​The “Decluttering League” (DCL) is now open for business. For years, individuals have toiled in the minor leagues, hoping to be brought up to the majors – the DCL.
 
People who can’t get rid of things, who leave yard signs in the trunks of their cars for years and old paint cans in their basements for decades can now aspire higher. They can shoot for the DCL.
 
For all of you out there who can’t throw things away, there is a future. Prizes, high contracts, celebrity status all await if you can demonstrate you have the high level decluttering attributes necessary for the ultimate success.
 
Let’s step back first. Why the DCL? Why do we need something aspirational for those who can declutter? Because so many people can’t.
 
Clutterers can’t stop. They may get rid of some things, only to fill their homes again with the exact same stuff. Or, they find other materials not worth keeping that they decide have some elite status that means they must stay in your pantry decades past their expiration date.
 
I remember living in Nebraska, and a neighbor filling his car to the ceiling with newspapers. It sat in front of his house for the five years we lived there. I don’t think the car ever moved. Not sure it could.
 
If you looked in his garage, it was stacked to the rafters. He dug a path through it somehow. Kind of like little tunnels so that he could get to the door and enter the house. I’m sure after he opened up those walking tunnels, they filled in again. I’ll never know.
 
Lucky enough to enter his house? Oh boy, you couldn’t open the door to his spare room. You’d die. It was packed to the rafters with books, albums, teddy bears, kid’s toys and so many other things that something would have fallen on your head and killed you if you didn’t open the door properly. TIMBER!!!!!!!!!
 
Part of reaching for the DCL, is being a clutterer to start with. You have to make a mess if you’re going to clean it up to major league levels that the DCL rewards with recognition. Take baby steps. That’s the first piece of advice from the experts. Don’t tackle it all at once. Begin slow. Determine some things you know you can release without too much stress and anxiety.
 
How do you get started on a room if you can’t go in it? That’s a big question for those combatants wish to raise their skills for the DCL. In the spare room example above, you might start at the top, yanking the upper layer of debris and launching it into the hallway, then walking down to examine what should go and what should stay. Go for it. You can do it.
 
This is akin to mining coal. You have to peel off layer after layer. Keep grinding and pounding.
 
Watch out for the cave-ins. This is always a potential problem, necessitating a times the wearing of a hard hat (hence the coal mining analogy above). If you take a bowling ball on the noggin’, you’ll survive.
 
Spring training starts soon for the DCL. It is an open competition. Don’t start too quickly. Warm up. Put on your uniform, make sure you look good. Hold a pre-decluttering conference. Ready, set, open that closet door.

​Watch out folks, I’m going on a rant. I don’t know where this column is going.

The genesis was a week ago. I got into an email dialogue with two close friends that went all over the place. One thing led to another.
 
The conversation started with deep fakes and the threat they pose. One of the friends has made a video about a horror move proof of concept. In putting that together, he used AI to create scenes.
 
The other buddy (I’ll call him B and the first guy A), didn’t realize it was AI. I did, and mentioned how easy it was to detect because of the stilted acting. “B,” on the other hand, just thought it was bad acting.

Our ranting began from there on the deceptiveness of deep fakes, and how we are bombarded by material like in the movie clip all the time. How are we supposed to figure it out? Yeah, be self-aware, that helps. If you’re sharp, you stay perceptive and notice nuances where you can determine the deception.

What percentage of the world’s people have those skills/qualities (and the inherent desire to see reality)? Maybe 20 percent? What do you think? If it’s 20 percent-ish, that means 80 percent aren’t really thinking things through. That’s scary.

Which led to another item – a recent report coming out that said approximately 60 percent of U.S. citizens read at the level of a 12-year-old (or less). This applied to their ability to take what they read, conceptualize, recognize, understand, make coherent conclusions and decisions, plan ahead.
 
Those unable to read at a higher level are targets for subtle and complicated messages. They don’t understand nuance; nor do they understand complicated issues. That’s the preponderance of people in our country.
 
Which led to another discussion, which is about politicians and why they message the way they do: hit the vulnerable with attack adds. Play on their emotions. Demonize the enemy, making them look as bad as possible, because people don’t understand the issues anyway.
 
This took us in the direction of why we should respect experts. Give them their due. People who are leading edge in their fields are there for a reason. Instead, a significant segment of our population wants to put them down and criticize them as being eggheads as opposed to experts.
 
In a round of decluttering that “A” did from a previous job, he tossed a folder of bizarre letters he received when he was show producer for PM magazine. He kept a handful for a variety of reasons, but as “A” put it, “the ignorance, poor grammar, misspellings and general cluelessness of the viewers who chose to write to us was staggering.” 

With all that ranting, we were convinced that many/most politicians aim their pitches at the gullible mouth breathers and hard core party loyalists. Attack, attack, attack your opponent and do nothing to improve the country.
 
To finish off the rant, “A” got into polling. I will quote him: “Every time and I mean Every. Single. Time. Americans are polled, the majority think the country is headed in the wrong direction, regardless of the party in control.”
 
“BUT THEY NEVER SAY WHAT DIRECTION AND WHERE/HOW TO CHANGE!”
 
Is it any wonder why we have so many cynical individuals in our country?

​Something no one tells you when you sign up to become a sports official is that you will see places and athletic contests that enhance your life – situations and locations you’d never considered before. As a long-time basketball referee, I’ve come to understand these subtle joys over the years, ones you savor in the moment and long afterwards when you look back on your games.
 
