The Nellie Blog

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 07 Nov 2018 23:09:00 +0000

18 years on Saturday’s fields

This autumn Saturday, more than 3,400 NCAA football, soccer and rugby teams will meet on fields throughout the nation. More than 846,000 high school soccer players will play this week, along with an even 1 million high school football players on approximately 13,800 teams.

Factor in 2.3 million youth soccer players and 1.2 million youth footballers – and then consider the tens of millions of total spectators.

These are staggering numbers of participation and competition – there is no voluntary endeavor like it in American society today.

I know these Saturdays well. Because for the past 18 years, I’ve spent every single one of them on a field. My three sons have played on various athletic teams - nearly three seasons every year - from the ages of 4 to 22. Indeed, many weekday afternoons I attended a practice or a game or drove to one or the other; then, there were the dozens of tournaments and college recruiting camps, from Maine to Florida. In this age of big data, I recently calculated that collectively, my kids played on approximately 147 teams, attended more than 8,700 practices, and played in more than 2,300 games.

But I’m hardly alone: Three out of four American families with school-aged children have at least one playing an organized sport — a total of about 45 million kids; 61 percent of boys’ ages 6 to 12 play a team sport. It’s even higher for females at 64 percent.

Certainly athletic participation occasions the usual tropes: discipline, personal satisfaction, alertness of mind. For example, as the Women’s Sports Foundation notes, female high school athletes are 92 percent less liked to get involved with drugs, 80 percent less likely to get pregnant, and 3 times more likely to graduate than non-athletes.

But there’s a deeper benefit. As a supercharged, 4th-grade lacrosse coach once lectured me and other parents sitting in bleachers on the eve of what he called “a make-or-break” season: “Folks, this field is the only place your Johnny puts himself out there to be judged by a bunch of strangers. And half of them want him to fail.” Coach Firebreather could have been talking about almost any young person on the fields today.

And amen to that. In an age of adolescent relativism and softness, on-field competition is where Johnny succeeds or fails, and he does so in direct relation to his preparation, resilience, and teamwork. No excuses. There’s no app for grinding.

Twenty-three hundred games later, what I recall most is the adversity: My kid in the soccer goal stopping 23 shots, but allowing another eight to get by; a kid fumbling near the goal line and losing a championship game. And oh yeah, a kid never leaving the bench, even in the fourth quarter of a blowout game. Kids choked up, parents dismayed, coaches in shock, the echoes of cheers from the winning team and crowd - all of it excruciating.

But I know that the recovery from disappointments made my boys much stronger than the elation of victories. And today, I bet few of the spectators today, except for parents, have even an idea of what it takes to play on an NCAA Division I team, even a Division III squad. As the NCAA notes, “Of the nearly 8 million students currently participating in high school athletics in the United States, only 480,000 of them will compete at NCAA schools.” What the NCAA left out was that maybe one fourth of those competing will get much playing time. I know. Firsthand.

Ultimately, rewarded by grinding, one son played four years of Division-III lacrosse on a team that twice had a Top 20 ranking in the ESPN/Nike College poll; another was cut from a Division I football team and played on a club lacrosse team that won a national championship. The third is the only one to break through to D-1, playing rugby, though he will be in that “three-fourth’s” participation category.

However, this Saturday will be the first time in 18 years in which I’m not on a field somewhere, enjoying the athleticism and sweat and rugged American competition. And, yes, the adversity. That’s because exactly one-half of the millions of young people on the fields today will be on the south side of the final score.

But that doesn’t really matter. They’re out there, being judged, even if it isn’t a make-or-break season.

U.S. Naval Academy, Class of 2018

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 08 Jun 2018 17:29:00 +0000

Ensign Braden Nelligan and President Donald Trump

One year ago I attended the Faber College commencement for Nellie Junior, at which the speaker informed the crowd that “If you were born a straight white male, well, congratulations, you hit the jackpot.” At the time, I immediately thought of my old man, who at age 15, was hauling ore in a Union Carbide vanadium mine underneath the Sierra Nevada Mountains. “Gosh, Dad,” I mused, “You never knew how good you had it.”

However, the thoughtful female Nigerian poet hadn’t even hit stride: “If you are a white woman, you are privileged because you are white.” C’mon sister! Perhaps at a celebratory event at an elite school, it verges on psychotic to denigrate 60 percent of your audience – you know, those privileged sad sacks who keep the school financially secure so that the oppressed can attend. Nah. The remaining 40 percent seem to nod vigorously while the colorful Third World shawls and scarves worn over traditional black gowns flutter in the carnival atmosphere. Now I know full well this “courageous” woman is entitled to freely her speak her opinions – after all, this is America. Not Nigeria.

With that fatuous, comic nightmare a year old and the serious kids like mine and his pals heading off to old-fashioned work and paychecks, this year I attended another commencement, for Little Nellie, at Navy-Marine Corps Stadium in Annapolis.

Coincidentally, like my old man, the speaker’s Dad had started as another one of those jackpot-winning laborers; unlike Nellie Sr., he ascended to astronomical success.

President Trump spoke to the United States Naval Academy Class of 2018 and it was all that could be hoped for – that is, by the Midshipman and parents of Midshipmen who had seen their kids endure four years of military discipline, barracks life, tough physical tests, three summers away at sea, and mandatory softball courses like Electrical Engineering, Calculus, Thermodynamics, and Chemistry. Seventy five percent of my middle son’s class (including him) are STEM majors. No B.A.s in Dance or Latino Studies or Gender & Sexuality. Or Poetry, alas.

President Trump talked about “the path of hard work and sweat and sacrifice….the word impossible does not exist, because the Navy never quits. You don’t give up. You don’t give in. You don’t back down. And you never surrender. Wherever you go, wherever you serve, wherever your mission takes you, you only have one word in mind, and that’s victory. That is why you are here. Victory. You are now leaders in the most powerful and righteous force on the face of the planet.” Bombast to be sure, but then again, even if you dislike him intensely, he didn’t insult his audience. And I don’t think he said, “I was also writing short stories and sending them out to journals.”

Both at Faber and USNA, the brainpower is acute, but perhaps the rigor debatable. Approximately 13 percent of my kid’s class was forced out in the years following Day 1 of Plebe Summer. At Faber, if you get in, you stay in – the only way you leave is if you knock down a faux shantytown constructed by some kid wearing a guitar or if you fail to appear at an OWS rally.

Nevertheless, the intellects and ambitions do intersect. While it seems an increasing number of Faber kids opt for exploring their “creativity,” asking what this artistically starved nation can do for them, many of the Faber kids go on to use their privilege in finance and law and medicine to add value and economic vitality to the national engine. How do I know this? The Faber Board helps manage a whopping $2.3 billion endowment, which I guarantee you is run by those “jackpot guys” whose sweat and skills allow the social justice warrior grads to stand on shores pleading for the oceans to recede all the while giving voices to the voiceless.

The Annapolis grads enter into a different realm. They are all almost immediately responsible for the welfare and lives of thousands of sailors and Marines and untold millions of dollars of equipment, some of it lethal. No time for performance art, comrade, when you’re sitting atop ordnance that can reduce a thousand voiceless bad guys and their shrines to ashes in a righteous instant.

What’s so compelling is that given these two institutions represent the extremes, their commencements represent the tenor of the times. At Faber, for an immigrant, no less from a flailing state (goodness, you cannot make this stuff up), it’s all about the introspection, the self-absorption - this desperately flawed nation the graduates are forced into; the recitation of a laundry list of all the tired and reflexive tropes – social validation, gender injustice, those without voices, evil privilege, and oh yeah, “calling your elected officials” – it’s the faculty lounge in full grievance mode. A majority of the crowd endures the “dialogue” with the stoic condescension it deserves.

At the Naval Academy, the language is swaggering bravado for certain, but it’s also resolute, confident, uplifting; it recalls heritage and sacrifice and heroism and a genuine acknowledgement of what the Midshipman have accomplished and a reminder of the responsibilities they will soon confront all over the globe.

Our Faber speaker, in an incredible turnaround almost completely indicting her past ramblings, closes with a quote not from Maya Angelou or Gabriela Mistral, but from a 19^th Century paragon of white female privilege, Emily Dickinson: “`Hope is a thing with feathers.’ It makes me imagine hope as something both breakable and forceful.” C'mon sister! The eye-rolling is palpable as this tepid charge to the graduates echoes around the now half-full venue.

In Annapolis, it’s pure sound and fury: “You’re among the finest people anywhere in the world, the smartest, the strongest. You know you will make us proud. You are warriors. You are fighters. You are champions!”

And instead of feathers, all we get is the force of the Blue Angels blasting over the crowd at 300 mph, with yes, the woke sound of freedom.

Faber College, Class of 2017

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 11 Jun 2017 21:51:00 +0000

Annapolis, Maryland - A few months shy of four years ago, I summoned the pretention to post a blawg (“Priceless Advice”) about Nellie Junior and his impending departure for university. This was 2013, a perfect time, such as with any period during the past eight years or so, to examine a lot of depressing economic facts, of which the piece was chock full. C’mon man, this was three years after Recovery Summer, donchaknow! Junior, like Senior, is a pretty loose guy and so we yukked it up about what the future would hold for him and then I said, “Hey chief, check back with the old man in four years. Take it easy and remember, it’s all about the green.” And that was that.

In the intervening years, the middle son left for a nearby maritime institution and the youngest is soon headed off to attend a similar organization, beginning with a summer patrolling jungles and firing weapons. I call it the real world “Call of Duty,” the faux-world COD being one at which a sizable percentage of millennials are really skilled because they play it in their parents’ basement. All day. And oh yeah, that percentage grew 8 percent during the last four years. No green there.

As a man who knows his limitations, I had only two pieces of advice for Junior when he left for Faber College: 1. “There are more important things than grades” (and yes, I almost added “like winning the Caddie Tournament.”). 2. “Don’t even think about coming home with a degree in Psychology unless you want to be serving me eggs and joe in the local diner when you’re 30 – and getting expert at COD.”

Yeah, subtle Dad. On 1: I didn’t want him to have a psychotic focus on his GPA and incessant worry about academics. Rather, I wanted him to make solid friendships, enjoy playing NCAA lacrosse, and develop a plan for a lucrative career. On 2. I wanted him to eschew any major involved with “helping people” and instead, drive hard at what would help him.

In addition, I advised him to distance himself from a certain, clannish group on campus, for whom the greatest skepticism should be shown.

“You will be,” I intoned, “in the presence of many people who received very good grades, but have never lived a moment in the every-day, rough-and-tumble of life and hence, have little idea how the real world actually operates. They are called," and here I grimaced and then said with mild dismay, "'Professors.’”

Now, at the end of four years, it’s quite clear Junior followed through on most of the old man’s priceless advice. He has a legion of friends in the BA category, played through four good lax seasons on the fields of glory, and developed a skill held by darn few Caucasian kids worldwide. There remained one last challenge: Graduation and the Commencement-Day addresses.

I attended the event and first up were the student speakers – the screeching echoes still assault the ears. ‘….racism…sexism…xenophobism…glaciers…” and my fave gem from a kid, “…the one percent, like, control, like, everything!” It’s sophomoric stuff that you hear from a surprising number of adults, and yet these kids are just entering adulthood and isn’t it so, like, cool that in order to come up with these, like, wise musings, they’ve been forced to live in a country club-like setting for four years?! There’s no doubt where these students are headed: Performance art studios, arctic elk non-profits, and poetry slams.

But alas, I hear all three are crowded “spaces.”

Then there was the outside Commencement speaker – a real dreamboat. Hey, can I even say that?! She’s an “activist/writer/artist – a creativist.” Better yet, she also moonlights as a “public intellectual” from a “courageous” Third World nation which, as no less than The New Yorker Magazineinforms, hosts the largest city in the world with no central sewer or water system.

I learned a lot from this “public intellectual” because she told me herself she was going to engage me in a “dialogue.” She should know - it is after all, a thinking "persyn's" world, certainly not a world where drones - such as the audience of parents - have to show up, hustle, and sweat out real jobs, day after month after years for decades. We hapless breadwinners were simply enthralled with the exhortations about inequality and global climate cooling change warming and multiculturalism and tolerance and the need for cross-hybrid gender rapprochement and transcultural synergies and before I leave, you can bet I’m gonna check my privilege. And goodness, I know darn well that it takes a village – just give me one with plumbing.

What’s so rich is that this is the same jive I heard three decades ago when I graduated from Faber and had an obscure United Nations’ bureaucrat as a Commencement speaker, yelling at us about American capitalism and imperialism. "That fellow seemed rather sold on himself,” observed my calm, mild-mannered father, who was in attendance. Yep, Dad - a self-made man who at age 18 took part in the invasion of Okinawa and later spent five months patrolling the streets of Tokyo as part of the occupation force, even as the UN was being formed in San Francisco. Hey, who knew?! My laid-back old man - both a capitalist and an imperialist!

I wish Faber had called in Lloyd Blankfein of Goldman Sachs or Jamie Dimon of JPMorgan Chase, who once said in exquisite capitalist fashion, “In dealing with poverty here and around the world, welfare and foreign aid are a band aid. Free enterprise is the cure.”

Wait a minute, that wasn’t Dimon. It was Bono. In the same month and year I
penned my first pre-Faber blawg to Junior.

But Faber doesn’t get Bono, and doesn’t even get Dimon or Blankfein. But we did get holistic appeals to our guilt-ridden Ids. Ich bin ein bedauerlich.

Nellie Junior is immune to these appalling lectures. He majored in Chinese, is fluent in Mandarin, and spent last summer working on IPOs in Hong Kong. He rolls on to finance, his middle brother boards a guided missile cruiser, and his youngest brother heads off to the delightfully named “Beast Summer.” Wow, just think of it: From Grandfather to Father to Sons – Nelligan men in this new generation boast one capitalist and two future imperialists! No creativists! Darn! But then again, this is America, where we have water systems, and where all non-creativists are quietly absorbed in a “work ethic.”

Today, as yesterdays four years ago, I only have two pieces of advice for Junior as he heads off to Taipei. “First, gao fu schuai, there are more important things than dialogues. And second, don’t even think about coming home unless you have a cool ten million in green to show the old man.”

Priceless advice, indeed.

