THE LOST COLUMN
Slice Of Life Stories On Family, Sports, Losing & Life
I’ve been a writer since ‘94 but have experienced losing for much longer.
It’s a chronic condition: At 13, Donny Wilmot beat me 7-6 in tennis and told me, “You played a career match Cote, and you still lost.” In high school, I started at shooting guard as a Sophomore, a year in which our hoops team put up 20 in the loss column, out of 20 games. At 26, I got so lost driving home from New York City on my third date with Bridget we ended up on Pennsylvania’s I-80. That’s really hard to do. I lost my hair by 29, my ability to make a 3-foot putt by 30 and the grass in my front yard by June, every year. At 33, I left my wallet on the top of the Subaru while filling up the tank twice in an eight-day span; both times the wallet fell off as I spun away. Today, I deal with a different kind of losing – as a coach of a middle school girls basketball team of kids who’ve never really played before and don’t have a safe place at home to practice; as a father of three who give their best in sports and on stage, but don’t always win, and as a man on the cusp of 50 who on any given day loses his patience, keys, favorite shirt and hearing….through it all, I try to learn a little something from losing….and be better for it the next time.
This is my book on losing—how to do it gracefully and with any luck stop it.
Die Laughing
Attitudes about death are changing. What can we do and how can we help continue to shape them in positive ways?
Art Of The Follow Through
Healthcare was like this too once upon a time….what’s happened. A story on how a doctor, a former baseball pitcher, shows us what it means to follow through, and how past may be prologue.
Dollar Goes Long Way
Hear how a family guidance center in California used a couple bucks a month to turn around the lives of a hundred kids, and 1 man.
Balance Beam
An Indiana doctor puts this in her medical practice as a symbol of what every patient needs….
George’s Sacrifice
A lesson in sacrifice for those of us who sometimes forget what that looks like and what it feels like…
Lassoism Meets Reality
Ted Lasso said we “gotta remember, your body is like day-old rice. If it ain’t warmed up properly, something real bad could happen.” Lasso is right, and this mindset is making its way into how insurers, schools and non profits are helping address the social risk factors of health…
Odds Are, We Win This Bet
If I had to bet, gambling will be the next epidemic in this country - but we can solve it.
Humor Bedside
There’s a certain measure of humor you need to help someone get through crisis….or just get through the ups and downs of life. Christine had that…
Lloyd Dobbler’s Healthcare
Who knew that everything we needed to know we’d learn from Lloyd Dobbler…
