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I disliked the head coach so I quit the football team my senior year in high school. The following fall (1965) I registered at the local junior college in my home town of Burlington, IA primarily to avoid the draft and the inevitable trip to Viet Nam had I been drafted. Back then students attending college were exempt from the draft.

In the fall of 1965, while attending Burlington Junior College I happened to meet the head basketball coach, Ed Sparling, a very colorful gent in his own right, and I became one of his student managers. We had some incredible athletic talent and a very successful basketball season. In the process Coach Sparling and I became friends.

In the spring (1966), sometime after the basketball season was over, one of the players (Rick Lowery) happened to mention to the coach that I had been a place-kicker on the local high school football team. Now Coach Sparling took great pride in making sure all of his players received scholarship offers after their playing days in Burlington. And fortunately for me he included one of his student managers in his scholarship producing efforts.

Coach Sparling Writes a Letter

Despite the fact that he’d never seen me kick anything, Coach Sparling wrote a letter praising my place-kicking prowess and sent it to a dozen head football coaches across the Midwest. I never saw the actual letter, but whatever he said, it was good enough to get the attention of Howard Fletcher, the head football coach at Northern Illinois University in the spring of 1966.

Coach Fletcher Offers Me a Football Scholarship

Coach Fletcher responded by inviting me to visit campus. My father and I drove to NIU. We spent an hour or so touring campus with Coach Fletcher. Then, without ever asking me to kick a single football, he offered me a scholarship covering tuition and books in order to play football at NIU. To say I was thrilled beyond belief is an understatement. I’d quit my high school football team and suddenly I’m offered a college football scholarship? But this is only the beginning!

The Square Toed Shoe

In the wake of our visit, my dad, a bit of an innovator himself, took a pair of my old football shoes down to the local shoe repair shop in downtown Burlington and asked the owner to concoct a square toe on the front of the right shoe. Yes, back in 1966 footballs were still being kicked with the toe of the foot instead of with the instep like soccer style kickers do today. This increased the surface area and improved the odds of kicking the ball through the goal posts.

The First Play From Scrimmage Touchdown

I practiced regularly all summer with my new square toed shoe, and in the fall I headed to NIU. After a couple weeks of early practice, we had our first game. And I’m here to tell you that on the VERY FIRST PLAY FROM SCRIMMAGE, quarterback Mike Greisman dropped back and threw a 75-yard touchdown pass to a little speedster named Jerry Sandberg. That said, the second play I ever witnessed as a member of the NIU football team was yours truly kicking the extra point through the goal posts. It happened so fast that I didn’t have time to be nervous.

The Touchdown Scoring Machine

That first play was an omen. As it turned out, Fletcher was a very offensive minded coach and this team was effectively a touchdown scoring machine. That meant that I had boatloads of opportunity to score extra points. In fact, we scored so many touchdowns that we set school records for the most extra points in one season as well as the most extra points in a single game. This was not because I was any better than my predecessors. I just had so many more chances to kick extra points. I was even named player of the week after the single game record which included an action shot photo that was published in the Northern Star, the school newspaper.

A Full Athletic Scholarship

But despite all my good fortune, several weeks after the season was over, I was homesick and I had decided to tell Coach Fletcher that I was going back to Burlington Junior College second semester. As I walked into the stadium I just happened to run into the Coach. And before I could deliver my disappointing news, he informed me that he’d just placed me on FULL ATHLETIC SCHOLARSHIP! It would pay everything for my college education starting second semester. I was speechless. Did I mention that I’d quit football my senior year in high school?

My Luck Fizzles

In my junior year NIU joined the Midwest Athletic Conference, a much higher level of football than we’d been used to the year before. Our touchdown scoring machine sputtered along with my own kicking production. Actually, I hardly remember that second (junior) season.

The summer before my senior year I spent way too much time water skiing on the Mississippi River which was located right alongside my home town. Late in the summer I took a spill and pulled my right groin muscle. Needless to say, that inhibited my kicking ability. My senior year was a complete flop. I didn’t play at all. My luck seemed to be running out.

And Then a Phone Call From the NFL

Then in the spring of that year (1969), out of the blue, I received a phone call from a gentleman who informed me that he was a scout with the Atlanta Falcons of the National Football League. He said he’d heard that I was interested in an NFL tryout. I never really knew for sure, but this call must have been the result of Coach Sparling still pulling for me from back in the shadows.