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 30 Jul 2016 18:29:00 +0000

40 years one night

“The Wild Bunch is gonna ride tonight,” said my old basketball pal, Jeff Wise. I nodded in agreement as we sat shoulder-to-shoulder on chairs in the Woodland Hills (CA) Hilton ballroom. Because only he and I knew what that meant.

Thomas Wolfe once famously wrote that you can’t go home again. Of course, for him, home was some poverty-stricken Tobacco Road affair in Asheville, where everyone was either blasted by noon or jobless, or both.

Not so for me, Tommy-boy. Because I was home again: Wise and I were surveying the El Camino Real High School Class of 1976’s 40th Reunion.

The high school reunion is American folklore, truly the go-home-again scene writ large. Big minds like Wolfe can wrestle with the agonized gestalt of youth; small minds like Nellie can revel in seeing the pals with whom formative, important years were spent.

I had two basic groups of friends in high school – determined jocks and student council brainiacs. I was mediocre at the former and not smart enough for the latter. Hence, I learned a lot from both, for which my gratitude will never end.

For my athlete pals, I start with the tallest: At 6' 8", Big Al Kennedy, former San Francisco 49er, winner of two Super Bowl rings, now running a large Bay Area security company. Matt Staker, Best Man for the groom in "My Fair Brady" (Chris Knight a.k.a. Peter Brady was a classmate) and a longtime computer company executive. Kurt Vetter, a fast-mover with Coca-Cola and now President of an international food company whose products I guarantee you have in your kitchen. Jim Benkert, one of the winningest high school football coaches in California history, with four state title teams. Roger Lang, former UCLA baseball scholarship man and AT&T executive. And, my Wild Bunch comrade Wise, a well-known Northern California teacher, coach and athletic director.

In minutes, we all dispense with the trivialities like careers and kids and move onto the important stuff. “Vetter was always bummed that season because we couldn’t get past Canoga High”....“Matt started Varsity in 11^th grade after getting no PT on BEEs”....“In the Taft game, Benkert body-slammed Fisher (Jeff Fisher, now head coach of the L.A. Rams)....“Roger had that future NBA guy one-on-one with rest of us in the box defense on the corners”..."Check out Al's rings..."

After every season had been rehashed, I head over to the student government table. Emphatically, I tell the wife of Mark Pearl, a onetime neighbor: “Your husband, Futterman, Zipperstein and Shapiro were the smartest guys in the class.” I subsequently learn that ole Zip is a General Counsel for a Fortune 20 company, and Futterman and Shapiro are big-time attorneys in the Bay Area. Then she tells me her and Mark’s son was valedictorian of his high school class. “See, told you I was right!” I say smugly.

On to the “girls,” now women. I tell them all that I had a crush on all of them in 10th grade but was too much of a geek to pursue any of it further. “You weren’t a geek,” they assure me with no enthusiasm and then ask what I’ve been doing in my career. Ascertaining the political winds in the room, I tell them the truth. “I’ve worked for the Evil Party for thirty years” and then I pause dramatically. “But I’m better now.” They nod approvingly and I slide on. Why upset anyone unnecessarily?

The disc jockey – they are now called “DJs” for your information - is "spinning" groups like Chicago, Neil Diamond, Van Halen, and Elton John. I shudder as I see people dancing.

One kind soul asks me if I have any kids. “Yes,” I say brightly, “Three sons and two have cleared parole.” Between the throwback Van Halen and the crowd noise, maybe she doesn’t hear me. “That’s nice,” she responds and drifts away.

I always have had a good mind for numbers (though don’t ask Staker and Geoff Horn how we gamed Mr. Reedy’s 11^th grade Geometry class; no wonder I’ll never be Senate confirmable). So I tell the nine athletes at my table what their jersey numbers were in 11th grade. This turns out to be my sole original contribution to the evening.

I understand quite well high school is a super-charged environment in a long life that can be awfully benign, and perhaps I’m unusual that my experience was truly good - except then I glance at my athlete and student council pals. Like them, I had a lot of friends, I was too nervous to get in trouble, I was around guys and girls who were motivated and resilient, and not much of this good fortune ever wore off. I look at these individuals now – many virtually unchanged in appearance and every one of them solid contributors to the great machinery of American society.

Near the end of the evening, I’m with Wise and he confides, “The Wild Bench went out in style, that’s for sure.” He’s right.

It was February 8, 1976, El Camino Real High versus Jefferson High in the Los Angeles City Playoffs. Wise and I were, in fact, the sole members of the Wild Bunch. It was our self-proclaimed nickname, gleefully familiar to every kid in the school. Because when the Wild Bunch got in a game, everyone knew that game was out of control.

El Camino was behind by 20 points with 50 seconds left when suddenly, Wise and I were thrust onto the floor by our mournful coach. Dribbling, Wise bounced the ball off his knee, it caroomed to me, and he got an assist when I lofted a crazy, off-balance jump shot (two of my four points for the entire season). The El Camino crowd erupted in good-natured laughs and cheers, as though we were up by 20. Take that, Wolfe-man.

Wise kind of muses, “Nellie, I remember that game and man, it just doesn’t seem that long ago.” Looking back 40 years over a room full of once-inseparable friends, I too recalled the game and the lockers slamming in the gym and the school bells and the books thumping shut and the joke sessions at lunch and the yells across the football field and all the years of success and shortcomings and general prevailing.

I paused and then replied, “It wasn’t.”


The Wild Bunch flanked by real basketball players.

(Vetter, Nelligan, Wise, Lang)

Nellie's NCAA Way: Getting Your Kid Recruited For College Sports

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 05 Aug 2015 13:57:00 +0000

Washington, D.C. -- A lot of Dads have sons who are good – maybe very good – at a particular sport. Some are great. Moreover, many of these athletes don’t want their athletic careers to end after the last whistle in high school.

I had two sons like that. One now plays NCAA Division III lacrosse. The other was recruited in two sports (football and lacrosse) by a dozen D-III schools. He instead attended a Division I school where he tried out as a long-snapper for the football team and got cut. Yeah, that’s how it goes sometimes and it was tough as hell on both of us. But he's still damn happy at the U.S. Naval Academy.

Hence, during the past four years – and now picking up again with my 11^th grade son – I have been closely involved with the college athletics recruiting process. It may appear to be daunting and complex, but here’s the surprise: it’s not. Rather, assuming your kid is determined and resilient, and you are as well, the process involves old-fashioned research, a lot of proactive legwork and follow-through, and decision-making.

How did I learn this? Typical plodding Nellie: Four years ago, I sought the advice of Dads whose kids had been through the recruiting process. I called and met with a range of current and former college athletes and guys who knew college sports; I read a ton of material on recruiting and I put together a basic plan. It wasn’t perfect, but it got my sons the attention they sought. And here it is:

1. Skill Expectation: This is the honesty part: Simply put, how good is your kid at his sport? The NCAA is comprised of three Divisions - I, II, and III – corresponding to the level of competition. As a Dad, you need to frankly discuss with your son where his skills fit within this hierarchy. And it shouldn’t be hard: A good athlete gets that way by being aware of his capabilities and those of his peers. Be alert, however: Yes, your son may be truly gifted, Division 1 material, but rarely leave the bench in four years. At a D-II or D-III school, he may start every game. Once you and your son have established where he fits in these unforgiving Division categories, time to move on.

2. Geographic Location: Where does your son want to be? This is easy. Ask him. Does he want a big university or small college? Urban or suburban? A school in the South, the West, New England, the Middle West? Warm climate or one with seasons? Close to home, kinda close, or wwayyy away from home? “I don’t know” is not an answer. Discuss at length with him what he wants – drive him to schools close to you. Walk around and introduce yourself to students and adults you see. You can’t afford to be shy – hey, this is your son’s future you’re dealing with here. There are approximately 2,170 colleges and universities in the United States, of which there are athletic programs at 442 Division III, 302 D-II, and 335 D-1 schools. There are more than enough choices. Choose and decide, don’t equivocate.

3. Academic Interest: What does your son want to study? Trust me when I say this is secondary. Because unless you have a single-minded kid who wanted to be a doctor or a businessman or a pilot since age 7, this is probably unanswerable. The fact is, most kids don’t know what they want to do until they actually get on a campus with other kids, take classes, and find out what they like and at what they excel. If he has a general idea, then factor that into the equation.

These are the first, basic steps. Now comes the mechanics:

4. Using the criteria above, sit down with your son in total seclusion – I mean no phones allowed or distractions whatsoever – in front of a computer screen and search for 15 to 20 schools that match the criteria above (Here’s a tip: Start with your son’s sport, and punch in NCAA Division III). Full disclosure: This may not sound original, but it is the only way to get a sense of an academic institution outside of driving yourself nuts driving around the nation. Start with colleges you know, those that are close, and those that you’ve heard of. Look over every webpage of these college sites. Get a sense of the place, take written notes. Repeat: Total isolation – no devices and interruptions. As well, seek out individuals whom you respect and admire and ask them about their college experiences – they’ll have invaluable advice.

5. Review the team pages for the relevant sport at each of the schools in which your son is interested. Examine the rosters: Where do the kids come from? Competitive high schools? Geographic distribution of the players? What are the sizes of the kids? What are the coaches’ backgrounds? How long have they been there? What’s the team record during the past five years? What kind of athletic facilities? What’s the conference like? What kinds of schools does it contain?

6. Now apply Nellie’s "Broken Leg Theory.”If your son breaks his leg in spring practice or slipping in the dining hall and is finished with sports, does he still want to be at that school?

7. Next: Email the coaches. Send along a highlights film and or statisticcs for sports that don’t lend themselves to film. Send a one-page “Fact Sheet” on which are the following: GPA, test scores, classes taken last semester, classes for the current semester, your son’s size, 40-dash time where relevant, brief description of positions played, other sports played, records if team is a winner, any athletic honors and any extracurricular activities.

8. Bonus round: If your club team or high school team goes to tourneys, list those on the Fact Sheet. The same with sports camps you attended. If you are at tourneys or camps and you happen to see a college coach, have your kid - not you! - introduce himself.

9. If your aim is true based on your son’s skills, you’ll get responses back from coaches. If not, don’t worry – do a Round II of searching.

The key, as I said in the beginning, is to be proactive, constantly reaching out and then following through. If your kid is a superstar, coaches will call him. But there aren’t that many superstars. I know - my sons weren’t. The Dads and kids who succeed in this process are the ones who grind it out, day after day, never missing an opportunity at promotion. Moreover, it’s wise to print and catalog the emails and responses and all other notes and documents, placing all as a measure of progress in a three-ring binder. If you're diligent, it will be two binders.

When to start? If you and your kid are serious, start the summer after his sophomore year. Don’t worry about scholarships – they are few and far between for those at the D-1 level, funds are only partial at the D-II level, and they are nonexistent for sports at the D-III level.

If you have any questions, just email me (JeffNelligan@yahoo.com). I’ve been through this twice. Yep, I made some errors - some were embarrassing to me personally and were a result of being a rookie and being too aggressive. But hey, when you are in contact with a cumulative 53 schools, you're going to make mistakes. I'd rather be shot down than miss an opportunity.

The success the boys had was based on their athletic abilities and academic consistency, and most importantly, because of their follow through and desire to play beyond high school.

Sports as a profession is not going to lead anywhere for 99.9 percent of high school athletes. But athletics of any kind places your son in a situation of camaraderie and competition, from which he learns resilience, drive, and ambition. Those are the qualities can’t be taught in a college classroom, but will be the most important qualities your son can ever possess.

What Makes a Good Kid?!

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 10 May 2015 18:32:00 +0000

Annapolis, Maryland -- In the workaday world, whenever a gracious parent says to me, “You must be so proud of your boys,” I reply sincerely, “Yes, I am. They get their intellect and athleticism from their Mom. They get their low cunning from me.”

With that humble arrogance, let’s turn to the second installment of the foundation of the agent-in-waiting book, My Three Sons: How A Bad Dad Raised Good Kids. What’s a good kid? I’ve considered that phrase for a decade and a half – yep, ever since I became a Dad. All-encompassing, but an amorphous term, behind which is a catalogue of behaviors and attitudes: loyalty, thoughtfulness, dependability, discipline, determination, drive, enthusiasm, and toughness. Yeah, nice list - but Dads want precision, not a thesaurus.

My Three Sons is my straightforward take on the four realms of the good kid: his Personal Conduct; his Worldview; his Resilience and Adaptation; and, his Aspiration. Grounded in these four areas, the good kid is reflexive in making the correct decision in every situation he encounters at home and school, with his peer group and in his community.

Here are some definitions – see if they make sense to you.

Personal conduct: A kid responds with confidence and poise in every aspect of social interactions. He carries himself with ease because he has developed self-control and patience.

Worldview: A kid knows and grasps his environment. He appreciates the intrinsic good that everyday life offers and understands the bad. Equally important, he develops the maturity to limit the prevalence of electronic media - the narrow, glowing rectangle - in his daily life.

Resilience: A kid moves out with drive and clarity when circumstances large and small go south. He absorbs challenges and failures head on, handles pressure, adapts, and discovers a route to recovery.

Aspiration: A kid habitually sets goals and holds himself accountable. He is realistic in evaluating personal benchmarks and resists obstacles with determination and endurance.

Working from this baseline, I then contemplated how to inculcate these ideals in my three sons. And my reflections yielded this:
I would seize upon examples of sheer right and wrong found in everyday life, create a simple parable, and then identify each with an unforgettable exhortation.

These maxims - Dad’s “sayings” as my three sons labeled them - became a pounding soundtrack in the boys’ lives. Virtually every important aspect of their adolescence was viewed through the lens of one of my appeals. Over time, constant reprise and explanation of these adages helped develop instinctive, habitual responses to the situations in which my sons found themselves. Indeed, nearly a decade later, all four of us still repeat these aphorisms. Some are nutty and comical; others are harsh.

I found that given simple, constant, and memorable guidance on temperament and behavior, a young boy will thrive, becoming comfortable with himself and his surroundings; he settles into a pattern of conduct, which leads to a pattern of accomplishment. Repetition builds character.

Next up: “Dad’s sayings…”

A Book For Dads

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 24 Apr 2015 19:15:00 +0000

Like every chimpanzee and "sensitive" adult in the United States, I just finished writing a book. That’s right – because I have so much to give the world, donchaknow.

