Coach Elliott

I use to say to people that God knew what he was doing by giving me daughters versus sons.  I am still of the same belief that I can tie a perfect bow but would be terrible at teaching a boy how to play baseball.  I am a dad of two wonderful girls who are really women, one 36 and another one 31.  They are to me the sunshine of my entire life and today they are not just my daughter but great friends who love me.  There is something very special about having daughters and being a dad.  I know in my heart that daughters and fathers have a special bond and that women who have no father in their life are ones who often times have made the wrong choices in relationships with men.  It is crucial to a woman that she have a dad that is actively in her life even if that father is not  perfect. Daughters are at the core of dad's joy and it seems to be a really great bond present between fathers and daughters.  Mine with my daughters has had stages.  W...

Love will trump fear.  When we are feeling fearful the first thing to do is to apply love to the situation.  The way to apply love to fear is by doing something that will bring love to you.  One of the ways to do this is to begin to do something that you love to do like reading or riding your bike.  Get up right away and begin to think of ways to apply some loving into your life. Anger is fear.  Jealousy is fear based.  Hate is fear based.  Resentment is fear based.  Competition is fear based, although some may not agree.  When we are angry we are fearing what someone has done or will do or say to us.  When we are hating on somenoe we are afraid of what they can take from us or thinking about what someone did to us.  When we are in resentment we are unhappy because we did what we feel was so mich for someone who was not reciprical.  When we have a need to compete we are in fear of losing and when we are in fear we become disf...

Self shame can occur to us in so many different ways and forms and when we shame ourselves or another person we are killing our spirit and doing that to another.  Shame is when you make others feel in your words and deeds like they are bad and there is no chance of forgiveness.  In fact we can shame someone so much that they literally commit suicide because of it.  Shame kills.  There is no doubt in my mind about this simple fact. I was shamed as a child about being too feminine and other things.  I was shamed about wanting to design dresses or sew when I was young.  For many years in my life I wished myself dead.  I would stay up at night and ask God to take me home.  I would have nightmares on a daily basis about dying and being killed.  What was happening to me was about shame and being shamed is the worse thing we can do to a little boy.  It felt like I was shamed for living and breathing too much air.  It felt like I was sham...

" Life is about scaling one mountain, then facing the next one, followed by the one after that.  Those who persevere and finally succeed in conquering the highest mountain are victors in life.  On the other hand, those who avoid such challenges and take the easy route, descending into the valleys, will end in defeat ". From the book: Buddhism Day by Day, Wisdom for Modern Life by Daisaku Ikeda Reading this quote of the day or inspirational paragraph got me to think that my life is really not so unusual.  It's not any harder or easier than any one else's life.  I will be challenged more and more in life, maybe more than ever.  I will experience failure and disppointments and if I run from them and take the easy way out I will come right back to the same place until I am willing to do the  hard work it takes to get through it and not around it. I personally have known defeat and recently the mountain I have climbed or am still climbing (more accurate) is...

I would rather be from a broken home than living in a broken home.  I would also rather have a broken heart than to live inside a relation that is broken. My story is like many.  A father who left me and my siblings when I was about five or six years of age.  A mom who was angry and broken mentally who acted it out in various ways: verbal abuse, physical abuse, depression, isolation and self loathing.  I know that had I stayed in the situation with my mom it may have resulted in a horrible tragedy.  So I ran away from home at about the age of 14 and ended myself up in a foster home for a short while, then in the home of my godmother until I felt safe from a situation that was to say it mildly disfunctional and unsafe.  I felt like I had to get out or I would not survive and possibly hurt myself or my mother after an incident where she literally bit me when I held her arms to avoid being hit again.  I was finally fed up to the very core of my being. ...

I peraonally mourn mankind.  I feel like we have died and lost our compassion.  I am still seeing news stories about police officers beating up a young girl likely 16.  Parents don't know what their kids are doing anymore.  Teachers are completely fed up of being treated like second class citizens while doctors are worshiped.  When did we all die?  It took years actually.  It has been sneaking up on us because the racist have been in the closet and they have been hating us for a long time now.  Suddenly we are seeing more and more arrests of men of color.  We are hearing more about an innocent man of color in jail that finally gets freed after finding out without any doubt that he was not the murderer he was accused of being.  Of course some people would us to believe that we are singing in a circle and that we are a "melting pot".  Bullshit!  That is simply a lie made up by the same people who are the culprits and really want ...

I thought all this black racial profiling and killing was getting better but it seems that there is evidence to the contrary.  Now after years of civil rights laws there are young blacks being jailed for stealing a book bag in a hard core jail.  Now there are police officers being called to pool parties when the neighbors called to say there were "N" at a loud pool party.  The police proceeded to grab hit, slam and hair pull a black girl at the party who then had been on her way home.  I know people who still call Blacks the N word and a word, get this one: Hawquees?  Stunning as it may be it is hard to be a Black person in 2015 because they are still being attacked, profiled and disrespected.  The anglos in the closet came straight out of it and are now enjoying a new past time, harrassing people of color.  I never thought we would go backwards in the area of racial tension but NO it's not over and the sad part is that I am suspicious that it won't be...