Regardless, I hadn’t touched a football in months. And my senior season had been a complete and total failure. But I said yes, I’m interested in having an NFL tryout. When do you want to get together? He said he was in town as we spoke and he asked how soon I could get over to the stadium? I told him I’d be there in about 30 minutes.

The Wonderful Winds of DeKalb

I arrived at the stadium only to discover that there was a strong wind blowing from east to west. Sitting out in the middle of miles and miles of extremely flat cornfields, DeKalb was famous for being windy almost all the time. I put my square toed shoe on and proceeded to kick footballs… with the wind. I went from 30 yards to 40 yards to 50 yards, and more, hitting every kick like a well-oiled machine. I mean realistically all I had to do was kick the ball up in the air and with the help of this wind tunnel the football traveled long, straight, and directly through the goal posts time, after time, after time. Talk about being lucky! You can’t make this stuff up.

The Atlanta Falcons Contract

The scout charted every kick and a week or so later I received a piece of mail containing a standard player’s contract from the Atlanta Falcons signed by Coach Norm Van Brocklin, who at that point was already a member of the NFL Hall of Fame from his quarterbacking days with the Los Angles Rams and Philadelphia Eagles.

For whatever reason Coach Van Brocklin was unhappy with his current kicker, a gent named Bobby Etter from the University of Georgia and a doctoral student in mathematics at the University of Kentucky at the time. There were three kickers competing for the job. I lasted a couple of weeks before getting cut by Van Brocklin who was very kind when explaining my release. I knew Bobby Etter was the best kicker.

Fifty Some Years Later

To put a final capper in this improbable tale of good fortune, I recently (50 plus years after the fact) corresponded with a high school friend named Bob McLaury, who just happened to be the holder for me when we practiced kicking extra points my junior year in high school. Someone just happened to take a photo of Bob holding and me pretending (we were actually posing for the camera) to kick the football and published it in the school yearbook in the spring of 1964 – my junior year. That photo had to have been the source of Rick Lowery’s comments to Coach Sparling. Lowery was a year older than I, and he had no other way of knowing that I’d ever kicked a football for anyone.

In that conversation with McLaury, I asked if he remembered us ever kicking extra points or field goals in an actual game? I’m sure we’d practiced kicking. But I had no memory of ever kicking anything in a game. McLaury confirmed that he had no recollection of us doing anything of the kind. So most likely, one simple photo in a high school year book led to Rick Lowery telling Coach Sparling that I’d been a place-kicker in high school. This despite my probably never having kicked even one extra point in a real live high school football game. That conversation prompted Sparling’s letter and everything else that followed in its wake.

One Seemingly Inconsequential Conversation

It’s interesting to think how one seemingly inconsequential, off the cuff comment from a basketball player to his coach could change the direction of another person’s life so completely and totally. But for that little conversation I would most likely never have heard of Northern Illinois University, let alone had the opportunity to play college football, set school scoring records that lasted for over a decade, been granted a full athletic scholarship (ironically I was never really a good athlete), had any contact with the NFL, met my beautiful and talented future wife, had two ineffable kids of whom my wife and I are both so incredibly proud, etc.,etc., etc.

Yes, You Can Call Me Mr. Lucky!

And this football story is just one instance in which I have been so much more than just a little bit lucky throughout my life. It’s the most dramatic. But it’s a long way from the only story I could tell along this same line. There are many, many more but I won’t bore you with them at this point. Suffice it to say that I’ve never even once complained about being lucky. I’ve had much more than my share of good luck. You can indeed call me Mr. Lucky!

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One thing that travelers often remark about when they return from other countries is that the magazines they are accustomed to reading at home are different in other locations. For instance, the same issue of Time, Newsweek, or People that is read in New York will not only have a different language in Mexico City, it may also have much different content – but still have the same basic cover. What publications often do is to create one basic issue for their main readership, and then tweak that concept in order to sell it with more local content, in other regions. So People Magazine, for instance, might have the same basic layout in two different countries but the television related articles in Mexico will be about Mexican soap stars, while the New York issue will be the people acting in daytime dramas that are more well known in the USA.

Similarly, sports magazines in the Southern Hemisphere may have a heavier concentration of articles about soccer, whereas in the USA they might emphasize American football or hockey. And the same goes for other subjects such as politics and business. Open a newsmagazine in Europe and you’ll find less news about the USA, even if the magazine is based in and printed in the USA.

