coaches question how well he could transition to the next level.  On that night, he engineered one of the greatest comebacks in college basketball history, scoring 10 points in the last 39 seconds of Barton College’s 77-75 win.

He also has the distinction of being the first-ever player selected in the Harlem Globetrotters’ inaugural player draft.

Last weekend I took the family to see Anthony (now Ant) and the rest of his nicknamed teammates as they took on their constant companion rivals, the Washington Generals.  For the record, the Generals last victory over their “foes” took place in 1971!  In this Newsweek article on the history of the Globetrotters, you realize what trailblazers this organization has been for the past ninety years.  They have broken barriers on race, gender, culture, society, and more.  Beyond the pure talent and theatrics though, what really struck me about the evening was how, like our beloved football games, an entire community came together for a night of entertainment.  If you haven’t been to an event like this before, just know audience participation is a non-negotiable.  We saw kids of all backgrounds joining in on the fun, adults made to look silly, recognitions including a 25-year wedding anniversary, and a particularly special moment when a little girl sporting two prosthetic legs ran the length of the court to the cheers of the entire arena.  This is what the Globetrotters are about – bringing people together so they can get to know one another better in a safe space.  I don’t think our business is that much different when you consider our mission across generations.  As we enter this holiday season, let’s make sure our kids know about safe spaces where they can just be themselves.  Let’s make sure the adults know too!

Today is Veterans Day, a time we give thanks and celebrate the service of all U.S. military veterans.  It’s also a time of reflection on the many freedoms we are afforded because of those that have gone before us as well as those who continue to lead the way.  My calling was not the military though my father and father-in-law both served, and I am thankful for their service.  My superintendent also makes a very big deal about today as he uses his own platform to honor our servicemen and servicewomen in a public, yet truly personal, way.  I appreciate his leadership in reminding us all of why we should be grateful.

Each generation is connected to the way of the world differently I suppose and for me, 9/11 was the event that made the abstract all too real.  I was in high school during Operation Desert Storm and remember the yellow ribbon I, along with other classmates, wore to support our troops.  But to be honest, the “realness” of that conflict resonated exclusively because my biology teacher’s husband was a soldier stationed in Iraq.  I didn’t know enough and wasn’t mature enough to process the stakes at hand.  September 11^th was just a different, once-in-a-lifetime changing experience.  For me, I was getting gas that morning when the news started coming in (I was at a local RaceTrac close to work).  In the aftermath, it stands as the single deadliest terrorist attack in human history and the single deadliest incident for firefighters and law enforcement officers, some 3,000 lives lost.  I saw the Pentagon nearly a month later in person, still smoldering.  I’ve been to Ground Zero and the subsequent National Memorial where the names of every person who died in 2001 are inscribed into bronze panels edging the Memorial pools.

I was reading recently that Toby Keith, American country singer-songwriter, wrote “Courtesy of the Red, White, and Blue” in 20 minutes as both a reaction to 9/11 and in honor of his father, who was a veteran and died earlier that year in a car accident.  At first, the country music star considered the song too personal to record, singing it only in live performances, mostly for military audiences.  However, after being convinced to record it as a patriotic morale-booster during the build-up to war with Iraq, the song shot to the top of the country charts.  This was his calling and the gift he had to offer.

And finally, on a day to remember, Representative-elect Dan Crenshaw out of Houston, TX, provides the ultimate life lesson – forgiveness.  He’s a decorated Navy Seal turned politician who comedian, Pete Davidson, on Saturday Night Live poked fun at – you can learn all you need to know here.  Apologies followed and were accepted, and the game changer came when Crenshaw appeared on SNL and among other lessons, shared we should Never Forget.  In his closing, the two Bronze Star Medal / Purple Heart / Navy Commendation Medal with Valor Ivy leaguer said “and never forget those we lost on 9/11, heroes like Pete’s father.”

One of my go-to sites when needing a reality check is despair dot com.  It’s an online novelty shop that pokes fun at the retail motivational spin industry that sells hope in convenient office displays.  A signature product is their take on the inspirational posters we often see with a buzz word followed by a tag line.  I was remembering a favorite “demotivator” of mine earlier this week when listening to my son share his thoughts and reactions to a political advertisement he had seen on TV.

I had read a quote while following coverage on the serial mail bomber by our commander in chief that claimed “a very big part of the anger we see today in our society is caused by the purposely false and inaccurate reporting of the mainstream media that I refer to as Fake News.”  It stuck with me too long and lingered and when my son commented that he disliked the tone of the commercials he was seeing and did not understand the reason [his words] “why all they do is talk bad about each other,” I realized he was 12 and I’m not and I’m wondering the same thing.  So I did a little research as I’m prone to do.

One of the organizations I’m affiliated with is the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) and, among other things, ISTE has developed a framework for school folks on how to rethink education and create innovative learning environments.  A major component of this road map addresses digital citizenship which attempts to promote safe, smart, and ethical decisions online.  Sam Wineburg, a Stanford University professor and lead author of a recent study that explored students and their ability to evaluate online information, gets right to the point.  “Many people assume that because young people are fluent in social media they are equally perceptive about what they find there.  Our work shows the opposite to be true.”  Consider this for a moment – a key finding from the Wineburg study – 82% of students can’t distinguish between sponsored and unsponsored content.  This was a 12-state, nearly 8,000 kid study, surveying middle school, high school, and college level students!

So when I hear calls about the true enemy of the people, I realize rhetoric is indeed rhetorical.  And if my kids and your kids and collectively our students are struggling with fact and fiction, maybe we can all benefit from reading a bit more from Dr. Wineburg’s research.  What can we do better to engage students in legitimate debate on topics of interest that honors and respects differences in their discourse?  As moderators, how do we tailor our own bias and not just meet kids half way, but go more than that proverbial mile?  Though the picture above was pun full intended, engaging each other’s cooperation is a universal survival skill we can never get too right.