The title is as brazenly simple and cunning as the author: “My Three Sons: How A Bad Dad Raised Good Kids.” Why and how it came about is actually something of true interest to all of us who are Dads.

First off, and believe it or not, I certainly wasn’t destined to inform American fathers of my keenness of mind. Oh no. Rather, in my stolid and regimented fashion of existence, the idea came to me during a conversation with a fellow Dad at work, who was tiredly giving me the litany on his own son: “Not working hard enough at school…doesn’t listen to us…gives a lazy effort on the field…plays too many video games…always staring at his damn phone.”

In fact, I have heard a decade’s worth of these lamentations – in thousands of informal yet often compelling conversations with Dads; and, from innumerable interactions with adolescent boys - my sons and their peers. These exchanges have taken place in every situation known to the suburban Dad and his son: At workplaces, on middle school, high school and college campuses, at social and community events, watching television in basements and on athletic fields throughout the country.

The single and persistent refrain I’ve taken away from these thousands of encounters is frustration: Dads are confused and disheartened by the progress of their sons through adolescence. These are fathers – good, decent men – who struggle with a corrosive, electronics-saturated, trophy-for-participation culture that encourages conformity, erodes self-control and devalues masculinity.

Unfortunately, these Dads simply don’t know how to develop and sustain a sense of resolve and purpose in their boys.

Well, I do.

Moreover, I also know these aren’t simply random anecdotes. The facts are there. This cohort of kids and its corresponding older cohort are floundering; a less gentle description is failing. Today, approximately one-third of men ages 22 to 34 are still living at home with their parents; 35 percent of men between the ages of 16 and 25 are unemployed; and, one-fifth of all men ages 18 to 34 are living in poverty. My personal fave is that the U.S. Secretary of Defense, Ashtoln Carter, notes that that only 31 percent of the 10.5 million American males age 17 to 21 are eligible to join the military, with half unable to pass the entry examination and the rest ineligible because they are unable to meet the physical fitness or character standards.

Collectively, these numbers illustrate a staggering pathological drift. And it goes beyond numbers.

Today’s popular culture has damn near made an icon of the “slacker” male – the sullen, unshaven, flannel shirt-wearing cool “dude” clutching his IPhone and video game console. This chump is nearly ubiquitous in today’s broadcast and print media advertising. Indeed, regardless of your political views, it’s telling that the signature figure for the Obama Administration’s health care pitch to youth was a bespectacled, 20-something male wearing red plaid pajamas. If that was my son, I’d disown him.

Of course, child psychologists are very helpful in this arena, bless their credentialed hearts. They’ve penned a lot of serious, thoughtful books about adolescents featuring disturbingly colorful anecdotes. Indeed, the sincerity of these therapists and tenured faculty professors - some of whom are even parents - cannot be doubted. Neither can the case studies of “synergistically unpacking” the “personal space” of well, “let’s call him Sebastian,” and his desperate need for “holistic empowerment.”

My modest work starkly diverges from this gibberish. First, I’m a Dad, not a psychologist. I am around fathers and their sons all day in every venue under the sun – and none of these encounters is an office visit.

Second, I tend to see kids in a straightforward, unflinching common sensical way. I know firsthand the language - and landscapes - of Dads and their sons. It’s about all I really know. I believe in old-school candor and judgment, and I know what it takes to guide sons toward basic values and behaviors, the acquisition of which leads to solid, accomplished young men.

But Nellie, you ask, what’s in your book?! If you want to know, tune into the next Nellie Blawg…

"Unceasing Pressure"

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 26 Sep 2014 16:16:00 +0000

Annapolis, Maryland

It’s all about “pressure” said the man. “Constant, unceasing pressure – which often leads to failure, then recovery. And resilience.”

I gaped in total, utter astonishment. The Nellie Theorem had just been enunciated to 1,800 serious-minded adults. Two things were at major odds here: 1. It wasn’t me speaking; and 2. People were listening. Intently.

Readers of the Nellie Blawg know that in between the monograph I’m writing on the synergistic modalities in “Caddyshack” and “Animal House,” I am a cheerful advocate of an expansive and cunning worldview composed of small, precise habits. These are the aspects of personal conduct – endurance, decisiveness, quick assessment and adaptation, empathy, and reliability -- I have inculcated in the lives of My Three Sons.

On those rare occasions when parents and colleagues have asked about the paths of the boys, I have responded with a delightful summation about self-control and resistance to obstacles – all in the worldview -- as the foundations for success. Of course, these same people have then looked at me with a measure of sympathy, maybe even a certain amount of sorrow. Poor man, they surmise: Having squandered his professional life with slow horses in fast political races, he's a hopeless sideline Nietzschiean. Undaunted, I have pressed onwards.

Pressure, adversity, conflict – they are all constant and crucial proving grounds. The themes are eternal, whether its Barnabas and Paul taking on the heathen in Iconium and Lustra in Acts, or Brett Favre with the Vikings in the NFL playoffs. In fact, in speaking once to a fellow QB, Ron Jaworski, Favre said, “Jaws, you know that if you’re panicked under pressure, you’re not prepared.” Simple, true, enduring.

Hence, this was behind the reasons for wanting my kids on defense when the score was tied, the offense had the ball, and there was a minute left in the game. Or emphasizing to them that the four-hour test they were about to take held almost as much weight as three years of classroom grades. Or conduct in a tight spot in a social situation – here’s one: Leaving them at a bar mitzvah where they know two people and telling them that the world doesn’t belong to the shy or lonely.

Feeling that pressure is essential to gradually beating it. To be prepared, as Barnabas or Favre, a kid must build up muscle memory through hours of drudgery doing homework, or throwing a ball against a wall, or memorizing a script for a play, or running miles and miles, or practicing an instrument, or -- you fill in the blank.

When the pressure to perform is then on, there indeed might be failure, but there’s going to be recovery and as the man said, resilience for next time. Repetition builds character.

In a self-absorbed age and way, I’ve often thought of postponing the Shack/House Ph.D. thesis and writing instead a book – “My Three Sons: A Crazy Dad’s Guide to Parenting.” It will be filled with the sparkling aphorisms I routinely inflict on my sons, such as “If you’re five minutes early, you’re late.” And, “Just get the damn thing to midfield.” Or, “If you aren't baggin', you aren't mowin'." Then there’s my personal favorite: “If this was EASY, every geek in the nation would be starting at linebacker!”

Pressure. Failure. Recovery. Resilience. In fact, the man speaking this mantra was a Navy Captain, addressing the parents of 1,191 Midshipmen in the Class of 2018 at the United States Naval Academy, in Annapolis, Maryland. “Unceasing pressure” was my favorite line. Words to live by.

Nagged to the Future

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 18 Apr 2014 18:54:00 +0000

Williamstown, Massachusetts

We’d sent Nellie Junior off to college last August and I’d spent the ensuing months nagging the two other sons about grades and sports. Little Nellie is a high school senior and was applying to the U.S. Naval Academy. Of course in my small mind, that means he needed major league nagging. Young Nellie was in 9th grade, apprehensively looking at an expectations game as big as planet Earth. Hence, it was all very simple. Using Junior as a foil, I was emphatic: “How are you two ever – “I said to both of them, shaking my head in wonderment, “ - ever going to equal your older brother’s success if you don’t listen to me?!”

Clearly, everyone needed a break so I ambled up north to flinty New England to check in on Junior. “At least I don’t have to nag you anymore,” I told him as I set down my suitcases in his dorm room. Then I paused. “I think.”

A bonus was that his college team had a few home games so I could pace a trail in the sidelines of a new zip code. One man’s rut, said Chesterton, is another man’s groove.

Given that Junior’s school is my alma mater, this pilgrimage had exciting potential for maudlin, Faulkernesque nostalgia. Yes, I could walk the freshman quad in the emergent spring, contemplating the once limitless horizons, the quicksilver ambitions, the -- yes, I’ll say it -- audacity of hope for bygone avenues of change, the dreams of my Dad ….

The best I could do, walking amongst the 19th century brick buildings, was lament all the C-plus grades I never got, a victim of my own soft bigotry of low expectations.

The second day there, I took Junior and five of his pals out for dinner, providing everyone a nice opportunity to hear advice about the world. At the restaurant, I artfully arranged to sit at the head of the table, with three bright minds on each side of me, unwittingly ready for the seminar. After we ordered, I invited them to open up.

“What kind of technology did you have back then?” said one alert guy.

"The entire school had only one computer monitor, on which the Dean played a wicked game of Pong.”

“We heard that you worked on Capitol Hill. Is it really like `House of Cards’?”

“Worse. Next question.”

“Did you play sports?”

“When I was here, if you had a heartbeat, you made a Varsity team. I played football.”

“What position?”

“Left out. You – your hand is up.”

“Do you think grades matter in terms of a career?”

“I got passing grades. I ended up in politics. Do the math. I see a hand over there….”

On it went. They were eager to learn and I was happy to oblige, even when explaining my work as an advance man in three blue states for President McCain.

“What do you think of my friends,” eldest son asked as I dropped him off afterwards. “Solid as hell. If they have any follow-up questions, I can stay for an extra day.”

The games were no less compelling. At them, I ran into two Dads with whom I’d played football and who also had sons on the lacrosse team. Paul Bossidy was our quarterback back in the day; he had an arm like a rifle and a commanding presence in the huddle. Jeff Kiesel was a linebacker who was the hardest hitter on the team. I know. I received more than my share of them. When I got my bell rung in a game (read: concussion), he was the first guy over to me on the sideline. He said something like, “Nellie, you don’t look good.” Later, I couldn’t quite recall the route back to my dorm. Both Bossidy and Kiesel were great guys then, they are now, and their kids are superb athletes, like their old men.

The game was a one-goal loss heartbreaker, after which I told Junior that it reminded me of when I worked for the second term of Bush 41.

I had always blithely assumed he was going to be fine here. Back in my day, the kids were incredibly sharp and driven. Nothing had changed. In fact, the only changes were a few more buildings and a universe of glowing rectangles, none with the ‘Pong’ app. I was grateful for my time here back then and even more so now.

While the athletic fields provide a lot of direct metaphors for life – the adversity, camaraderie and discipline -- I see college life as much more opaque. On a field, you sweat and hustle and keep the facemask up, all until the clock is at 00.00 and it’s over. Win or lose, you dig in the next day at practice, always relying on your teammates. A college education is much less distinct – yes, you graduate and get a diploma, a true achievement no matter where you go. But there is no score, no scoreboard clock and in the end, you’re a solitary individual headed out into a world without end, amen. There, you’re driven back on the field as you enter a workplace where, yes, there is adversity and camaraderie and slow steady grinding toward success in your chosen endeavor.

I didn’t bring this up with Junior because he’d heard enough of my philosophy his entire life, fortunate son. Instead, I fell back on the usual tropes. “I knew first-hand they were called Gentleman’s C’s for a reason” and “I notice you didn’t have to carry the water bottles out to the team during timeouts. Like I did.”

Then I told him my work here was done. “Time to get back and continue riding your brothers,” I said wistfully. We were walking through the fabled quad in the spring breeze of a late afternoon amongst a swirl of overachievers. Junior noted that one said brother was leaving for the Naval Academy in two months. “Yeah, and then it’s only your youngest brother I’ll have to nag.”

Junior paused and then replied, “Lucky him.” I detected no trace of irony.

Nellie Junior, Little Nellie, Nellie, Young Nellie

The Combine Grind

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sat, 28 Sep 2013 19:32:00 +0000

Autumn starts where the summer grinds to an end -- on a green turf field crisscrossed by white lines. Have you ever noticed the sideline boundaries are always thicker than those measuring progress down field in yards? It’s too prosaic to contemplate -- or maybe not.

Summer of 2013 – the season of competition. Two sons, four athletic camps, and six tournaments stretching from Boston to Virginia Beach and seven cities in between. Forty-six officiated lacrosse games, more than 51 football skill sessions, 23 7-on-7 games, and at every one, the ever-present figure of good-natured Nellie, with free advice for all.

For the eldest son, it’s a drive to be noticed and ultimately coveted by NCAA college coaches, no less in two sports. For the younger Boys’ Town grad, all fields are testing grounds of skill and athleticism to prevail over top talent in order to compete at the level where both of his older brothers now reside. Eldest son, the steady Nellie Junior, triumphed in this fast-paced crucible and is now playing college athletics.

Sports, kids – what I’ve seen this summer in 2,700 miles of driving from New England to the Old South is most of all the American Dad: indefatigable, generous, hopeful, persistent and always folding up the chair at the end of the day – yes, on those prosaic sidelines -- thinking about tomorrow’s 8 a.m. session and how the heck their kid can improve his performance.

The football camps are the notorious “combines.” A hundred select young men, 400 non-select kids -- all instantly organized, sorted by primary position, offense or defense, and then given identifying jersey numbers. This is the wonderful mechanics of these camps. There is little discussion or confusion, just a quick following of orders and hustling to get in line.

Next comes the long and detailed regimen of workout drills watched by alert coaches with the Career Beginning and Ending Clipboards. Your kid does closely watched drills with, for example, dozens of Outside Linebackers. The coaches watch intently and dispassionately for hours, and what they write on the Clipboard means your kid may have a shot at their school, or it’s time to back home to Momma.

And they’re not asking for anything complex here. In fact, it’s simple and repetitive, just perfect for your correspondent. Bulky, leather practice bags are laid out and kids high-step through them. The bags are placed at oblique angles at various distances and kids high-step through them. Kids are thrown a ball as they run through the bags. They either catch it or keep high-stepping to the parking lot.

Four guys are placed in a square, a few yards apart from each other, and told to react to hand signals from a coach. Up, back, left, right. Stopwatches are everywhere.

Across three wide open fields these drills go on. Linemen push sleds, QBs and receivers and cornerbacks try to outwit each other. For running backs, it’s running through pads carrying the ball: “Nose to the sky!” “Eyes up!” “Back straight!” Then passing drills with QBs and linebackers: “Sharp routes!” “No cross overs!” “Burst! Burst!” The drills run for hours, yells floating across the fields like a long muted drone.