Another difference is, of course, the language itself. Many magazines will publish a bi-lingual edition of a magazine, with one language on the right side of the page and another language on the left side of the magazine. Or they will print different language editions, instead of bi-lingual editions, for different markets. They might do an issue in the USA in English, but then have the same content translated into several other languages for sale in other parts of the world.

For an inexpensive but interesting travel souvenir, try picking up unique and curious copies of magazines that are special foreign versions of the ones you and your friends read back home. Maybe you can find a National Geographic in Dutch, an Esquire or GQ in French, or your favorite kid’s magazines in Spanish. Not only are they fun to show to people, they can make your language studies even more fun as you try to translate your magazines accurately. They are easy to pack in your baggage, don’t cost much, and are a simple item you can even pick up in the airport at the last minute.

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New England Sports Ventures (NESV), the owners of the Boston Red Sox will take over Liverpool after a legal dispute with the current American owners George Gillett and Tom Hicks is settled by the Premier League.

Hicks and Gillett have expressed their unwillingness to sell the club, and in a bid to prevent its sale, have tried to replace managing director Purlow and commercial director Ayre with their own nominees including Hicks’s son.

Purlow and Ayre are said to be in touch with their legal counsel so as to foil the bid to replace them and to ensure the club’s sale.

The club has debts of 240 mn with Royal Bank of Scotland, which is also owed 40 mn in fees. The 300 mn bid by the Red Sox owners is sufficient to cover these liabilities. If the debts are not settled by October 15, there would be an additional penalty of 60 mn payable to RBS.

So the legal dispute would have to be settled so as to allow the sale to go through by October 15.

Gillett and Hicks are reportedly uninterested in selling the club for 300 mn, as they feel this is an undervaluation. But if the sale were not to transpire by October 15, the bank could extend the deadline and take possession of the club and see its sale through.

Hicks and Gillett want 600 mn for the club, twice the offer by the Red Sox owners. In fact, their original demand was for 800 mn; they acquired the club in 2007 for 174.1 mn, when the debts did not exceed 44.8 mn.

Apart from owning the Boston Red Sox, NESV also own other companies, Rousch Fenway Racing, New England Sports Network and Fenway Sports Group.

Meanwhile fans of the Anfield outfit who were not very enthused with Gillett and Hicks are optimistic about the takeover. The club needs an infusion of funds that will enable investment in key players who could get the Merseysiders back to winning ways.

However, a group that calls itself the Share Liverpool FC group is not very enthusiastic about the sale. The group, organized with the aim of attracting 100,000 fans to own the club jointly, is the brainchild of Dr Rogan Taylor.

Dr Taylor does not believe that the club has reached a point of no return, and stresses that any prospective owner must necessarily understand the culture of football as played in Britain.

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Brain drain is ravaging Africa. Most of the skilled and talented citizens are leaving the continent to Western Europe and North America. While some are going to play sports, many have made these regions homes and ply their trades in some of the most critical sectors of our modern civilization. And they are not coming back.

A recent study on Nigerian healthcare industry shows that the nation is underserved by its medical personnel primarily because of the emigration of its physicians abroad. So while there are many medical schools graduating thousands of doctors, the nation consistently lose the bests of these experts yearly. Unfortunately, the story is the same across all parts of sub-Sahara Africa and this has become a continental tragedy.

African football (yes soccer) leagues have been destroyed by the movement of our talented players to Europe. Local games are poorly attended and not very exciting to the locals. African European players are disproportionally popular and richer than their counterparts that play in Africa. In most national teams, up to 90% of the players play international.

In the field of engineering, most of the best students are lured by scholarships for postgraduate studies in the United States. These students are supposed to be future technical leaders of the continent. Upon graduation, they are enticed by the good jobs and prospects abroad and they spend their working lives outside Africa.

Emigration of skilled workers from developing nations to developed ones in search of better opportunities in trade, education, work, etc has been well documented. Many scholars from World Bank, IMF to countless non-governmental organizations have examined this trend. Theoretical examination is not scarce; what is lacking is solution to this problem.

So what can the continent do? Simply, we can leverage the power of technology to mitigate the impacts of brain drain. There are many enabling technologies and strategies which Africa and indeed all developing nations experiencing brain drain can deploy to turn brain drain into brain gain. There is need to understand how these nations can develop infrastructures to connect and collaborate with these people in Diaspora for their national developments. And technology could be the solution.

