He Did It!

Yes! He= Michael Phelps did! Phelps broke all Olympic medal-winning records.

You may not know this, but I used to be the girls gym, Physical Education, teacher here in our local Shiloh elementary school. It's one of those careers I've had, actually for 13 years, which I began with neither certification nor formal training.

One of my principles was never to grade according to sports talents.

"G-d gave you the talents, and I'm not going to grade Him."

That was a frequent mantra, which people heard from me in those days. I made a point of grading according to the things the students could control, wearing sports shoes, slacks under their skirts and showing some enthusiasm, participating in the lessons. I honestly didn't care about how quickly they run or how well-coordinated they are. I would only give them grades for their efforts.

The media is now full of articles touting Phelps as the World's Greatest Athlete. I have questions about that term/adjective, "greatest." That's because when describing athlete, there are two important aspects to "athlete." One is the physical sports talent, and the other is the actual character of the athlete him/herself.

So, when today, he's being described as the World's Greatest Athlete, it must be his athletic talents, because character can't be accurately predicted. Thirty-six years ago, there were great expectations for Mark Spitz. During those thirty-six years, Spitz disappointed in terms of his character. I'm sure that's one of the reasons he wasn't given a free seat/ride/ticket to this year's Olympics.

Yes, Phelps broke Olympics records, but only time will tell if he's really the World's Greatest Athlete, because we still don't know if he's a mensch.