Every kid is trying their best, giving everything they have. They’re prepared. Just to get here has required thousands of hours of practice, weight rooms, hot fields, cold mornings, pass routes long after dusk, countless collisions and snap counts. What a remarkable set of circumstances has propelled them here. And it’s certainly not Real Life because there is not a single slacker to be seen.

And the parents. Imagine the sheer production of getting Billie from Nashville or Pittsburgh or Seattle or Houston or Miami all the way to Boston or Annapolis.

Having attended these camps and tourneys for years, I measure success by two critical elements: Foot speed and size. And you can’t teach size. The eldest son, Nellie Junior, no behemoth, worked for years on agility – ladders, the parachute, shuttle runs, endless sprints -- and became one of the quickest kids on any field on which he plays (Yeah, I’ll brag a bit. What are you going to do? Throw a clipboard at me?) The value of foot speed is inestimable. The coaches are entranced with it.

It takes about three reps of drills on day one, hour one, for someone to see where a kid stacks up. The competition is ferocious. It doesn’t mean a darn thing that you were All League at Big Bad High in the Tri-County Conference. Can you move out fast? How tall are you?

And last, and the coaches have a stock phrase when approached by a kid introducing himself: “Howareyourgrades?” It’s one word. It’s direct and hard, but hey, football is a direct and hard sport.

Little Nellie is 6’1”, 210 pounds, a linebacker who in addition, plays fullback and tight end. To really seal the deal, about three years ago, I encouraged him to take up and get good at long-snapping because as former football great, Richie Petibon, once told me, “Snapping is THE tie-breaker.” I.e. if a kid can do that, and play one, even two more positions, he’s going to make a team over someone else.

So my son and I practiced snapping, and I mean endlessly. We’d have four footballs and he’d shoot them back to me, one after another, as I stood in punt formation. Then then he’d shoot them back to me as I simulated a holder and Boys’ Town son kicked, all to get the tempo and rhythm down right. It no doubt looked comical to folks coming across us on a field. We read up on hand placement on the ball, how to use the legs to increase ball speed. Over time, the snaps got faster, held a tighter spiral, and now Little Nellie is a machine.

And yes, if you really think hard about all this, you recognize instantly there’s a defining element of sheer madness. “Yes, I’m on annual leave from a serious job, driving 450 miles to watch my kid jump around bags and catch passes and push sleds all over a field – for eight hours.” Once, a well-meaning Dad on the sideline affably asked me about my son. I was distracted and said robotically, “Punt snap average zero point seven, zero point five on PATs.”

It was 10:15 p.m. at the Princeton Camp, and the hotly contestd 7-on-7 games had ended. We’d arrived here about 20 hours ago from a lacrosse camp in Providence, RI. After 48 hours here, we’d split for a three-day Under Armour lacrosse tournament in Baltimore.

I was walking Little Nellie back to the dorm. He’s beat. Heck, I’m even beat from sitting in a chair all day and spinning college intrigues in my head.

We’re passing darkened classrooms and buildings and big lonely quads. “My man,” I say, “I know this a grind. But if you’re going to play college ball, this is where you gotta be.” He was carrying his shoulder pads and helmet, his hair was matted to his scalp, his shirt soaked with sweat and his cleats clicked and echoed on the pavement.

“Yeah Dad,” he said and then added, asking and answering a question at the same time, “Where else would I be?”

More Priceless Advice

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 15 Aug 2013 16:26:00 +0000

Per last week’s entry, my eldest son and I had been having a breezy discussion about his impending college attendance and what might happen if he graduated. Thus, I wanted to lay out in a calm and understated manner a few things about the obvious future. “Our nation and the world, my boy, are in fiscal peril right now and headed toward irrevocable catastrophe. “ He nodded in a rehearsed, rueful manner and I continued.

"You know your old man is a numbers guy. Here are a few: Gross federal debt is 104 percent of GDP. The top five percent of Americans pay 60 percent of all federal taxes and the top 10 percent pay 77 percent. Oh, and 48 percent of all households pay no income tax.” Relentlessly, I droned on: “Twenty four million Americans – yes, that’s almost one-fifth of your countrymen 18 years or older -- are unemployed, have given up looking for work, or are offering to super-size an order at McDonalds. One hundred thirty-eight million people were working in July of 2008. That number today is one hundred thirty six million. And yet we’ve added twelve point six million new, wanna-be workers in that five years. Oh yeah, and there will be 76 million baby-boomer retirees by 2029, many of them in ill health with no retirement savings.”

Junior didn’t flinch. Moreover, he knows by heart my secondary stats on BLS U-6 ratios, ten-year Treasury yields, workforce participation percentages, LIBOR tracking, Medicare Trust Fund outflows, SSI disability claims, and personal savings rates.

We were lunching in our old haunt, a throw-back diner that didn’t know that it was, staffed by individuals in their 20s. “Fifty two percent of college graduates since June 2007 are unemployed or underemployed in retail, clerical, or hospitality.” I glanced at the sullen restaurant staff and kept grinding on. “Thirty seven percent of Americans hold student loan debt, the average outstanding is $26,000 per person, and the total student loan debt load is at $1.1 trillion.” I pointed to our waitress. “I wonder how that Master’s in Psychology is working out for Patty.”

Then, seizing a cue from the true source of wisdom, Caddyshack, I smiled like Danny Noonan in Judge Smales’ country club office. “You’re probably wondering -- what does this all mean?” He nodded emphatically. “Let me repeat: It means this the nation is in irreversible financial decline. Outstanding current and future debt obligations, a shrinking number of wage-earners” – and here I raised my eyes to psychologically signal Patty for some more water – “and a massive growing number of claimants -- all are unprecedented in American economic history. You and your cohorts could be crushed,” I said dramatically. Then I whispered, “But there is a way out.” He was all ears.

“For seven years I’ve been riding you about getting top grades. Now, on the eve of your first class, I don’t want you to even think twice about grades. In fact, I will never look at one of your report cards again. Just choose what you think will propel you to a top station in life. If taking notes in class isn’t your bag – and it sure wasn’t mine – then don’t. Personally, I found it was a ton of work.”

“With all that grade stuff out of the way, here is more invaluable advice: What will propel your farthest in life are languages. Yeah, I know you have the Spanish deal down cold so now get on the Chinese bandwagon. There are a lot of them and even if their economy has slowed to 7.5 percent growth per annum right now, we’re all going to be living in Yuan City someday. Forget about Italian and French – those countries are doomed. I assure you that with languages, you will become indispensable in the business world.”

“OK. Now, as far as lax, keep at it. Being on a college lacrosse team provides a real opportunity because most of your teammates are going to wind up as investment bankers. Yes, that’s how it works. So with your Chinese, when that Goldman Sachs VP post opens in Shanghai, it’ll be yours because your ole buddy, Cameron the goalie, is in charge of the firm’s derivatives portfolio.”

Junior nodded in agreement and then asked, “What about my Maori ancestry?” “Kia Ora!” I practically shouted. “That means ‘Right on!’ in Maori. I have another word for you, pal: Haka! The Maoris were disciplined, violent, ruthless people. They were cannibals -- you can look it up on Google. You’ve shown ferocity and drive in everything – just keep it up, thank you.”

“Now, the good thing is, you may be 416 miles away at school. But with the Interweb and all these electronic doohickeys, you and I can be in contact whenever I need to tell you something.” Junior nodded affirmatively.

“And remember, it’s all generational. When your Grandfather Don began college, he was 24 years old and had survived a year and a half in the Pacific fighting the Japanese. I left for college at age 17, surviving two years of the fever swamps of UC Berkeley before transferring away my sophomore year.” “Today, you head off with all this accumulated wisdom that neither I or your Grandfather ever had. You’ll positively thrive.”

“And heck,” I observed, waxing on, “In years to come, your sons will probably look to me for this same advice. “What will you tell them?” asked Nellie Junior sincerely. “I’ll say, “Run downstairs and ask your Dad."

Priceless Advice

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 05 Aug 2013 12:31:00 +0000

Washington, D.C. - Nellie Junior, as he is known in this zip code and throughout the world, leaves for his first year of college in two weeks. Of course, American precedent would call for this to occasion a lot of obligatory fatherly advice about “growing up” and “the future” and "finding one’s path” and all that ridiculous gibberish. However, we’re way beyond that. In fact, Junior has been fortunate to receive sublime guidance for many years; indeed, almost every single day of his life since he was old enough to watch me deal a deck of cards with one hand.

“It’s all about getting A’s, my man,” I told him, as he listened eager-eyed and smiling, when he entered 1st grade. “Dad doesn’t care right now what you learn, for goodness sake. You’ll forget it by summer anyway. Just bring home the high marks and everything will be ok.” Start the habits early, I say, and there’ll be no deviation from an expected high norm. Sure, some might call this tough love, even intellectual primitivism; I prefer to call it wisdom.

In the 4th grade, when the requisite academic performance standards were locked in, I told Junior one afternoon on the turf field at Landon School, “Time to shift a few gears, pal. Time for you to select a sport.” His young face brightened. “Yes, it’s an exciting vista ahead. It’s just that you can’t choose soccer, football, ice hockey, wrestling, basketball, or swimming.” I paused for a moment in faux thought and suddenly said, “Hey, how about lacrosse?!”

You see, the aforementioned conventional sports lead nowhere. Yes, I said it. Size, driving and practice times, geographic location, and sheer numbers make these sports simply unreachable for truly stand-out play by the vast majority of kids. And stand-out play becomes is crucial at a later date.

Lacrosse is such a vastly tough sport early on – developing hand-eye coordination and athleticism, absorbing collisions, building speed and endurance and field sense – that if a kid can push past the initial difficulties, and be surrounded by good competition, he can get good. Very good. Junior obliged during the next several years and yes, became very good indeed.

During class registration for 6th grade, I observed, “You know, friend, we live in a big world, as far as your narrow-minded Dad can ascertain. You need to focus on a language so that you’re able to speak to all these folks you haven’t met. Your Dad was too narrow-minded to learn a language. And it sure didn’t help that he was passed through French I and II because your Grandfather Don was best pals with the French teacher since the days when they played in a jazz combo at UCLA. So just learn a language or two and I’ll be very pleased with you.”

In 9th grade, during national Asian/Pacific Islander Heritage month, I offhandedly told him one day, “Our Maori Indian great-grandmother once told me affectionately, ‘Attahua’ – that’s my name in Maori – ‘never forget your Maori ancestry!’ Now Junior, you’ve probably been wondering about your middle name.” “It’s Zealand,” he said brightly. ”Yes, you are correct. You are descended from the indigenous peoples of New Zealand. In fact, you’re descended from Parone KoiKoi, a revered Maori leader and the last chieftain to fight the white man, at the Battle of Gate Pa in 1864. The Maoris were also cannibals. You can look it up on Google.”

I shifted gears: “Top grades, lacrosse, language, ancestry – all will serve you well. Why, look at your father!” I had just worked as an advance man on a disastrous Presidential campaign, was unemployed, and in no mood to elaborate.

Hence, the outcome was that in paying close attention to this systemic wealth of advice, Nellie Junior was accepted at a decent college where he is going to play lacrosse and study Spanish and Chinese. All had gone according to plan.

Now settling in for the penultimate college chat, I could perceive his longing for a new round of advice. I clasped my hands in front of me in a posture of feigned gratitude. “Yes, you’ve done it all, son, every single thing that’s been asked of you. Great job, immensely proud of you, top-notch and all that. Now I’m going to give you some brand new advice, to replace the excellent advice that helped you get into the old man’s alma mater.” His eyes sparked with anticipation.

"First, forget about getting good grades in college.” [To be Continued]

The Nellie Theorem and Lacrosse

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Sun, 03 Mar 2013 16:42:00 +0000

The best season of the year is here. Lacrosse has started and the two eldest Nelligan boys grind it out at Severn School varsity practice on windswept fields in winter twilight. Cold, tired, and aching from hits. This is what it takes.

From the afternoon chill of a high-performing varsity, the next morning at 7:30, it’s even colder, and hey, perfect -- it’s sleeting. A third Nellie is in a fierce fight for a roster spot on a top-notch traveling team – the crucible will be a 35-minute scrimmage that trims 42 kids to a team of 17. “No pressure, my man,” I tell young son before it starts, “If you don’t make it, your life will be ruined.”

No, there’s no sport like lacrosse. It requires masterful hand-eye coordination –catching and throwing on the run, both left and right handed, with the ball coming in hard at a pocket 1/3 the size of a baseball glove. The game requires continual, instant decisions on angles across a huge field of play on which there are at least a dozen guys moving. It requires the endurance to run distances, accelerate fast, cut, and backpedal. And oh yeah, you have to absorb 15 to 20 collisions a game, some from the blindside. There is simply no other sport that asks as much on a consistent basis.

It’s also a sport in which personal initiative plays an essential role. It can come down to a kid throwing a ball against a wall, left hand, right hand – for hour after lonely hour, day after week after month. I know. I’ve seen three sons do it.

In the larger scope, it’s commitment. And numbers tell the tale. Not long ago, wool-gathering at a practice, I happily ventured through the lacrosse career of eldest son Devlin. All told, he’s been a member of 38 separate teams (school, rec league, travel). He’s played in approximately 780 full-scale, refereed, and scored games. And he’s attended about 1,800 practices. And that doesn’t count today’s practice.

And yeah, there has been driving involved. Conversely, that’s one of the best elements of the entire crusade. Dad and a kid in a car – one-on-one with no brothers, no rush, and conversations about anything and everything. If you drive 55 miles to a game and lose, it’s the old man saying, “Tough luck, bud. Shake it off.” If you win, you recite, play-by-play, every minute of four quarters. And after every game, there’s always the same sequence (derived from the 2006 Cherry Blossom tourney): “Ok, pal, let’s talk The Good, The Bad, and the Don’t Over-react.”

The weekend tournaments – at home or in Rhode Island, Virginia or in New Jersey -- are even better. Three or four games a day, constant pressure to win, Dads yelling around -- “Move the ball!! Wheels, wheels!” and my personal favorite, "Get your head in the game!" In the older tourneys, college coaches sit in chairs on the sidelines.