Understandably, Africa will prefer the physical presence of these experts in their native nations. Unfortunately, some of them work in industries that have not diffused in Africa. For those that are experts in genetic engineering, robotics, and so on, they may discover limited opportunities at home. Also, there is a potential «degradation» that occurs when someone moves from the seat of ideas to stay at the corners. In other words, telling an MIT professor of microelectronics to move to Kenya and practice will mean that in five years, he could be exceedingly backward when compared to his peers in US. And his professional worth will degrade instead of appreciating.

So, the continent must follow a paradigm where they honor the need for these experts to stay abroad and potentially contribute to their native nations. The physical presence while helpful is not really necessary provided there are enabling technologies and policies that can foster interactions between them and these nations.

The challenge will be to understand how technology can narrow the brain drain problem and turn them into brain gain as these experts continue to develop their skills in developed nations and using the enabling tools share and interact with their partners in their respective native nations. We need technology strategies that can connect people across boundaries and help modernize national programs on health, education, research, training, etc.

A comprehensive research on the contemporary issues regarding enabling technologies and strategies that can turn brain drain into brain gain is urgently needed in Africa. Based on the outcome of the study, we must develop a continental level roadmap driven by technology to offset the knowledge-imbalance created by brain drain. The continent needs to understand the following areas:

• 21st Century Brain Drain Challenges
• Brain drain and globalization
• Evolution and Opportunities in Brain Drain
• Distance and Web-based Education
• Technologies for Telemedicine, Security and Technology Management
• Deployment of Telepresence technologies in developing nations
• Economics of Brain Drain, National Technology Infrastructures and Policies
• Designing and deployment of supportive technologies
• Legal and Taxation issues for intercontinental workforce
• Open source Technologies
• ICT technologies
• Distance research and education collaboration
• Networks and regional bodies’ roles in standardizations, and others

Africa must work hard and invest resources to see how it can use technology to improve the quality of its education and healthcare through tele-education and telemedicine. That will require looking at the communication facilities available in the continent and upgrading them accordingly. African Union should think about mandating member states to have Diaspora Technology Networks across the regions so that constant flow of information and ideas could be shared through quality networks, Telepresence and other video technologies. The universities must be anchors of this initiative as they are the most vital instrument for technology diffusion.

We must find ways to tap the expertise of our citizens in foreign countries. It is time we begin looking at the technology of this process than focusing on the academic aspects of it. As technologies break boundaries, we must take advantages and build Africa.

In summary, the exodus of very capable Africans to North America and Europe owing to lack of institutional readiness at home must be seen as a threat to the prosperity and wealth of Africa. As they work in these adopted nations to improve their education, medicine, sports, and all other major fields, African governments must find ways to tap these skills. Technologies are readily available and we have the capability to turn this brain drain into brain gain. It is about developing and deploying the right technology with the goal of not asking these Diasporas to return to Africa but to remain in their adopted nations and support their native ones in education and training.

ENVÍO y DEVOLUCIÓN GRATIS – Gran colección de Camisetas de fútbol oficiales – Descubre camisetas de equipos y selecciones europeas en camisetasfutboleses.com. Consulta todas las noticias e información sobre fútbol español e internacional: LaLiga Santander, LaLiga SmartBank, Champions League, Europa League

PERUVIAN ANCESTRY:

Benjamin Bratt (actor): His movies include: Shadown Hunter (1992), Demolition Man (1993), Kill or Be Killed (1993), Woman Undone (1995) and Exiled (1998).

Yma Sumac (actress and singer): Sumac was born in Peru. She has American citizen.

Helena Christensen (Model): Like Fernanda Tavares, Elsa Benitez and Juncal Rivero, she was a spectacular super-model in Europe in the United States in the 1990s. In 1986 Helena had been elected Miss Denmark.

Alejandro «Alex» Olmedo (tennis player): Was born in Arequipa (Peru). Like Mary Jo-Fernandez, Richard «Pancho» Gonzalez, Alex became American citizen. He came to the United States from Lima as a schoolboy. He is the only Latin American who has won one Wimbledon Tournament (1959).Alejandro played many times for the United States and he won at the 1958 Davis Cup

DID YOU KNOW THAT ….

Peru is the first country which has had a President of Japanese ancestry. From 1990 to 2000, Alberto Kenya Fujimori, best known as «Chinese», was President of Peru. In 1992, Fujimori made history when he became dictator. During his dictatorship, he rewrote the Constitution.

