There is a gut-wrenching video sequence on the internet of a young bloke taking a three-point shot (during the half-time of a pro basketball game), with a prize of one million dollars at stake. Mike's foolproof ritual In the clip, the kid, Mike, starts off practicing his wrist-snap by flicking the ball into the air precisely four times. Next, deliberately, almost in a trance, … [Read more...]
A bad day at Palmy – surfies and clubbies at war!
Shane was stoked that Kiddies Corner at South Palm Beach was firing up after days of shitty southerly storm conditions making surfing impossible right up and down the Northern Beaches. It was 8.00 a.m. Sunday, November 1966. Things hadn’t been good in recent weeks for Shane and his mates with the local Warringah Council passing regulations that banned surfing at most of his … [Read more...]
How Socrates (nearly) openned the batting for Australia! A true cricket tale.
I was in the second year of an overseas posting working for a multi-national publishing company in Maidenhead, England. One day the Managing Director of the U.K. Publishing house I worked for stopped me in the foyer as I was leaving the building. I was about to start a three-day road trip visiting university towns in the North of England to jag some new authors for the … [Read more...]
Smashed at Gas Chambers
The ocean often plays the role of a trickster as two young women who tried their luck at the Hawaiian North Shore “experts only” surfing spot, Gas Chambers, found out. Cara and Ana paddled out a two person surf kayak at this shallow-breaking, reef-bottomed barrel generator with the gruesome name on what they thought was one of the North Shore’s mild and manageable days. The … [Read more...]
Sally Pearson shows the Phoenix how the rising from the ashes thing is done! (Part 1)
A few weeks back Socrates had a chat to World Champion hurdler, Sally Pearson, about her last few years as an athlete. What a tale the world's number one had to tell. In Part 1. of Sally's story, Socrates describes Pearson's rise from the ashes despite extraordinary physical and emotional pressures and, just to prove she doesn't mind doing it the hard way, she did it all … [Read more...]