When you start as a sports official, you are excited to put on the uniform, get into the game, apply your knowledge and skills. It is similar to playing, getting “up” for a game because you’re pumped.
 
You settle in, gain perspective over the years. One day, you find yourself answering a question with a story, one that resonates with you years after the game was played, and looking back on the experience with nostalgia and joy. You only come to this understanding after years of experience, and it causes you to gain greater appreciation for your craft and what it gives your soul. Here are a few stories for you.
 
When I first started officiating basketball in Washington, D.C., one of my earlier varsity high school assignments was at a school for the deaf, Galladet. I didn’t know what I was getting into.
 
Upon arrival, through gestures and some basic verbal cues, I was escorted to the locker room. Several key indicators were explained to me regarding colors of teams and additional signals to let the deaf scorekeepers understand what I was reporting to the table.
 
The cheerleaders stomped the floor to communicate their moves to the crowd. The players were talented, though I came to see that the lack of hearing caused some issues with balance on the floor.
 
I reffed there twice in my career and gained something both times – seeing the joy of these kids with handicaps making the most of their skills on the court, pushing themselves, never once coming across like they needed any type of special care. It was a great learning lesson.
 
Story two occurred in Nebraska in the latter stages of the 20th century. It was frigid, below zero, a crackling cold outside. The gym was at a small Catholic High School north of Columbus, NE, with two rows of bleachers all the way around. The home team was playing an Indian team, down from their reservation, known for their ability to run the opposition off the court with their relentless energy.
 
No player on either team was taller than 6’2”. Both played tenacious defense and were in the opponents back pocket for the full 32 minutes. No seats were empty. The lead for either team was never above four points. No one complained, no one backed down, no one quit. They played and ran and got back and played D and went after the ball and drained shots as the 200 fans packed into the small gym cheered and cheered and cheered. It was so awesome.

After the game ended, my partner and I were congratulated on our job, and we watched as the Catholic school and Indian kids embraced and the parents hugged each other and talked. I marveled at the community. After showering from running for 32 minutes in the over-heated gym, we stepped outside into the frosty Nebraska night and it was like the residual sweat crystallized on our skin as we headed to our cars. I remember that clearly.
 
Story three occurred three years ago in Beaver Dam, Wisconsin. This story isn’t about the game. It’s about the location.
 
My partners and I were sent to a small private school, Wayland Academy. None of us had been there before. We entered and stopped, awestruck. The building looked the part of the movie, “Hoosiers,” an old world, rounded fieldhouse with a monstrously high ceiling. It gave you a sense of history. We were so enthralled, that the three of us went into an upper deck area to take a photo and record the game for our personal posterity. The game doesn’t stick with me, but the venue does. And, the memory continues.
When you become a sports official, you don’t think of these things. You experience them. They shape you. The memories, players, venues and games stay with you. They make the sports officiating experience incredibly valuable.
 
Those are three short tales. There are so many more. When you choose to re-enter the sports arena as an official, you get more than you bargained for. You expand your zone of experiences, savoring more than you could ever have imagined.

​We’ve all heard the cliché, “mind over matter.” Use you mind to motivate or defeat negative impulses.
 
Last week, after the best player on our 55+ baseball team tragically ripped his hamstring while trying to beat out an infield hit, I modified that cliché. Which means, I guess, it’s not a cliché. The new phrase is, “mind over emotion” or “mind over reaction” or “mind over impulse.”
 
Let me explain the issue and the concept. Every year when our baseball team gets new players, I advise them to watch how they run the bases, to build up to their stop speed, and NOT to take off sprinting like the cops are chasing you.
 
This is all well and good (another cliché). Telling people to use their head and not their reactions or emotions though is like talking to a wall. They might hear you and even agree with you, but their spirit says, “run as hard as you f..cking can to first base to try and beat the throw to first base.”
 
That’s baseball. For any of you who’ve played it, or other active sports, you recognize this. You put everything into the play at hand.
 
In baseball that leads to many injuries. Witness star players hurt in the major leagues. Now consider the bodies of men 55-years-old and older. We are not as limber. The joints and muscles don’t respond and heal as quickly as they did 20 years ago. In fact, the joints and muscles just won’t do certain things that you used to be able to do.
 
Hence the need to use your mind to defeat emotion (reaction). Think before you run. Recognize your limitiations.

This is TREMENDOUSLY difficult, as you can imagine. Witness the injury of our star player noted above.

Every year I warn new players to protect their bodies and let the engine warm up before hitting the accelerator button. They all nod, knowingly.  But, yes, every year, we lose a player or three to a massive hamstring pull or calf strain or groin muscle popping. You can count on it.

All this got me to thinking about how incredibly difficult it is to moderate your sports reactive nature. No matter how much someone explains to you the possible injuries, players still give the game a full physical onslaught. Can we only learn by hurting ourselves?
 
That seems to be a really good question. How do we learn about our aging bodies and what we are capable of? If our minds stay in a younger mindset (“yeah, I can still do this”) then we set ourselves up for failure. But you don’t really find out that your body can’t do certain things until you do it, and experience the side effects (injury).
 
No matter how much I explain and warn new players, they don’t fully absorb the message. They generically understand, but somehow it doesn’t apply to them until they hurt themselves (or they are just incapable of slowing down and playing at 60 percent speed).
 
Somehow us players need a form of speedometer on our wrist to monitor our actions so our minds defeat our emotions. “You’re running at 60 percent effectiveness. Don’t go higher,” the watch should loudly (it needs to be a loud message because of how bad the hearing is with most older players) tell you. Maybe we’d listen then. But, I doubt it.