Middle-son Braden was on a team that won half-a-dozen tournaments in a single season. Every championship game, I’d be in my usual froth: Muttering and pacing up and down the sideline, mouth full of chewing gum, hands in pockets, kicking the ground with my shoes, a total nervous wreck. In all my professional life in politics, working on the Hill and for cabinet officials, I have never been more anxious than on a sideline in a tight game with about two minutes left in a one-score thriller.

Why Why WHY?! It’s the Nellie Theorem, and it applies to all sports in general. First, any kid on a field has placed himself in full glare to be publically judged and measured – parents and kids take this for granted all the time but it’s vital to remember. Second, being on that field, a kid is welcoming adversity. The wrong move, the dropped ball, the opponent crushing them – every decision counts and carries with it consequences. Third, a kid is on a team and forced to work with others to accomplish a goal. Those kids who can’t join and achieve? Well, you’ll find them in the basement playing COD eight hours a day. Fourth, sports requires endurance – mental and physical – grinding, focused attention, which is converse from a shallow, entertainment-saturated, electronic culture of instant acknowledgement and gratification.

The Theorem payoff is earned success, confidence, resilience, toughness. A bonus, of course, is that you can marshal the talent, poise, and leadership into an assist for getting into college, which Devlin was able to do recently. And all that means is more sidelines for the old man to pace, chomping gum and muttering like a madman.

And yes, the season looms ahead. I recently, after work, was able to catch a little of Devlin and Braden at the Varsity practice. Wow, just like many years ago on the Bethesda six-year-old team, both sons on the field at the same time. And no, no misty eyes for Dad. Rather, I marveled at what it took for them to get to this level -- last spring, Severn was ranked 39^th in the nation by ESPN.

I’ve seen how the sport designed them, in its intangible fashion, into these rugged and alert young men, hulking in helmets and pads and gloves, digging in around the goal as the opposing midfielders headed toward them on the dead run. Man, here it is -- speed, angles, strength, decision making, teamwork, confidence – all again for the first time.

Yep, 1,800 practices. What it takes, indeed.

Farewell to Smitty

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 02 Mar 2012 18:48:00 +0000

Hebron, Maryland – It’s a small cemetery set next to an old country road on a flat coastal plain. That it sits in a town named Hebron is compelling -- amateur Biblical types know Hebron as a city near Jerusalem which was a burial ground for prophets.

The day is clear, a strong wind blows cold, four soldiers in dress blue uniforms attend to the flag-draped casket, a volley of shots are fired and Taps sounds. Standing among the elderly family friends are eight current and former soldiers saying farewell to Smitty.

Smitty’s military career spanned the various phases of conflict – worldwide communism, European uncertainty, and Islamic Jihad – to which America unflinchingly answered the call. He’d been one of the millions of American servicemen engaged in the Cold war – recall the twilight struggle? -- serving as an enlisted man in Berlin in the mid-1980s with a detachment intercepting and decoding Soviet and East German transmissions. The fight against Moscow seems like distant history – but it was the gripping challenge of three generations.

Smitty left the Army, went to college, and joined the National Guard, where I met him in the famed 629th Military Intelligence Battalion which alas, exists no more. The First Gulf War passed over us, but then the need for troops – “peacekeepers” -- in the shattered Balkan States necessitated a call-up to police Bosnia. Smitty stepped up to the plate and deployed, leaving his job.

Then came 9/11 and the Guard and Reserve underwent profound change. Tempos increased, the need for troops of all kinds – from infantry to intelligence to quartermasters to truck drivers to pilots to mechanics – became acute.

Even with the needs for Iraq and Afghanistan, there was again a need to assist Europe in controlling its own backyard. In 2004, the 629th sent a company of soldiers to Kosovo, still reeling from the 1999 conflict. Smitty went.

All told, I knew Smitty for 20 years. In the platoon and battalion, he was another squared-away NCO – they all were, frankly – who didn’t say much and got the job done, no matter what it was.

I was an E-4, trained at the Infantry School at Fort Benning, and I genuinely enjoyed my 14-years of reserve duty. There was the regularity of mustering with the battalion on the gym floor on Saturday and Sunday mornings; the routine of working on vehicles and gear and paperwork. And, of course, my outstanding work as volunteer for KP – diligent kitchen pogue helping to make lunch for 600 soldiers.

There was also the melancholy of Sunday afternoon -- getting the armory cleaned up and the gear stowed, the final muster of troops and the dismissal, the curious emotion of knowing it was back to a regular job, after a weekend in fatigues and boots.

I retired from the unit but Smitty hung in there and in 2007, deployed to Camp Victory in Iraq for a year, serving as an intelligence guy – an assignment mirrored in the Berlin service more than two decades prior. Smitty died two weeks ago of natural causes at too young of an age.

The Guard isn’t like the intensity of active duty service. But what the two components share is a military ethic. Remember, the military is a volunteer institution, built around cohesion and loyalty and strict attention to accomplishing a mission – values which sometimes seem to be absolute outliers in a nation choked with self-absorption and instant gratification.

At the church service prior to the cemetery, I was talking to one of the guys there – an NCO I’d known for years. He said to me, “You know, Nellie, I’ll be frank. Smitty didn’t really like me at all and I didn't really like him. We had some scenes – some real run-ins -- in Kosovo and at Camp Victory. But he respected me, and I respected him.”

So this guy, who has never got along with Smitty, drives 130 miles on a winter Saturday morning, in his dress blues, to pay his respects. When you contemplate the military bond, you can’t more profound than that. Let that be the farewell for Smitty.

Politics and Sports: In the Arena

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 19:54:00 +0000

Reprinted with Permission of the Carteret County (N.C.) News-Times

Folks, I’m saturated with campaigns for the moment. Primary this, caucus that, nonbinding whatever. Three GOP Primary contests earlier this week and a thousand more to go. Being in the game for a quarter century as pretty much a bagman, I always marvel at the eternal lessons of politics.

Adversity, tenacity, victory -- and sometimes, alas, defeat. I grimace at them all and yet I've embraced them all for much of my young and adult life. They’re universal human experiences, but it seems they are particular American characteristics.

There’s another arena of life where these tests hit close and that’s the wide world of sports. While my days on a field and a court are long gone, I've tried to pass on resilience – but mericfully not my meager talent -- to my three sons. They may be too young for politics, but the old man has placed them firmly in the crucible of athletics.

Of course, there are countless parents who push their kids towards sports of all kinds. Heck, I see them at evening practices, at weekend games, in the early mornings driving to a pool or an ice rink. For example, this past weekend I was at a 7th grade rec league basketball game for young Darby and there were nearly 70 people in the stands of a cold middle-school gym at 9 a.m. on a grey Saturday -- parents, siblings, grandparents yelling around like it was an NBA game.

The night before no less, I was at a wrestling tournament for middle son Braden in a high school gym – stuffy and dusty and hung with faded banners of championships from the 1970s -- where there were 12 teams and more than 400 parents milling around.

This past fall I attended a high school football game -- featuring two sons -- in a Division I college football stadium that was three-quarters full. I recently went to a parents meeting for eldest son Devlin’s Varsity lacrosse team and in attendance were both parents for every single kid. Man, this is what we call “involvement.”

With three boys, there’s been a reflexive impulse to have them on teams, push them to compete hard, and most importantly, have them excel. Hey, here’s a fun stat: In 2011, my three sons were on a total of 23 teams (swimming, wrestling, lacrosse, football, basektball, and soccer) and plaed in more than 283 games and 840 practices. I know. I counted.

Yes, I plead guilty to riding my kids hard – and I know there are more than a few parents out there doing the same thing. You want the kids to excel at the sports at which they have showed real promise. And yes, I have urged them to either drop, or spend minimum time on, those sports at which they have no chance for stand-out play.

I recall as clearly today as eight years ago physically manhandling a kid into a car to go to a lacrosse practice. I get a bit disturbed today by my behavior then, but at the time I was adamant. Unnamed son was in tears, I was frustrated. I knew that to give in – to let him not go to practice -- would start a slide that might possibly never end. He went to practice, banged a bunch of kids around, and today he’s a premier player.

I also recall when one son got cut from a school basketball team. It was the first time ever a Nelligan had been cut from a team. Huge deal. But I knew then that even if he’d made the team, he would have ridden the bench (hey, just like Dad!), and that he never would have risen in talent – or in height – to be anything more than a third-teamer. He’d be on suburban teams that would get crushed by inner-city teams and what's the point or value in that? I've seen this movie over and over.

And yeah, he was good at soccer because he was and is very fast and very quick. But going far in that sport is a numbers game; again, there are teams made up of players for whom soccer is a national pastime and these teams beat the bejeebers out of suburban teams every time. Again, what's the value in that endgame?

Most importantly, all three boys were and are very good at lacrosse, and thus we've played and played – on weeknights and weekends, on fields everywhere, endlessly throwing the ball to one another, doing made-up drills, crouching in face-offs, not gently hitting each other while in full gear.

I’ve driven them both all over to practices and games and even tournaments in other states. There've been games in which their teams – and the boys themselves -- would get beat badly.

There were also a lot of victories. And through it all, I knew this was the sport they were mastering -- and they have. Now, we’re at the point where college coaches are recruiting the eldest, and the second will see his share of recruiters as well.

In all of this athletics saga, I never told my sons to have “fun” out there on a field or a on a gym floor or in a pool. Sports are about fun, yes.

But sports are really about satisfaction – doing your best, which is better than your best was a week ago. Sports are about gaining self-esteem through achievement.

In politics, as in these endless primaries, the cycles of preparation, practices, games, and victories and losses mirror that of the lowly 7th grade basketball game – or the clinching high school lacrosse championship.

Two bruising worlds, two arenas where you succeed or come up short, but where the eternal lessons about character and endurance are taught every moment.

The Mechanics of a Campaign

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 01:00:00 +0000

Washington, D.C. – Today and thru Saturday, all eyes focused on the neighbor to the South. Because no matter where you are, it’s impossible not to follow the Presidential primary saga. Iowa and New Hampshire, yes – but the big noise is all South Carolina. It’s all politics, all the time.

Having been involved in this crazy game for too many years, I understand that we all tend to focus on the big media picture – who’s up, who’s down, what ads are running, what someone said at debate, or in a Main Street diner. A stream of candidate events crammed into days and weeks and months.

However, there’s a story you rarely hear about – it’s what I’d call the mechanics of a campaign. That is, how does just one event – let’s say a speech in a community center – actually come together?

The “how” is one of the few things I really know -- only because once I was one of those guys on the ground, who came to set up an event for a Candidate, and left right after – to go set up another event.

It works like this:

Long ago and faraway just three years ago, I was part of a team setting up events for a presidential candidate in Ohio, West Virginia, and Pennsylvania.

Now, an event starts with five campaign operatives who come from the four points of the compass to a city which none of them have ever been in. The schedulers at Headquarters envision the Candidate in that city in 36 hours, speaking before 4,000 hysterical followers who are going to push him/her over the top in that city, in that region, in that state! The rally will build enthusiasm and show the state and national media that the Candidate is making it happen.

This takes place in Marietta, Ohio. The five guys meet in an airport lounge, jump in a rental car, and drive around looking at possible arenas – indoor or outdoor? Is the place too big, which would look bad to have empty space, or two small, which shows that the Candidate fears big crowds? A site is quickly chosen, local vendors are hired to build a stage with lighting and music affects. County political party chairman are rounded up so they can find enough volunteers to pack a 4,000-person college field house. , one of our guys heads to the local FedEx store to design and print up tickets, brochures, and placards for the rally; another guy drives different routes from the airport – which is across the Ohio River in West Virginia -- at which the candidate arrives; another is calling every reporter within 200 miles to say that this is an Event No One Can Miss.

Another is lining up volunteers, drivers, securing passenger vans for the campaign staff, the press, and hangers on who will all arrive in a chartered jet. That night, the five huddle over cigarettes and Red Bulls and think up every which way the whole event can fail – the Candidate stumbles, an attendee faints, a stage collapses -- and become a fiasco that ends up on a YouTube video getting a million hits.

Then suddenly it’s the day of the event – Game Day as it’s called. The Candidate arrives with police lights and siren escort, enters the field house from the back along the prearranged corridors, and pops out on an elevated walkway we designed, right in front of the school’s cheerleaders, who’ve been hired to get the crowd going.

As I watch from the side behind curtains, my phone goes off. It’s the campaign manager. He’s a Big Guy and Nellie is a Small Guy. I’m told that headquarters wants a non-media stop for 20 minutes at a “nice location” to accommodate a New York Times photographer doing a profile.
The five guys huddle and for once, Nellie has a brainstorm.

Earlier that morning, in going over the route for the eighth time, I’d passed the Marietta College football stadium and noticed a youth league football game on the stadium field. I suggest that venue, a guy is quickly sent to check it out while the Candidate is speaking. The stadium is old brick and picturesque in its own way. We envision the Candidate can stand on the sideline of the game or be speaking with parents in the bleachers for the photo shoot.

The speech ends, the ovation is large, and the police cars and vans head out to the stadium, about five minutes away. They pull up, the Candidate gets out with the New York Times photographer and they go through a tunnel into the stadium. I do too as the once-ever genius who thought this up.

It’s halftime and I quickly arrange with the team coaches to have the Candidate say a few words to the assembled teams -- these little kids with football helmets in these too-big pads. Thenit's a quick speech to the young cheerleaders, and a couple parents, to whom this is all a huge rush. The photographer is delighted with the dynamics of the photo; the Candidate is pleased to be around the kids. The campaign staff is pleased it took 15 minutes, not 20, and they can get back onto the plane for the next stop.

Now consider that this madcap kind of play is going on several times a day, for days on end. Each event, each staffer playing some role in convincing the public and the media that the Candidate is on fire.

That’s what is happening now as these five hopefuls surge through South Carolina, piling up event after event in a mad frenzy to get media and public traction. There are going to be electoral losers come Saturday. But I can tell you as a Game Day vet, none will lose for lack of effort.

The Prophecy of Dave Walker

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 27 Dec 2010 18:03:00 +0000

Do you hear that defining roar in the distance? It's the Leviathan, the Biblical colossal from the sea, the accumulated voices warning about federal government finances. As with a lot of modern life, it's all about numbers. Here are merely four:

The annual deficit load in FY 2010 was $1.3 trillion.* As of today, the total debt is at $8.87 trillion, which is roughly 61 percent of U.S. GDP in 2010. Government spending for FY 2010 was at $3.72 trillion, while federal government revenues (your taxes and all fees) are coming in at approximately $2.165 trillion.

