Positive Pauls

Now that the 2013-14 basketball season has officially ended for the Memphis Tigers, I am trying to put things into context. It was, after all, a pretty good season.

Memphis Coach Josh Pastner says Tiger fans should accentuate the positive and eliminate the negative. He says we need more “Positive Pauls” and fewer “Negative Nellies.”

I’m a Positive Paul.

I started thinking more and more about Pastner’s statement about “Positive Pauls” and the more I thought about it the more I realized…I know a lot of Pauls and they are all positive.

Let’s start with THE Paul…the Apostle Paul. Generally speaking, Christians would agree that he’s a really good one.

And you might remember from Coach Jeff’s Blog, I wrote about my son’s experience in meeting former Cincinnati Reds pitcher Paul Wilson. Nice guy. Very positive. 

Speaking of baseball, in addition to the big lefthander, we had another Paul on our youth baseball teams - Paul K. PK (as we called him) was a great player – hard-nosed, scrappy. He had a sunny disposition. Most definitely… positive.

Then, there was the guy who sold me the Jeep®. It was my most positive car buying experience. Lisa recently found his business card. Paul Rutter. Great guy. Very Positive.

Last summer, we saw a Paul McCartney concert in Washington DC. It was an amazing show. Also, I can’t tell you how many times I have seen a U2 show led by front-man Paul Hewson (aka Bono). One memorable occasion was in 2011 in Nashville when Bono escorted a blind fan, a guitarist, on stage to sing “All I Want is You” as a tribute to the fan’s wife. Talk about a positive moment.

Rock star Pauls are great performers. 

Then, of course, there is our Paul. A theatre major, he’s also a great performer. Lisa and I were talking about his various performances trying to discern which was the most positive. It’s a tough call; too many choices!

Suffice to say that my son is very positive. I’m very positive about him. So is his mom. We’re positive about Paul and Paul is very positive about everything. He is a “Positive Paul.” 

Some other Pauls in our life:

• My father-in-law, Paul.  He’s one of the nicest men I know and a great father-in-law.
  
  
• Professor Paul - My advisor during grad school years (and Lisa’s committee chair during her Master’s program). He once told me, regarding the name Paul, that it “Is a good name. It’s the least common of the common names.” He’s right.
  
  He’s also a loyal Coach Jeff reader, so here’s a ‘shout out’ to him. As a mentor and teacher, he did many nice things for us over the years. You might say his influence on us was, well….

You get the idea.

JG

Originally posted 3/24/2014