Man Up part 2

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better.” Rosevelt is saying that the credit does not belong to the people he describes above, but to the people he goes on to describe. 

Roosevelt is saying these types of people don’t know what it means to be tough. In sports, these people look like the critics that have never actually been in that situation. I’ve learned through my time in sports that there are always these types of people. There’s always people that don’t understand. 

The biggest connection I have to this topic is through wrestling. The sport of wrestling is something not that many people know much about. There’s so many people that don’t understand what wrestlers go through. And when one of these people says anything about a failure, it can be very irritating. 

What makes wrestling so unique is the one on one aspect. In a football or baseball game if I make a small mistake, the only people that are going to know are your coaches and maybe some teammates. In wrestling, when you make a small mistake, everyone one in the building knows it because everyone’s eyes are on you. 

It is so easy to critique someone in sports, sometimes even sports you know nothing about. I know little about basketball, but when I watch highschool basketball, I think oh he’s terrible. I think a lot of us are guilty of this one. Even in a sport you think you know a lot about. Everyone that watches the Cardinals thinks they know baseball, but few do. We like to talk about how Bader or whoever is hitting a buck fifty because he looks at strike three all the time. 

The point Teddy is making here is that we’re sitting on the couch eating chips, critiquing these guys that are out there “in the arena” risking failure in order to succeed. Us critiquing them doesn’t help us in any way. But, Bader out there striking out is going to help him in the future. His failures are what is going to lead to his success.

Mr. Roosevelt is calling out the critics and praising the doers. He’s saying anyone can be the critique. But not everyone can be the man in the arena. The credit is due to the man who is putting himself out there at risk of failure, not all the people watching pointing those failures out. Toughness is being able to be the man in the arena, who faces the risk of failure for the opportunity of growth and success.