The figures are hard and in stark contrast to the opaque and incessant hand-wringing. It's fiscal Armageddon! How did we get into this massive bind? Why didn't someone warn us?!

Someone did: His name is Dave Walker, former Comptroller General of the United States and head of the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO). GAO is a Washington, D.C. institution that commands universal, if not sometimes grudging, respect for nonpartisan, non-ideological fairness and accuracy. Walker used a late-summer 2003 National Press Club speech to stick a flag in the capital's ramparts and calmly state: The nation's financial situation is unsustainable and without change, things will get catastrophically worse.

Below is a New York Times op-ed Walker penned with your's truly providing assistance (ok, ok folks -- I formatted the fonts and ran spell check).

This was written seven years ago. It highlights Walker's prophetic view of the U.S. government's financial bind. In here are allusions to the impending collapse of the Federal National Mortgage Association (Fannie Mae) and Federal Home Loan Mortgage Association (Freddie Mac); inexorable federal health care spending exemplified by Medicare and to a leser extent, Medicaid; and, corporate financial reporting, before Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers, AIG, Goldman Sachs, and Citigroup.

Walker was a leader in the early-warning federal budget alarm system called the Peter G. Peterson Foundation and has now started his own organization, the Comeback America Initiative.

Starting with the title, Walker foresaw in clear terms the intractable bind we are in today. And it's an astonishing piece to revisit amidst today's increasingly desperate fiscal tumult.

New York Times, February 4, 2004
The Debt No One Wants to Talk About
by David M. Walker

WASHINGTON -- "We might hope to see the finances of the Union as clear and intelligible as a merchant's books," President Thomas Jefferson wrote to his secretary of the Treasury in 1802, "so that every member of Congress and every man of any mind in the Union should be able to comprehend them, to investigate abuses, and consequently to control them." Unfortunately, straightforward government financial information seems as elusive in 2004 as it did in Jefferson's day.

The truth is that the United States faces a long-term deficit that will only increase as the baby boomers retire. The resulting fiscal imbalance will test the nation's spending and tax policies.

Washington's recent difficulty in maintaining fiscal restraint has not helped matters.
The fiscal 2005 budget President Bush released on Monday includes a deficit of $364 billion. Although the administration and the Congressional Budget Office show declining deficits in the years ahead, and an improving economy will reduce deficits further, the long-term projected gap is now so large that we will not be able simply to grow our way out of the problem. Difficult choices are inevitable.

But the current system of federal financial reporting provides an unrealistic and even misleading picture of the government's overall performance and financial condition. Few agencies adequately show the results they are getting with the taxpayer dollars they spend, and too many significant government commitments and obligations are not fully disclosed.

Particularly troubling are the many big ticket items that taxpayers will eventually have to reckon with, including Social Security, Medicare, civilian and military retirement and health care benefits, and veterans' medical care. Despite their serious implications for future budgets, tax burdens and spending flexibility, these future obligations get short shrift in the government's financial statements and in budgetary deliberations.

The federal government's gross debt -- the accumulation of the annual deficits -- was about $7 billion last September, which works out to about $24,000 for every man, woman, and child in the country. But that number excludes items like the gap between the government's Social Security and Medicare commitments, and the money put aside to pay for them. If these items are factored in, the burden for every American rises to well over $100,000.

They new Medicare prescription drug benefit will add thousands more to that tab. This benefit is unquestionably popular and will make it easier for some older American to afford expensive prescription drugs. But it also comes with a steep price that few want to talk about. The truth is that the drug benefit as signed into law is one of the largest commitments ever undertaken by the federal government. Preliminary estimates of the long-term cost in current dollars run up to $8 trillion through 2070.

To put that number into perspective, it is about four times the entire federal budget. Long- term simulations from the legislative agency I lead, the General Accounting Office, paint a chilling picture. Even before the new drug benefit was enacted, thsese simulations showed that by 2040, current policy would require a 50 percent reduction in Federal spending or a doubling of taxes, to balance the budget.

Either would be devastating. And keep in mind it is likely that efforts will be made to expand the drug beneift in the future.

A key lesson from Enron, World-com and other business failures is that our free-market system depends on public confidence in the accuracy of corporate financial information. Recent G.A.O. reports have highlighted the increasing frequency of corporate earning restatements. Who would knowingly buy stock in, lend to, or do business with a company that conceals its true financial conditions?

As Jefferson pointed out, truth and transparency are even more essential in the public sector. Government services -- mail delivery, food inspections, Social Security and defense to name a few -- directly affect the well-being of of every American. But sound decisions on federal programs and policies are nearly impossible without timely, accurate, and useful information.

Fortunately, we are starting to see efforts to address the strengthening of federal financial reporting. The latest annual report of the federal government focuses more on the the nation's long-range fiscal imbalance. The president's Management Agenda, which closely reflects G.A.O.'s list of high-risk government programs, is bringing additional attention to troubled areas and is trying to better assess the results that programs are getting, with the resources they are given.

The General Accounting Office and other experts continue to encourage reforms in the federal budget proces to better reflect the government's commitment and to signal emerging problems. Among other things, the G.A.O. has recommended the government issue an annual report on major fiscal exposures -- explicit and implicit promises for future government spending.

Much more must be done, however. A top-t0-bottom review of government activities to ensure their relvance for the 21st century is long overdue.

From a practical standpoint, our elected representative are not likely to get too far out in front of the American people when addressing complex and controversial issues. These fiscal risks however, are long-term problems whose impact will not be felt for some time. The understanding and support of the American people will be critical to providing a foundation for action.

A national education campaign to help the public understand the nature and magnitude of the long-term financial challenges facing the nation is essential. After all, an informed electorate is indispensable for a sound democracy. Young American especially need to become active in this discussion -- because they and their children will bear the heaviest burden if today's leaders fail to act.

Public officials will have more incentives to make difficult but necessary choices if the public has the facts and comes to support serious and sustained action to address our fiscal challenges. Without meaningful public debate, however, real and lasting change is unlikely. The sooner we act, the sooner it will be to turn things around.

* Guess what: Things just got worse. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) just released its January document, "Budget and Economic Outlook: Fiscal Years 2011 to 2021." The deficit for FY 2011, if current laws remain unchanged, drives to $1.48 trillion.

The 104th and the 112th: A Renovation Revolution

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 30 Nov 2010 23:47:00 +0000

(Reprinted from the Baltimore Sun, Sunday, November 28, 2010)

Just sense the terror accompanying the GOP takeover of the House of Representatives: the huge political battles ahead, the hand-to-hand combat with President Obama, the legislative Armageddon. Yeah, agenda this, policy that. But I’ll tell you where the real turmoil begins. It’s in the mechanics: The transfer of real estate from the once majority to the now-ascendant minority, the shift in operations, the scramble for office space, the control of Committee rooms and the menu in the Longworth cafeteria.

I know. I was a shock trooper during the turnover from the 103rd to 104th Congresses, and a veteran of the 100th and 101st. When power shifts, there's a scramble. The leadership and the chairmanships of 24 standing House committees change, as do more than 105 subcommittee chairmanships. The former minority is emboldened with power to change the way business is done in Washington and that means one thing: renovation.

At the end of the 103rd Congress, I joined the Public Works Committee. Forget about that smarmy New Deal/Great Society moniker. The nameplate was ripped from history to be replaced by “Transportation and Infrastructure Committee.”

Our offices, like those throughout all three House Office Buildings,hadn’t been altered in decades. I vividly recall wandering through office space jammed with wooden filing cabinets holding memos from the 1970s, photos from the 1960s hung on walls, ornamental ashtrays were everywhere as were black rotary dial phones with straight cords, and every now and then a dull green IBM Selectric typewriter.

As the new spokesman for the new committee, I got a high-ceilinged office overlooking the fountain on the west side of Rayburn, a football heave from the Botanical Gardens. The former occupant, a friend, had been here for years. As it was being cleared out, she sighed that there was so much living history here. “You're not kidding, " I murmured, watching workers move a coat rack from which hung a styrofoam Humphrey-Muskie hat.

Forget the Contract With America, a new decorator had came to town. Walls that had stood since the Interstate system was built were torn down, carpet trod upon by House champions was ripped up, mildewed furniture was sacked. Elegant portraits of past committee leaders hung everywhere and had to be moved. "Where is Chairman Anderson going?" one senior Democrat staffer fretted. Congressman Glenn Anderson had been a legend from Long Beach, California. "No problem,” I said sincerely, “I’ll take him -- I was born in Santa Monica." Yes, it was chaos.

As the old ways departed, the new entered. There came down an edict from the Speaker to be: We will be the first Modern Legislature in history. In November 1994, the entire House and Senate had one website (Senator Edward M. Kennedy) and 43 members had email accounts, mostly AOL. Now, all House Committees were required to have sites; all staff and Members required to have email. Then came the most significant revolution in Congressional staff history: “attachments.” The old days of spending hours walking testimony and memos between three House office buildings had ended.

And this massive transformation didn’t stop with the pdf. 52 new GOP Members were seated, setting off one of the greatest office-switch daisy chains in Congressional history. Personal Member offices are assigned by seniority. With the seniority system shot by Democrat losses, here now came the complex orchestration of moving Congressman Joe -- and every single item in his office -- from cramped 4th floor Cannon House Office Building to 1st floor room-with-a-view Longworth.

From November 18, 1994 onwards, the House Clerk movers wheeled huge dollies carrying sofas, chairs, desks, filing cabinets, lamps, and endless boxes of "important" files. The rooms couldn’t be moved all at once given the sheer amount of stuff colliding in corridors. Hence, the moves were done after 8 p.m. and before 6. a.m. the haunting rumble of the House Clerk caissons symbolizing the end of an office-space dynasty.

The new offices, the décor, the nifty new equipment, the chiliburgers at last in the Longworth cafeteria -- it was all part of the magic of the 104th Congress this Hill rat recalls so well, the promise of which will be revealed to the 112th.One night I was on the phone with my defiantly socialist mother and caught up in the exuberance of the moment, I said, “We’re changing how this town operates.” "Give me one example, son," she said tersely.

I was sitting in the Committee hearing room after hours and was flummoxed for an answer. Then while gazing out at the panorama, it came to me: "We’ve got new microphones on the dais for all the Members."

The dawn, indeed, of a new day.

Diary of a Chart Guy: An inside-the-Beltway look at the ascendancy of charts and the men who make them happen

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 17:16:00 +0000

(Reprinted from the Wall Street Journal, May 5, 2010]

"Hey, where's my chart guy?" The words echoed down a marble corridor in the Treasury Department building, where there was a clamor of Medicare Trustees, two cabinet secretaries, the head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, eight high-ranking staff—and me. Conversation ceased and heads swiveled in my direction as I held the chart above my head. There was a clear sigh of relief.

It was late April, 2007, and we were about to hold a news conference on Medicare's disastrous financial outlook. We had all the right ammunition: big binders and accordion folders jammed with spread sheets, computer models, and talking points on complex economic terms. But the 3-by-2 chart I'd helped develop said it all: fiscal catastrophe.

The news conference had an overflow of reporters, but with all the high-powered leaders and documentation to explain the crisis, it was the chart that had the biggest impact in the next day's stories.

Let's face it, the chart is now a must-have political prop. Charts, on both sides of the aisle, dominate what we like to call political discourse. The Senate floor debate on health care featured more than a dozen.How did we get here? Washington used to feature elegantly crafted speeches by gray-haired, jowly statesmen in dark suits.

Until 1994, when the GOP's Contract With America was displayed on a chart: 10 bold bullet-point goals with red boxes next to each to be checked off as the legislation passed the House. The Contract sparked politicians and decision-makers everywhere to rely less on soaring rhetoric and more on colorful charts that would explain everything—from the reasoning behind cutting one-third of House staff to the need for a 34% increase in ICBMs. Who's going to argue with a chart?

Overnight, you saw legions of Hill rats like me hauling charts while trailing earnest politicians all over town.My boss on the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, then-Chairman Bud Shuster, jumped into the fray. His committee became ground zero for charts—Members always had vibrant displays showing interstate lane dimensions, per-mile construction costs, transit ridership, bridge-span engineering ratios. Other committees soon followed suit.

One day on the House floor Rep. Shuster and I were approached by then-Congressman Joe Scarborough with an aide buckling under tubes of maps and folders. "Bud, I got this Army Corps project in the district . . . funding . . . levees . . . big-time hydraulics . . . really need your support." Bud listened, then simply pointed at me and said, "Give it all to Nelligan. He'll make a chart."

Later, working for David Walker, Comptroller General of the United States and the head of the U.S. Government Accountability Office, we developed charts (sometimes shrunk to PowerPoint slides) to be displayed at numerous congressional hearings and editorial-board meetings. The charts showed frightening measures of spending, future entitlement growth, rising marginal tax rates, nondefense discretionary outlays—impending doom. Those charts even made it into the 2008 documentary film, "I.O.U.S.A."

Charts are now a fixture of the landscape, and in a 23-year career spanning the executive and legislative branches, I humbly consider myself present at the creation.

In that ornate hallway three years ago at Treasury, I waited patiently with my chart underneath a huge portrait of Albert Gallatin, America's fourth Treasury secretary. The bio next to the painting noted that Gallatin was the son of a wealthy Swiss grain merchant and an influential senator before Thomas Jefferson picked him to lead Treasury. And it suddenly hit me: There I was standing beneath Old Washington carrying the baggage of New Washington.

And what baggage. Projected Medicare spending alone in 2010 was 1,010 times the entire United States GDP when Gallatin was Treasury secretary. How did I know? It was on the chart.

Mr. Nelligan is a veteran of Capitol Hill and the Bush 41 and Bush 43 administrations.
Copyright 2009 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights

Lacrosse: A tough game to love...

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 10:42:00 +0000

(Reprinted from The Baltimore Sun , May 27, 2010)

This weekend, Baltimore's M&T Bank Stadium will host the second-largest crowd ever to watch an NCAA Final Four. The contests will feature 20 young men wearing sophisticated armor playing on a 110-yard field, an unlikely culmination for a sport invented in the 15th Century by Native Americans, using up to 1,000 athletes wearing next to nothing, playing on a field ranging over several miles.Lacrosse might have been a niche sport for the Huron and Iroquois tribes, and several centuries later confined to eastern prep schools and colleges. But today, it's the fastest growing youth sport, coast to coast, in America.

