All it takes is balls

I love sports.  I’m addicted to it.  There’s something about sports that revs me up.  When I flick on the TV and a certain sport is on, I’m glued. 

I guess it’s just natural. After all, I’m a guy. Males are genetically configured to be attracted to all the action, all the highlight-reel moments, all the breathtaking moves.  Maybe it’s because we enjoy witnessing all the emotion and passion in sports.  We love seeing athletes celebrating and enjoying the thrill of victory… or suffering the agony of defeat. Maybe it’s because we guys love to daydream about being the ultimate stud.   We love imagining ourselves being the ultimate athlete — hitting that acrobatic shot, or holing that crucial birdie putt, or whacking that ace.

But for me, one of the reasons I like sports is because it has so many parallelisms with business — and life itself. In sports, business, and life in general, there are conflicts to be addressed, struggles to be overcome, challenges to be faced, goals to be achieved, purposes to be fulfilled, missions to be accomplished, people to work with, people to work against, rules to be followed, and rules to be broken.

But to me, the greatest sports-life analogy is this — in sports, business and in life in general, there are winners, there are losers, and there are those that simply don’t try — those that simply watch from the sidelines.

Everyone likes a winner.  That’s why everyone wants to win. People remember winners. No one remembers losers.  And no one remembers the spectators who simply watched the game (except their loved ones and close friends, of course). People remember Muhammad Ali winning the 1960 Olympic gold medal.  No one remembers the silver medalist in that match — much less the judge who simply watched and scored.  People remember Jack Nicklaus winning 18 majors.  No one remembers the runner up in those majors — or the caddie of Nicklaus who simply watched and carried his bag. People remember Nadia Comaneci scoring a perfect 10 in gymnastics in the 1976 Olympics — but don’t remember the one who scored 9.8 and came in second, or the judges who simply watched and scored.

Now, the golden question is, what makes a winner?  What makes an ordinary mortal rise above the rest?  Is there one factor that makes a person special — a cut above the rest?  If you analyze many great athletes and successful people in history you can list down a number of traits that somehow contributed to making them what they eventually became, e.g. focused, single-minded, persevering, hardworking, determined, inspired, and positive.  These are all correct answers. But to me it all starts with one thing.  Well, maybe two: Balls.

Okay, before you go, “Ay, bastos,” give me a chance to explain.  True, the origin of the term “balls” comes from the now-obsolete concept that men are the brave ones and women are the sissies.  In the olden days, when your courage was under question, people would ask you, “Are you man enough to do it?”  This later evolved into a more symbolic yet more insulting question: “I bet you don’t have the balls to do it,” which is really saying, “You’re as sissy as a girl.”  But these days, when you say the word “balls,” people are not necessarily referring to a man’s, er, private parts. These days, when people say, “You’ve got balls,” they are not necessarily making a reference to any anatomical feature — or your gender.   They mean“You’ve got guts” or “You’re a very brave, daring, and ambitious person.”  And the term has evolved in such a way that it doesn’t just apply to men now, either.  These days, you can say things like “Hillary Clinton’s got some balls” or “GMA really has balls”  — and it’s not an insult at all. In fact, if anything, it’s a compliment.  Sure, it’s a funny thought, but it’s a compliment nonetheless.  “Balls” basically encapsulates the old sayings “No guts, no glory” and “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” 

That’s why when I first discovered that there was a new sports channel called “Balls,” I thought to myself, “Now, here’s a channel with a name that really best describes itself.”   

I think “Balls” is a perfect name for a sports channel, despite the fact that it sometimes features female athletes and even if it shows sports that don’t necessarily involve balls (e.g., motor sports, swimming).  Chris Lopez, my good friend from ABS-CBN, described it so well: “Well, we’re called Balls because we’d like to think of ourselves as a ‘well-rounded’ sports channel.”  How can you argue with that, right?  

Jojo Neri Estacio, the station head of Balls, told me, “We’d like to take sports viewing to a whole new level.  We’d like the Pinoy sports viewer to appreciate the other great sports out there.  Let’s face it: we Pinoys are so fixated on a limited number of sports — basketball, boxing, badminton and billiards.  And we’re fixated on these sports because these are the only sports being presented to us day in and day out.  While we will promote those sports, we’d also like Pinoys to appreciate other beautiful sports like motor sports, swimming, football, and tennis.   We believe that if there’s a channel with enough balls to expose the average Pinoy to these ‘new’ sports, we’d be able to remove our fixation on just a couple of sports. And once there’s interest in other sports, hopefully we can inspire young people to excel in these other fields.  Perhaps our first Olympic gold medal will not come from our current favorite sports.” 

I can see Jojo’s point.  It reminds me of that great line in the movie Field of Dreams: “If you build it (the stadium), they will come.”   Right now, Balls is building that “stadium of interest” in other sports. And it seems to be working.  They’ve certainly got me hooked.

Recently, Balls and the ABS-CBN Publishing team, led by Chris, Jojo, Ernie Lopez and Julie Santiago, hosted myself, sportswriter Beth Celis, Maris Barredo of Carat, and Sol Racelis of Mindshare for an exhibition match in Macau between the two greatest tennis champions of all-time, Pete Sampras and Roger Federer.  Needless to say, I was thrilled to watch these two legendary greats play.  The result of the match was not important (although, interestingly, the “old guy,” Sampras, won).   To me it was an awesome experience to have the opportunity to witness two quintessential individuals who personify what “having balls” and winning is all about.   These two guys have competed against (in the case of Federer, continues to compete against) some of the best tennis players in the world.  And yet, year in and year out, they come out on top — Sampras in the ’90s, and Federer today. These two guys hold almost every tennis record there is — most Grand Slam championships, most tournaments won, most number of weeks at No. 1.  The list goes on and on.  While their styles and overall personalities may be different, and while they belong to different eras, they have one thing in common:  that’s right, they’ve got balls.  Their level of courage, dedication, guts, and determination surpassed all their peers. They may not be the most physically gifted tennis players in history but they certainly have more balls than the rest of the playing field.

Whether it’s in sports, in business, or in life, all of us face adversities, struggles, and challenges.  And a lot of us (in fact, I’d say most of us) face these struggles by saying, “I’ll try my best” or  “Bahala na si Batman.”  And sometimes we get away with it. But then, there are those chosen few — the créme de la créme, the Alphas, the chosen ones — who don’t say any of that.  They just go out, look their challengers straight in the eye and say, “I will win.”  And more often than not, they do. They are the ones who are remembered.  They are the ones who inspire all the rest of us.

What does it take for them to do that?  All it takes is confidence in oneself. All it really takes is balls.

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Thanks for your letters, folks!  You may e-mail me at rodhnepo@yahoo.com.