I was reminded this morning why I like to start the day reading the Sports pages–there always seems to be a story that is inspirational, of individuals overcoming impossible odds to achieve their goals. Here are two of them from today’s New York Times:

The first story is about a Chinese table tennis player who is now pursuing her Olympic dream as an American with the help of a Holocaust survivor who happens to own a table tennis club in Manhattan. Having been selected for the sport by the Chinese system at the age of 3, Wang Chen narrowly missed playing table tennis for the Chinese team in the Atlanta and Australian Olympics. Frustrated by the experience she emigrated to the US in 1999 and all but gave up the sport. That’s where Jerry Wartski comes in–he convinced Chen to teach at his club and ultimately renamed it in her honor. Now 34, Chen is taking one more shot at the Olympic Games, ironically in her native country, but will be doing so in tremendous pain. Get this, when she is competing, she needs three back rubs a day just to be able to stand up straight. Amazingly, at 5′ 10″ she’s too tall for the sport and the strain on her back is extraordinary. Despite the back pain, she was one of only two non-Chinese citizens to reach the quarter finals of last year’s world championship. This automatically qualified her for the Beijing games at which she’ll be representing an under dog American team.

The other story was about high school basketball star from Brooklyn named Erving Walker. Walker, who is a puny 5′ 8″, plays like a giant, recently scoring 28 points including five three pointers in the final minutes of the game. A clutch shooter from just about anywhere, this teeny tiny teen is going to the University of Florida on a full scholarship after having been recruited by several D1 schools. I love this story. This veritable gnome is simply out-dribbling, out-hustling and out-shooting the big guys every where he goes.

The metaphorical opportunities abound here folks–whatever business obstacles you see on your horizon, think of Chen beating the pants off her younger rivals while fighting off near-paralyzing back pain AND Erving zooming past the lumbering giants, too busy being successful to worry about all the reasons he shouldn’t be.

Bad Sports
Now clearly I’m not referring to the scandalous saga of Bill Belichick and his sign stealing video cameras. Patriot fans must be wishing there was a magical delete button for this one–no such luck guys, despite the NFL HQ’s efforts to erase the past (and the tapes), this one will remain big box office until justice is served.

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