As a guy who has played and been around the sport for three decades and in just the past four years has had three sons on 28 different teams in the Baltimore-Washington region, I find the growth gratifying — and surprising.

Because the fact is, lacrosse is vastly different from typical youth sports.It relies on the most difficult elements of athletics. It requires the hand-eye coordination of baseball — catching and throwing an unforgivingly hard ball in a small pocket, often while running. Lacrosse has the brutal collisions and the acute need for field sense found in football. And it requires the endurance of basketball and ice hockey. "Lax," as it's sometimes called, is a very tough game to master, and with all due respect, it's not turning a dozen energetic kids loose on a soccer field chasing a ball, or the slow agony of kid-pitch baseball.

Nor is there the relativism in youth lacrosse seen in other youth sports. There's no political correctness about everyone-has-fun-and-everyone-plays and please-be-nice-to-Billy. I can count on one hand the number of times snacks were handed out after games. As one of my son's coaches, a former Gilman School and Division 1 standout, perhaps uncharitably said, "This sport doesn't tolerate the geeks or the parents who say, 'Oh, let's try this for fun.' After one season, they move on and you see their equipment at garage sales."

And then there are the coaches, many like my friend above. I've coached and been around kids' teams for a solid decade — but there's nothing like the lacrosse coach: rough-hewn, stern, demanding. Praise is spared and practices can be grim affairs. Players are called by their last names, and parents on the sidelines get used to their kids getting ripped unmercifully for mistakes during a game.

Nonetheless, there must be something appealing in the lax gestalt because the sport has exploded across the county. The 2008-2009 High School Athletes Participation Survey, put together by the National Federation of State High School Associations, tallies 153,525 high school male and female lacrosse players, double the number from 2000-2001. To compare that with well-established high school sports, that number is one-fifth of those who play soccer; it equals more than half of those on tennis, swim and diving teams; it's three times the number of high school ice hockey players, six times the number of gymnasts. And the growth is most extreme in the populous West: California has 215 high school teams, Texas more than 140, Colorado, 121.

The youth movement has led to an equivalent expansion on the college level. This spring, 264 colleges fielded men's college lacrosse teams, and there are more than twice as many players today — 9,200 — as 20 years ago. There are 348 women's teams — that's more than triple the number of women's college teams 20 years ago.

Equally important, there are 213 college club teams in the United States and Canada — again, a product of the popularity at the youth level — and many are lobbying their respective college administrations for NCAA Division I, II, or III status.

There's a pro organization — Major League Lacrosse — that despite fits and starts over the last dozen years has six teams and is looking to expand. Lacrosse has also been helped by the Internet; hundreds of high school games are on YouTube, which is agonizing when you can view your own son getting beat in the once obscure but now viral Loyola Blakefield-Severn School junior varsity game.

In 1921, a Baltimore Sun columnist enamored of the fabled Johns Hopkins team called lacrosse "the fastest sport on two feet." It's a long way from the Iroquois to the more than 100,000 spectators who will watch the NCAA lacrosse finals, proof that the fastest sport on two feet is now on two feet for good.

Jeff Nelligan is the parent of three lacrosse-playing sons who play better than their Dad. His email is Jeff.Nelligan@gmail.com.

Copyright © 2010, The Baltimore Sun

May in Martinique

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Mon, 17 May 2010 12:46:00 +0000

20 years ago this month, I was a relatively new soldier, and in Martinique at the French Army Brevet Commando School; an unlikely member of a platoon of hard-core infantrymen. Beyond the rather colorful experiences, the training provided a glimpse into the soldierly character, which today you can find on display in the far corners of the world. But alas, never truly appreciated here at home.

The French Army had trained hundreds of units from armies throughout the world at this course at Ft. Desaix. Jungle exercises were combined with water operations, both being the expertise of the island’s unit, the 33rd French Marine Infantry Regiment, responsible for security in the Antilles.

The course was based on passing a number of tests, for which you’d receive the Brevet Commando badge.To win a spot in the platoon, Army Reserve and Guard units sent selected soldiers to a stateside competition, half of which consisted of usual Army measures -- pushups, pull-ups, sit-ups, and running, all timed. The other half involved swimming -- a timed half-mile in a 50-meter pool, followed by the order to keep swimming in the pool for distance until you sank. Growing up in Los Angeles with ocean-centered parents, I had been swimming and surfing since a kid and was a fair waterman; I made the platoon.

When the unit mustered at an Air Force base for the C-130 trip to Fort du France, as a new guy, I was astonished at the accomplishments of my comrades: Special Forces tabs, Ranger tabs, Expert Infantrymen and Expert Medic badges, air assault and airborne patches, several containing the gold star signifying a combat jump, combat patches on the left shoulder, and explosives ordnance engineer markings. Only because I could swim was I on this plane.

French officers met us when we landed. They loaded us into trucks, and in the nature of the foreign military anywhere, wanted immediately to jack up the Americans. We drove to the base and were unloaded at the obstacle course.

Now, obstacle courses are the pride of every military base in the world. And for the uninitiated, we're not talking a course in the sense of plastic cones set up on an asphalt parking lot, or a 10-foot rope bridge where you bond with your sales pals. We're talking miles of huge, gut-wrenching physical demands.

I recall from memory a few highlights from the Regimental course at Fort Desaix: A timed run through a flooded marshland, repeated repels off 100-foot plus cliffs, low-crawling through a football field of mud and leeches and island snakes, clambering up and down 50-foot cargo nets (with no safety nets below), and a particularly eye-opening 150-foot crawl across a one-inch cable suspended 200 feet above a boulder-strewn field. This was accomplished by lying on the cable, securing your pack and rifle, and dragging yourself hand-over hand to the other side, your trailing leg and boot curled around the cable for stability.

If you slipped off the cable, you hung, spinning crazily, by a rope attached to your midsection and to the cable with an O-ring. Then, a fellow soldier had to crawl out and push the O-ring along the cable, practically inch by inch, across to the other side, compensating for the soldier’s weight while balancing his own weight.All of the above describes only about one-third of the course, which we would do every day we were there, sometimes at night with only covered flashlights and the moon.

That first day, Staff Sergeant Josh Freeman (Landon School, 1983) a former soldier of the year with the 5th Special Forces Group, broke the course record, an astonishing feat. Consider: tens of thousands of men, including the French cadre, had been over the course for years, and our guy breaks the record coming off an eight-hour flight. The French had grudging respect, and redoubled their efforts to burn us up.

Other daily tests followed. Some were as old as the days of the Roman Centurions: hand-to-hand fighting, tying a series of complicated knots in ropes that could support a truck lifted ten feet off the ground (disaster befell the knots that slipped), and 36-hour forced marches through impassable terrain. On night patrols, we’d steal silently through Martinique towns, tested on whether we aroused an outcry from police or residents. During the day, we’d cut through jungle and sharp stands of sugar cane, all done with compass, hours upon hours, trying to outflank the French cadre lying in wait for us. Sweaty, bleeding, and ascending some forsaken volcanic hill with full pack and rifle, I remember going past a fresh, ever-smiling French training officer and thinking, with the hilarity that sometimes accompanies extreme fatigue, “Man, this guy is getting his kicks dragging my rear end all over this damn island.”

We stayed in the field night and day and no matter what, guys were always in good cheer, no matter how awful the circumstances. One evening we were navigating a massive swamp, trying to find footing, our heads going under again and again. Suddenly, truck lights went on all around us, we were hauled out with ropes, driven to a barracks and inexplicably given 3 a.m. training on the French FAMAS assault rifle.

Two days later, we were ordered to the top of the fort walls and lowered by ropes deep into old ammunition bunkers. Each soldier was accompanied by a French non-com. The aperture closed, and in utter and complete darkness, we were handed an FAMAS and told to disassemble and then assemble the rifle in two minutes. Enlisted man Nellie never had a mechanical bent, but I’d recalled the late-night class and thinking optimistically at the time that the FAMAS had fewer parts than an M-16, which I could strip. I patiently outlined the rifle with my hands and used a fair memory to recall the steps taught two nights before.

We were given cursory training in tides, currents and wind and then paddled inflatable Zodiacs for miles on the open ocean, with only one compass for four boats, meaning even the slightest error on an azimuth meant hours of wasted effort. Another test involved being pushed out of a ship and with nothing but three empty canteens for flotation, you were required to make it to shore.

The final test was the water obstacle course. After swimming a long distance in a bay in full uniform, you lunged out of the water to grab ropes and climb a scaffold, dove to the sea floor to retrieve objects, swung hand-over-hand across a 30-foot jungle gym, crawled over and around rusty pylons, then headed into a submerged pipe on the floor of a lagoon, fighting off a claustrophobic, drowning panic while traveling 40 feet through the conduit and coming up in deep water before making your way to a beach.

Don’t get me wrong, U.S. Ranger and Special Forces training makes this course look like a picnic. The guys in the platoon were used to the pounding and this was just a two-week stopover for them. Nevertheless, the thing was, no-one whined, no-one complained. They all went from one challenge to the next. It was remarkable, and the general bonhomie got under the skin of some of the French cadre.

Even after two decades, I recall some of the men -- diminutive Tim Urban, the SF engineer, the HALO-jump artist and clever Robert Parsons, and John Roberts, SF medic, a Jumpmaster qualified paratrooper, multilingual State Department diplomat, and one of the most remarkable men I’ve ever met. Ironically, 20 years ago, only a seer could have predicted that some of these soldiers would be launching out of Saudi Arabia into Kuwait and Iraq six months later, and eleven years later, lunging into Afghanistan and then again, Iraq.

One scene encapsulates for me the creed of the American soldier. On the first day those wily Frenchmen put us on the obstacle course at twilight, one man did slip off the cable and dangled helplessly 100 feet above the ground. While those of us who had crossed watched, on the other side of the canyon, there was an instant rush of guys to the starting point, scrambling to get to the cable. A senior non-com issued a quick order and then he immediately crawled out and slowly pushed the man, using the O-ring, to the other side.

In that instant, I saw the reflexive selflessness of the American soldier -- a guy was in trouble and needed help. Everyone stepped up.

At the end of the course, every single man who got off the plane was awarded the Brevet Commando badge, one of the few platoons in the 33rd Regiment’s training history to accomplish this because units always lost a couple men to injury. The French Army officers were stunned even as they made the announcement. For me, while I was proud to have the award, I felt more privileged to be associated with these men.

Two decades, I feel the same way. Now leading an easy, conventional life, I am fully aware there are hundreds of thousands of American servicemen across the globe engaged in everything from the tedium of garrison duty to the terror of combat. All of them, in some fashion, have in them that unique soldier’s character which I saw so vividly in Martinque. A type of character which all aspire to, but seems only a soldier fulfills.

The Hard Work of Freedom

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 19:49:00 +0000

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton just returned from Asia and it was with genuine interest that I scanned photographs of her entourage for a glimpse of that Indispensable Man. Every U.S. envoy has one. I know. Because I once was one.

Yes, in a foreign policy galaxy a long time ago – I was personal assistant to the Administrator, U.S. Agency for International Development. His official cabinet rank was as one of four Deputy Secretaries of State. AID was and remains the chief dispenser of foreign assistance and these trips were to show the flag and check on U.S- funded projects.

As the Administrator’s aide-de-camp, I didn’t have the non-stop grimace while whispering in his ear about “strategic modalities” and “contiguous dialogues.” Nope, I was in charge of the really heavy lifting – reserving hotel rooms and procuring tickets, arranging country schedules and carrying briefing papers. I got the guy where he had to go, through the tedious meetings of foreign ministers asking for yet even more dough, and doing everything I could to build good will among -- you got it – the peoples of the world.

An indispensable part of my work was dispensing trinkets. Because folks, let’s understand one thing: An important American emissary can’t go visit a country, meet with its leaders, tour its cities and countryside, and not leave a little something behind. Sure, we were spending billions of dollars on building democratic and economic institutions, but what’s it all mean if the guys and gals at the top are left empty-handed? Hence, before I left on some marathon globetrotting session, I packed my special suitcase with items featuring the State Department seal, in ascending order of value: ball caps, t-shirts, enamel coasters, coffee cups, leather notebooks, silver pens, and the top of the line: crystal cubes with etchings of the White House and the Capitol. For the hoi polloi, I threw in the universal coin of the realm: cigarettes and shaving razors.

I dragged this bag of tricks to more than 40 nations and my routine at every stop rarely changed, beginning with an early morning meeting with my boss: “Ok Sir, here’s the schedule for today – ceremonial harvest festival and potato dance, a stop at a veal farm, grand opening of a rattan factory, and reception with the Minister of Lug Wrenches.” I’d glance up from my open suitcase and say matter-of-factly, “I figure we’re looking at eight shirts, four pens, a dozen mugs, a carton of Marlboros for the drivers and a Capitol cube for Mr. Wrench. We roll in thirty minutes.”

In addition to the trinkets, I also was responsible for the smoothing out the rougher edges of conducting high-stakes American foreign policy.

Like at a meeting in Sofia, Bulgaria, where the Education Minister kept admiring my necktie. Of course, nothing would do but that I participate in a gracious hands-across-the-water exchange – my dark blue Brooks Brothers tie embossed with American flags for a his ill-cut wedge of salami-colored burlap.

In Jogjakarta, which is east of the Jakarta, one late afternoon I was suddenly given the job of organizing a poker game for senior Indonesian and U.S. officials – necessitating a madcap dash around town on the back of a motorbike, procuring two-dozen sealed packages of playing cards, a roulette wheel, a case of expensive cigars, bottles of some crazy rare single-malt Scotch, and a private room.

In Budapest, Hungary, a general, noting my Army lapel ribbon, struck up a conversation about the military and said, improbably, that he hoped someday the Hungarian armed forces would be outfitted with M-16s and “that Bradley machine.” He got a mug and a leather notebook

It was at a stop in Geneva on this same trip that an earnest and sincere Embassy staffer, taking me for a serious person, cornered me in a hotel lobby and started telling about “bilateral” this and “multilateral” that. I was sitting on a couch, distractedly rooting through my suitcase and all I could do was snort and reply, “It’s all about unilateral baksheesh, Hampden. Now, do you want a couple of pens or a pack of Camels?”

