Matt And Me

            Matt Long’s story The Long Run makes me aware of a connection between Matt Long and me.  Some of the connections have to do with siblings while others have to do with hard work.  Family is important to both of us but we also love to play our sports.  We both don’t like only one sport we both like multiple sports.  Matt likes basketball, running, biking, and swimming.  While I like baseball, track, cross country, and ice hockey.

            Even though he has 8 siblings he feels closest to Jimmy because they are only 14 months apart.  Even though my sister and I are 5 and half years apart we have the same relationship as Matt and Jimmy.   Matt and Jimmy had the same interests in sports, they both played basketball on the same team.   My sister and I both played soccer and ran track but since our ages are so far apart we couldn’t play on the same team.  When Matt and Jimmy went to different colleges it was the first time they were separated.  They called each other every night and went to visit each other whenever they could.   When my sister first went to college it was the first time we were really separated.  We talk to each other whenever we could and I tried to visit her a lot.

            Both Matt and I worked hard at a sport we wanted to get better at.  In order to make his college’s basketball team, he worked out every day the summer before his senior year and made the team.   Last summer I went to a track camp 4 times a week.  In the beginning it was just so that my sister wasn’t lonely but then I started to get better.  Now on my track team instead of being the number 4 man, I am the number 3 man.

            I hope our lives don’t go parallel where I have a near death experience.  If I do I know I will fight like Matt Long to stay alive and come back in sports.

Matt Long: A Fighter

            Before I started reading this book I was really looking forward to reading The Long Run by Matt Long with Charles Butler.  I wanted to read this book because my family knows him.  Two of my uncles went to college with him.

            The Long Run is the story of Matt Long’s near death experience and his recovery from it.  He was riding his bike to the Rock because of a transit strike.  Also, the bus that hit him was only there because of the transit strike.  The bus was making a turn didn’t see him and then hit him.  This is where his long run to recovery begins.

            I think he had a very good and athletic life before the accident.  He competed in many triathlons, including the Ironman, and many marathons.  He was a firefighter as well as a bar owner.  I know how hard he trained because he trained with my uncle. 

            An accident of this magnitude is a big, big life changer.  I think he was very lucky having his family’s support going through the many operations he went through.  It had to be very hard on his family getting the news that he might not make it.  In one way he was lucky to have a big family because they were there to support each other and him. 

            My family saw him finish his post accident triathlon and therefore I know his body and mind must be very strong.  He again proves how powerful the mind is and that no goals are impossible to reach.  He will never be the athlete he once was but he is determined to be the best athlete he can be.

Lou's Life Lesson's

            Lou Gehrig’s life is made up of a lot of life lessons.  His life lessons started early.  When he was born into a poor family, his mother earned money by cleaning other people’s houses and his father worked long hours and Lou Gehrig rarely saw him.  Lou Gehrig learned from his parents what it means to work hard.

            He also learned to handle heartache and disappointments at a very young age.  He was the only child of his parents who survived childhood.  He became determined to be the best he could be.  He used this determination in becoming the great baseball player he was.  In high school he wasn’t the best fielder on the field but his determination and his hard work paid off.  Even when he made it to the major leagues he got sent down to the minors and then taken up to the majors and back down before he got the call to play in the majors for good.  Many people would have quit trying to reach their dream, but Lou Gehrig strongly wanted to accomplish his goal of playing in the major leagues.

            His life could also teach people that the right attitude and hard work can make you successful in something you like to do.  In high school he played soccer, football, and baseball and continued playing football and baseball into college.  From there he decided to sick to baseball even though he wasn’t the best at it.  We should all realize that we are more successful at something we are happy doing.

            Lou Gehrig led a life that people should try to follow.  You don’t have to follow the baseball part but pursue your dreams of what you like to do.  Lou Gehrig’s life lessons influenced the way he fought his disease.   We can all learn to fight with all our might to overcome obstacles, like Gehrig did.

Luckiest Man

            I learned a lot about Lou Gehrig, in the biography Luckiest Man by Jonathan Eig.  Even Lou Gehrig, Hall of Fame baseball player for the New York Yankees didn’t always have an easy life.  Gehrig didn’t have siblings because they all died very young and his dad wasn’t around very much.  Growing up and throughout college he was bigger than everyone else but growing up he got made fun of because of it.  He also wasn’t born with baseball talent and it didn’t help that no one else, he played baseball with was a lefty.  His dad then got him a mitt for the right hand and it was a catcher’s mitt.  Gehrig’s family was also poor so when Gehrig was in high school he tried to get jobs to help out the family. 

            Lou Gehrig started to play baseball seriously in high school.  He played for Commerce High School in New York City.  He started to work out and become a better player.  In his senior year the Giants’ manager wanted him to play for them.  His parents wanted him to continue his education and go to college.  The manager told him to come to the tryouts anyway.  Gehrig did this and hit bombs when they told him to hit.  When it came down to the fielding though, he let a ball go right through his legs and the coach didn’t want him anymore.  The coach would rather have people who could field, then hit a lot of home runs.

            Without going pro that year he went to college.  He went to Columbia University and didn’t play the first year because of an incident.  He then played in his sophomore year and by the end of it he was offered a contract by the New York Yankees.  The decision was pretty easy because both of his parents were sick and couldn’t work.  Even though the decision was easy he went to a teacher and the teacher looked at his grades.  He told him that he should stick to playing ball.  I look forward to reading the rest of this book and learning about his road to stardom.