Opposition and human rights groups accused Fujimori of violating human rights. Ironically, his government was an advocate for the women’s rights, anti-terrorism and tourism. In 1996, Miriam Schenone became minister of the Woman and Human Development.

Under his authoritarian rule, Fujimori received aid from the People’s of China and Japan. Protest marches against the dictatorship took place in 2000.That year, Fujimori fled to Japan, where he received asylum.

His style has been compared to Ferdinand Marcos, former dictator of Philippines….

FAMOUS ATHLETES:

Juan Carlos «Johnny» Bello (swimming): The most famous swimmer in the Peruvian history. Johnny decided to learn to swim at the age of seven. From 1965 to 1973, he won several international medals.

Teofilo Cubillas (football): Cubillas, best known for his nickname «Nene», has played in three World Cups (Mexico-70, Argentina-78 and Spain-82). Certainly, Peru was one of the best teams in the 1970s.He is now recognized as a symbol of South American football.

Cecilia Tait (volleyball): Peru’s most talented player appeared as a sub aged 18 at the Pan American Games in San Juan (Puerto Rico).Like Lang Ping (the People’s Republic of China) and Flora «Flo» Hyman (United States),she is one of the best players in the volleyball history. She has played more than 300 games for Peru in the 1970s and 1980s.Tait has become an icon for the Peruvian sport. She was a congresswoman.

Gabriela Perez del Solar (volleyball): She was one of the World’s most popular players because of her all out effort and humble personality. Made her debut in the 1984 South American Youth Cup in Chile. She, best known as «Gaby», has been described as one of the best athletes by Peruvian journalists. The 1993 South American Championship was her last international tournament. Currently, she is a congresswoman since 2006. She has projects about Olympic sports.

Edwin Vazquez Cam (shooting): Edwin made history when won a gold medal at the Olympic Games in 1948.He was one of the best shooters in the Third World. Latin America has produced many shooters, but none as Edwin Vazquez Cam. Like Marlene Ottey, Marlene Arehns, James Gilkes and Lloyd Labeach, he has become a symbol in the Latin American sport.

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DID YOU KNOW THAT…

Shining Path, a group terrorist in Peru, has been called «The Khmer Rouge of Latin America. Abimael Guzman Reynoso, terrorist leader, has been compared to Pol Pot. The indigenous were victims of a delivete policy of genocide by Shining Path. More than 50,000 Peruvians have been killed by Shining Path.

FAMOUS PEOPLE BORN IN PERU:

Mario Vargas Llosa (writer)…Hernando de Soto (economist)…Cesar Vallejo (writer)…Daniel Alomia Robles (composer)…Fernando Belaunde Ferry (ex President)…Fernando de Szyslo (painter)…Chabuca Granda (singer)… Susana Baca (singer)…Luis Flores (designer)…Victor Delfín (sculpter)…Jose Carlos Mariategui (writer), Javier Perez de Cuellar (diplomatic), Alfredo Bryce Echenique (writer)…

REFERENCES

-Bach, Caled. «Mario Vargas Llosa mundo sin limites», Americas, Washington DC, abril 2004

-Bowen, Sally. El expediente Fujimori, Perú Monitor, Lima, 2000

-Compendio Histórico del Perú. Historia Política y Económica (1820-1998), Editorial Milla Batres, Madrid, 1998

-Diccionario Histórico y Biográfico del Perú Siglos XV-XX, Milla Batres, Lima 1986

-Elton, Catherine. «El retorno de Ayacucho», Americas, Washington DC, diciembre de 1999

-Enciclopedia Ilustrada del Perú, Peisa, Lima, 2001

-Guevara Onofre, Alejandro. Historia de la Mujer de los Estados Unidos, Cecosami

-Lama, Abraham. «Perú: difícil sendero», Nueva Sociedad, Caracas, septiembre-octubre 1988

-Lizarburu,Raúl. «El documental del terror», La República, Lima, 4 de julio 2005

-Orbegoso, Manuel Jesus. «Pérez de Cuéllar a Ghali: entrego la posta», El Dominical del Diario El Comercio, Lima, 5 de enero de 1992

-Perry, Ellen. Documental: La caída de Fujimori/ Estados Unidos/ 2005

-Yates, Pamela. Documental: Estado de miedo / Perú-Estados Unidos/2005

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