In Rabat, Morocco, the King sent “signals” via a high-level emissary to me, the bagman, that he would meet with the Administrator only if the U.S. could fork over $22 million that day for a health clinic. A proud man, the Administrator told me, “I’m sympathetic, but I won’t be extorted.” “Gotcha,” I said, and two hours later I’d moved heaven and earth to rebook all our flights, meetings, and hotel reservations for an early departure to Greece via Rome. The King got two T-shirts and four coasters.

In Romania, I was wired money via the Embassy by a senior U.S. official back at State and instructed to buy some Red Army militaria. Because I was paying in cold hard U.S. cash and because of my bargaining savvy (I’d been doing this kind of thing all over the world), I spent every dime, purchasing and sending back enough uniforms and medals for a small museum.

On one of my last trips, I was in Albania and the Administrator and I and several State department folks out of Tirana are on a farm tour. Amidst a luncheon in a vast commodities barn built with U.S. funds, there’s a great clamor for some way to symbolize this grand agricultural achievement.

The next thing you know, a proud farmer is behind a 19th century ox and plough and has cut a 50-yard furrow in a nearby field. He insists one of the Americans lay down a matching lane. You know where this is going. The State department guys fade into the barn shadows and so 10 minutes later, there’s Nellie in his suit and dress shoes, gamely trudging behind the ox and plough, slicing an uneven cut into the soil -- yeah, part of the new U.S.-Albanian “modality.”

“Man, you wanna talk about the hard work of freedom,” I say once back in the barn. The Americans laugh uneasily but hey, there’s no time for jokes – it’s back in the car and on to the next stop and farmer Ahkmed gets a White House cube and some razors.

Ah yes, back in the day this was statecraft -- hard work of freedom, indeed. And yet even in a world gone haywire, there’ll always be a need for trinkets, and there’ll always be the need for the Indispensable Man.

The Five Keys for Obama's Communicators

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 13:58:00 +0000

Commiserating darkly with an acquaintance from an administration now long gone by, the fellow asked me about the lessons I’d learned during the past several years as a spokesman for a government agency. By nature cheerful but by temperament dim, I stared blankly into the phone. Because the thing is, the guy asking me is an authentic Thinker, a bonafide intellectual. He was a senior White House advisor to two presidents, appears on political talk shows, writes a syndicated column. Insightful, with big ideas that have been put into small legislative print and become law. “You should collect your thoughts on this,” he said.

You see the dilemma immediately. While I have seen a lot during my time in Washington (see “The Fixer," May 21, 2008), I tend to look at the experience and lessons in a rather mechanistic fashion. Why, some might call it primitive. So I thought about my pal’s suggestion and realized that although I couldn’t hit the high notes he contemplated, I could outline several elaborately unadorned ideas that the new press and media people in the new Administration might do well to follow. Hence, Nellie's Five Keys for Obama's Communicators:

1. Always carry three pens. No matter where you are in Washington, someone -- customarily a senior official who should know better -- has forgotten their pen when they need it most. Hand them one – everlasting goodwill results. Bonus: Let them have it for keeps.

2. Have a fallback comment for every situation. A press person is often in a number of meetings, or walking down hallways with nervous, chattering staffers and everyone is going on and on with all this policy and regulatory jargon, which is always confusing and dull. I find I often lapse into a stupor and then wham, suddenly someone turns to me and says, “What do you think?” I snap out of my reverie and reply like a robot, “There’s a lot in what’s been said here, folks.” If that line is taken, my backup: “Well, I imagine we’ll need to examine all of this further down the road.”

3. Don’t join an office Coffee Club. Yeah, it all sounds good, the promise of the Bottomless Cup, club members who are energetic and well-meaning, a decaf détente, but the despair and disappointments are huge. The fact is, when you really need some joe on a dragging afternoon, it comes down to the rash symbolism of an empty pot on a lonely counter in a far-away break-room.

4. Handle charts with grace. Big, stiff cardboard charts covered with colored grids and symbols are the defining totem of my generation, whether they diagram 2008 Oil Imports From South Asian Non-Aligned States or are graphs showing Rich People Making Too Damn Much. As the Capital’s reigning chart boy (see “Chart Boy”, April 27, 2007), I have hauled these monstrosities all over town for presentations and speeches, trailing resignedly in the wake of my various data-driven bosses. Not even my service in the Army prepared me for the stoicism and courage required to enter a hotel ballroom, place a chart on an easel, and stand next to it in front of 300 people.

5. Memorize a lot of scores. No matter what the season, knowing the scores to ballgames gives you a distinct edge over your peers. Washington is full of lulls in Important Business and invariably sports comes up. An Assistant Secretary will say, “See that Cowboys game?” You reply: “Wow, a real cliffhanger – 17 -13.” Or, it can be the obscure: “How about Toledo?!” Your answer: “35-7 over Akron. Jeez, who saw that coming?” Sure, it’s transparent. But hey, here’s where you can take credit for actual research.

Now, as you can see, I’ve dispensed with the inconsequential stuff – you know, ‘tell the truth’, ‘respect others,’ ‘remember you’re serving the President and the American people.’ Everybody knows about those sorts of things. Instead, believe me: it’s the five biggies above that will get you through. After all, look how valuable they proved for me.

All About....

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 17:28:00 +0000

(Above: In keeping with his sense of fair play, Nellie takes it to the goal on barefoot 12-year old kid at Bordley Field, Landon School, in Bethesda, Maryland.)

“The thing is, Betty, I’m not into this for me. No way. Sports is all about what the boys want – it’s what they feel comfortable with.” The woman with whom I’m speaking on the sideline clucks appreciatively at my magnanimity and balanced outlook on kids’ athletics.

Of course, its Nellie talking so you know there’s a catch. In fact, it is All About Me. Every league, every practice, every game, every piece of equipment, every day. Why look -- I’m chatting up this mother at the famed Fairfax FallBrawl Lacrosse Tournament. It’s 22 degrees outside at 8 a.m., and I’ve got two sons in two different divisions playing all day. “I don’t care how cold it is! I want to see you jack up some people!” I tell them with fatherly calm during the dawn ride to the fields.

Harsh, eh? The boys know that maybe I’m kidding. But they certainly know that I have a relentless belief in kid’s athletics and team sports. I’ve seen what both have done for the men and women I most admire and respect.

Lacrosse, as it happens, provides a perfect example of the lifetime edge that sports confer. First, a kid builds true confidence in gaining athleticism, catching and throwing a small ball while on the run and getting pounded. There’s the instant decision-making, the physical endurance, all translating into a mental toughness. There is the extraordinary camaraderie: You have to get along with the good guys – and the knuckleheads. You have to strain to keep up, obey a coach. And the coaches are, for the most part, rough-hewn, stern and demanding. There is no relativism in lacrosse (or in most serious sports); no political correctness about “Everyone has fun! And everyone plays!,” no "be nice to Billie" smarminess, and no darn "snacks." Each kid endures 30 to 40 collisions in a raw, hard, fast game and it builds, like many sports, a self-confident attitude and paradoxically, selflessness.

And, like an astonishing number of parents, I practice what I preach. In 2008, the three Nelligan boys played in 28 different leagues spanning five sports – football, basketball, baseball, soccer, and lacrosse. We’re talking more than 230 games and meets, and that’s a lowball figure because all three are very good at lax and thus went into post-season and post-tournament play at least half a dozen times. Not that I’m counting or anything.

Or that I boast or anything – like about Darby, in his flag football league playing quarterback and calling plays, facing off every game, unbelievably, against some parent who insists on playing permanent QB for the other team. Hey, suit yourself, Suburban Joe Farve.

And if lacrosse is emblematic of the priceless lessons of sports, the FallBrawl is emblematic of the lax world. More than 90 teams come from all over the Mid-Atlantic. Braden’s team grabs first in its division, Devlin’s team gets third place. Braden is a tough guy, plays defense and puts more than several kids on the ground. Once he gets his stick under a player's arms and rips upward, sending the kid’s stick spinning end over end into the sky. “That’s what I mean, Brady boy!” I shriek. Dev is a finesse guy, gets assists and scores a couple goals, one shot bouncing into the bottom corner of the goal as Dev dives past a defenseman. “Princeton here you come, buddy” I whisper under my breath. Ah yes, the endless fantasies of a father.

Yeah, all these teams and sports require driving and games and practices. And, most important: Time. But what else are the three sons going to do with their Time? Listen to Nickleback while playing X-Box and text messaging on their cell phones? Since all three have none of that gear per Nellie edict, we’ll just leave that scene to the kids who are growing up to be IT professionals and will make tons of dough. My kids are going to focus on sports to the detriment of everything else and matriculate to an obscure Division III school, sit on the bench, and major in Sociology. Like dad.

When the championship series ends at dusk and we jump in the car to ride home, the sons are wiped out but exuberant -- 14 solid games between them, fired up by being with their closest friends, all that adrenaline and movement, sweaty, bruised, cuts on their legs, and two trophies.

We’re pulling out of the parking lot with a phalanx of other cars and the windshield wipers have frost on them and my breath is condensing in white clouds on the inside of the car window. Suddenly, Dev says with near alarm, “Dad, weren’t you cold watching the games all day?” “Are you kidding me?” I reply with disbelief. “I was watching you and Braden light it up out there. I didn’t notice anything else, pal.” Yeah, all about me, indeed.

The Fixer

noreply@blogger.com (Unknown) — Thu, 22 May 2008 22:04:00 +0000

The request was simple, tersely delivered. “We need him back in the building at 1.”

“Will do,” was my terse response.

It was a meeting my boss was giving to a group of non-profit folks – each individual imbued with some ideals, genuine smarts, political skills, and whole lot of gabbiness. My mission: keep him on time, away from the gabbmeisters, and steer him through the labyrinth hotel hallways to the front door and into the car and back to the bureaucratic mother ship.

Hence, in bright lights, the one skill I’ve developed in my long political lifetime – aide-de-camp, special assistant, bagman, guy in a dark suit, white shirt, and rep tie. The Fixer.

Even since I came to Washington, I’ve been lucky to work for powerful and prominent people. You've seen me -- I’m the guy that is always with Him or Her wherever He or She might be, ensuring that they have the correct speech, the special award to be presented, the phonetic spelling of “Adznanyvir Schlappaduchesski” on a note card, checking to ensure the principal doesn’t get lost or stolen and gets what they want, no matter how outrageous. Today, it’s called “staffing” someone. Well, to me a “staffer” is some brainiac geek who carries around bulging binders and knows the details of Section IV, subparagraph 2 of the Hopelessly Complex Legislative Act of 2005.

No genius, I, my friends. Instead, I’m the Fixer. In fact, I tried to explain it my parents once, as they saw no relationship between the Fixer and a high-priced education. “You mean you carry notebooks and coffee cups and what not?!” my mother said incredulously. “That’s what the Fixer does,” I said robotically. “He fixes things.” “Coffee cups?” she repeated in a daze.

Tallinn, Estonia: It’s near midnight in a bleak, barely functioning ex-Soviet state. “Hmmmm,” says my boss, a regal Deputy Secretary of State in charge of foreign aid, “I think it would be grand and gracious to honor Prime Minister Grmylbk’s wife with a bouquet of 100 splendid flowers to symbolize the next 100 years of harmony between Estonia and America." I don’t even blink. “Check.”

Next thing you know, I’m hustling off into the shadows of a deserted street after whispered conversations with a greasy concierge and a cop, brand new US dollars are flashed, there’s a cab ride halfway to Latvia, a greenhouse run by a World War II German generator, a screaming ride back to town, and I’m in the hotel lobby with two huge bunches of fresh flowers at 7:30 a.m.. “Here you go, sir.” “I thank you for your prodigious efforts.”

This skill was honed at an early age. I distinctly recall an incident when I was 7-years-old; my father, a gracious guy, was being given the hard sell by some earnest furniture salesman. The guy was talking bonus this, half-price that. My father looked pained as he listened to the shtick. I instinctively knew what to do: I grabbed my dad’s hand and urgently said, “Dad, can you take me to the bathroom? I really gotta go bad.” The salesman shot me a dirty look, my dad smiled with relief, and I realized a career was born.

House Floor, U.S. Capitol: The Member stands there clutching colored graph paper and rolled up survey maps, talking to my boss. “Chairman, I really need this project …local mayor’s banging on me…only 13 million bucks….improve a lot of lives…economic development…reelection..” “Sure, Joe. Give the info to Jeff here and he can follow up with your people.” The Fixer swings into action. “I’ll take that,” I say matter-of-factly, grabbing the paraphernalia out of the startled Member’s hands. “Now let me get with the Army Corps hydro team and run the numbers on the levee option.” The two happy men drift away and I’m left standing alone, with two of the maps slowly slipping out of my grasp and falling to the carpet.

It’s not that these men and women can’t fend for themselves – they can. It’s just that the demands on them are such that it’s better to save the important stuff for guys like me. I call it the Hierarchy of Needs: these folks are high on the hierarchy and the Fixer takes care of their needs, or something like that.

Downtown Washington, prestigious think tank: A speech given by my boss on the weighty subject of health care, the dire situation facing the country, the financial sacrifice, generations fighting one another for resources, poor people, sick kids, the whole ball of wax. Afterwards, my boss strides out, serious reporters from major national publications gather round for additional Wisdom and the air hangs heavy with Meaning. Before anyone can get a word out, some elderly guy in shorts, t-shirt and a ball cap darts in and says, “Hey there, fella. I hear you run that big agency. See, I’m having trouble getting someone there to pay for this chiropractor for my back pain and I bet you could call your boys in billing and—“

I know how to handle this guy. See, the Fixer has to come through in any situation, no matter if it’s Estonia or K Street. There are countless challenging circumstances and one must adapt with instinct and poise.

I step up to the senior and say, “Sir, let me help you with that” and try to outflank him from the reporters and my boss. He protests, “What do you know about it, son? You’re not on Medicare.” “But I will be someday,” says the Fixer cheerfully, taking the man’s shoulder and arm and gently steering him away from the crowd.