Korey Stringer has changed my life (And I never even met him)

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I just thought I'd share with you guys and gals, or at least the 5 of you who still frequent this site, what this passing has meant to me personally.

You see I am the same age as Korey Stringer, I have spent my whole life to this point pushing back my goals and dreams thinking that I will get to them some day. This week three things have happened to me that have made me realize that I must seize the day, no more procrastinating. The first happened last weekend when I walked into a club and saw my arch nemisis from High School whom I had not seen in 9 years. He was the other QB on the football team, the one who also happened to be the coach's TA and who played frequently ahead of me despite an overwhelming majority of assistant coaches, players and fans whom thought I was the better player. I have been bitter for a long time about this guy and my old coach, thinking they stood in my way to my dream which was to play for the Vikes. A dream I believed was going to be true from my first memories untill the second game of my Senior year in High School when the coach gave me a DNP coaches decision. Anyways, this guy was pathetic. He was still spinning tales about how great he was in High School, his new occupation was an assistant football coach (no day job to go along with it) and it made me realize that High School football was pretty much stupid. It wasn't what caused me to end my dreams, my own lack of discipline was to blame for that.

The second thing to occur was the Stringer tragedy. I still don't believe he is dead, at least not in my heart. It is strange, I never met Korey, he was never really a player I followed closely, I guess that is because the nice guys never get the press. Knowing that this guy was taken from us, leaving behind a wife and child, just sickens me. I realize that you better do what you need to get done today, because tomorrow is not a guaranty. I know that there are so many things that I feel passionately about in life, so much to do, so many people to cross paths with and I am no longer going to wait for them to happen, I am going to go and make them happen.

The third thing that happened was that I went into a record store and was browsing through the albums when I saw this face staring up at me from one of the covers, a face that I knew. It was an old friend from college who I had lost touch with, Jack Johnson. He was one of those people who you knew was going to be successfull in life, but I had no idea that this was how it was going to manifest itself. I always thought it would be as a film maker or pro surfer. The funny thing was that I realized that people used to say that about me. How I would make it some day. Then I realized that this was the last piece of the puzzle. Not just to let go of the past, or even adding the living in the now but to once again believe in a future that is more then sitting at a desk staring at code all day.

So when you ask yourself why God took a guy like Korey, think about all the ways that his life and in a sad way his death has helped people to re evaluate thier own lives. Think of the good that will come from this in millions of ways to millions of people. Maybe you can look into your own soul and see a need in your own life that can be filled, and when it is complete, remember that you owe it to Korey Stringer. However small it may be, it can't be so small that the death of Korey Stringer is not worthy of being the cause of it's salvation. Let's build Korey Stringer a mansion in Heaven, one brick at a time, each of our efforts to do good in his name will eventually build him a palace worthy of the man.

IZ

-- IZ (izmorrow@yahoo.com), August 03, 2001

Answers

Good for you IZ. I'll try to take your advice. I am 30 yrs old and still trying to figure out what I want to do with my life or even how I'm going to. I don't have alot of money and I'm not very successful. I wonder what am I doing here and do I have any qualities worth anything. I don't want to get off track here but I hear what your saying. Email me sometime and we can chat about the Vikes or whatever thank you for making me think. GO VIKES!!!!!! GOD BLESS KOREY!!

-- Tom (BMatheus@aol.com), August 03, 2001.

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