BEHIND THE MIKE

Every now and then an opportunity presents itself and something gets in the way. One of my earliest disappointments was being selected for the SC Shrine Bowl Football team my senior year in high school. The Sandlappers, as they are known, play against North Carolina’s best in the annual Shrine Bowl with proceeds going to the Shriner’s Hospital-Greenville, SC, unit.

It never came to pass because I broke my leg the same week that I learned I had been chosen. It would have been a real honor to just be there. I was was to be a lineman and a backup placekicker.

The first team placekicker was a guy named Billy Dupre, one of the earliest soccer style kickers of record in high school football in South Carolina. He went on to a great career at the University of South Carolina.

I, on the other hand, was an old-fashioned, straight-on, Lou “the toe” Groza style kicker, a dying breed in the placekicking business.

It is just a distant memory today but an opportunity of which I would have loved to have been a part. Life is full of those kinds of “lost opportunities.”

Another happened recently when several St. Cloud high school coaches were chosen to coach in the East-West All-Star game in Central Florida. St. Cloud Head Coach Bryan Smart, my son Cory and several Osceola County coaches were on the sidelines for the big 14-0 shutout victory for the Western All-Stars.

Five of the coaches heading up the victorious Western All-Stars either coach at St. Cloud presently or previously. It is the first time the Western Squad has won in the past 7 years.

I could have tagged along as ballboy, but it was not to be, thanks to a late season injury as ball-boy for the St. Cloud Bulldogs. One of the many times I have been runover on the sidelines of a football game happened this year when I seriously injured my left hip, which is scheduled to be replaced soon. This year’s ballboy duties are in the history books. Still, lost opportunities prevail.

What opportunities have you missed in your life that you wish you could have as a do-over? Admittedly, my main reason for being on the sidelines is to spend some quality time with one (and sometimes all three) of my sons.

It goes without saying that I am the slowest guy on the entire field, save a few of the referees who are older than dirt itself. After this second hip replacement, maybe I’ll have my wheels back for the next season.

Lost opportunities. I have had several. Take the time I thought I had won the World Championship of Public Speaking in Toronto, Ontario, in 1977. I was disqualified for going 8 seconds over my time limit. Oops.

I did manage to come back and win that same championship a year later in 1978 in Vancouver, Canada. Why did I go through all the trouble to try it a second time? I blew the first opportunity because I did not account for an unexpected standing ovation in the middle of my speech. Oops is right!

The lesson I learned was that sometimes you go through Toronto to get to Vancouver. Sometimes do-overs are not only a possibility but a necessity.

Michael Aun has delivered nearly 4,000 presentations to audiences all around the world for the past 45 years.