I’m a proud graduate of the University of Notre Dame. One of the biggest take-aways from my time there was the idea of doing everything to the best of my ability. Everything.

It’s succinctly summarized in the simple saying “Play Like A Champion Today”. This sign adorns the wall at the base of the steps coming down from the football locker room, and has recently become part of the pre-game television coverage, with a camera posted at the top of the steps showing the Fighting Irish exiting the locker room and touching the sign as a reminder of one of their goals for the day.

It’s hard to be part of the Fighting Irish family and not take that saying to heart. As I sit here in my ND Irish executive chair, drinking water from my Notre Dame stadium cup, the first thing I see when I look up from my computer is my personal “Play Like A Champion Today” sign. I don’t have one of the expensive ones with a fancy frame. Mine is held to the wall with two push pins near the corners while the bottom rests on the top of the door frame. If you look closely at the photo, you’ll actually see this blog post in the very bottom on the photo.

What’s essential to the presence of that sign, to me, is that everything I do matters. Every single thing. And like the adage goes, “anything worth doing, is worth doing well”.

This weekend is a great example. While I’ve written about my kids and their sports, I don’t often think about how hectic it really is until I’m telling somebody or writing it down. This weekend was no exception to our utter craziness.

My youngest daughter was playing in a volleyball tournament in our home town. My wife drew that duty, partly because she also had a funeral to attend for one of the physician-educators from her medical residency and partly because she hates traveling any more than necessary.

The left me to take our Junior HS daughter to Topeka for her volleyball tournament. Due to scheduling conflicts on Friday night, we ended up driving to Topeka, all three hours, on Saturday morning. With an 8:00AM start and her needing to be there by 7:30, we were up at a very early 4:15 and out the door by 4:30AM. That’s darned early, but it’s just part of what we do for sports in Kansas.

At 10:00AM, both my sons were wrestling in Overland Park, KS…about a 1:15 from Topeka. Being the crazy sports nut that I am, I had this plan that I could run back and forth between volleyball and wrestling and catch a lot of the action. During the drives I called my wife and got updates on the volleyball tournament at home.

As part of the crazy amount of driving that we do, and the huge variety of places that we compete, an GPS is an essential part of my travel gear. I have always sworn by my Garmin GPS. With all the traveling that I’ve done lately, it’s been painfully obvious that I needed to update the maps on the unit. Too many changes and updates to roads for the poor voice to deal with. Sometimes I think somebody at Garmin is getting updates on my “off road” travels and they’ve been tempted to program my GPS to yell at me for driving through wheat fields!

So part of Friday’s prep for the trip was a map update. Of course, that meant an update to the software on my computer so that it could talk to the MyGarmin.com website. Then the maps were updated. Then I was offered an update to the operating software on the GPS. As a techy, I don’t skip updates often, so this was a no-brainer for me. By the end of Saturday, I had decided that my Garmin had been “zombie-fied”.

We jumped into the car at 4:30 and shot down the road. I generally knew where we were going, and as a backup I had printed a set of directions from Google Maps. It’s silly, since we have GPS-capable smart phones, but it’s just a habit that I won’t give up. You just never know when you’re going to need the map.

So we were zipping along at 75mph when out of the blue the GPS, affectionately called “Lulu” by my daughter, told me to exit the highway. I couldn’t figure out why, since we were in a really rural area of Kansas (seriously, that’s not an oxymoron, there are cities and people and populated areas in Kansas), so ignored Lulu. She got angry and told me to exit at the next exit and turn around. I checked the directions and she had us exiting, u-turning, reentering, u-turning, and then resuming our trip. Strike one. I just figured Lulu was confused after the recent map updates, since we were on a road that was completely rebuilt since the last map update.

We got to McPherson, KS (about 20 minutes from home) and had to make our first decision…stay on the interstate and drive 30 extra miles, or stick to the two-lane highway and go the more direct route. Since I make a lot of trips to the Southern edge of Kansas City, I’m really familiar with the more direct route, so that’s the one I chose. Lulu got a bit miffed. Then angry. Then she went ballistic trying to get me to turn around. I finally added Emporia, KS as a via point, but she was not happy about my overriding her superior knowledge.

There is only one way to get from McPherson to Emporia. One. But Lulu started having convulsions and fits. She wanted me to exit the road, drive a couple miles North, then back West (backtracking), then South, then return to our original route. This didn’t happen just once, but maybe five times in the 80 miles between McPherson and Emporia. What’s really ironic is that is one of the straightest trips on the planet. No decisions. One turn onto another road. Pretty much a straight shot. You can almost see one city from the other. But Lulu was having issues.

I’m honestly used to being told what to do by women. I’m married with six daughters. Most of my friends are women. Pretty much everybody in my life tells me what to do, so I’ve become expert as treating those instructions as “recommendations”. I did the same to Lulu. But ignoring the admonitions of one’s GPS can be a dangerous thing.

We got to Emporia, and I turned onto Interstate 335 to head directly towards Topeka. Honestly, I had turned the GPS volume down so that I didn’t hear the incessant nagging. We were to arrive with plenty of time before the 8:00AM game, but after turning onto 335, the GPS now said our arrival was 8:02AM. I didn’t look at the map. I didn’t look at the directions. I just started to freak out. How could it be that we were going to be late? My daughter likes to be early and take her time getting ready. Of all my kids, she’s one of two that doesn’t handle being later very well. Especially when she was sleeping in the car, so leaving earlier wouldn’t have really posed a problem.

I was going crazy. I was doing that “travel math” where you start to relive 8th grade word problems. The kind where you try to calculate your rate and see how much time until you pass the car headed the opposite direction. Or where you try and cut time so that you can arrive at an exact time at the destination. In those word problems, physics don’t matter, so your car can go 110mph on the highway. Fortunately, I didn’t go quite that far overboard in my calculations in my head. I kept my speed fairly under control.

Then I started to think about things a bit more logically and I looked on the GPS as to why it was going to take so long for the last leg of the trip. Lulu was confused again. She had me exiting, crisscrossing over to Hwy 56, then back to the West, the back on the turnpike, then u-turning. The 50 miles of “Drive on 335 for 50 miles, then exit” took up something like 80 sets of turns and directions. Clearly Lulu had a problem.

We managed to arrive at 7:20am, despite the protestations of Lulu. Plenty of time to get changed, equipped, and onto the court.

I watched the volleyball match, where our team split the games…winning one and losing one. Then I jumped in the van and attempted to drive to Overland Park. I say attempted because Lulu was a huge pain in the backside. I honestly don’t know how I made it. This was totally unfamiliar territory to me, and instead of following my gut reaction and taking the interstate/tollroad to Kansas City, I followed Lulu’s directions and crisscrossed the Kansas countryside on roads ranging from four-lane divided roads to curvy, hilly, bumpy country roads.

But I arrived in time to see both my sons wrestle. Then I shot back over to Topeka. I went via interstate this time, and Lulu was not happy. I like to log my miles on the GPS, so I had her power enabled, but I’d turned her volume off by then. In fact, until I got to the very last couple of miles (where I needed the help and there were no disagreements), I simply ignored her.

More volleyball. Then back to Overland Park and another hour of Lulu nagging me that I didn’t know where I was driving.

I watched my younger son tie for 11th and then my older son wrestle a really great match where he got 2nd. Then we took photos of the awards ceremonies, and I shot back over to Topeka to watch the culmination of the volleyball tournament.

Somewhat to everyone’s surprise, our team was playing in the championship match. Not only did they play, but they dominated…winning the championship!

After the tournament, we got back in the van and battled Lulu all the way home. Fortunately, I knew exactly how we were going, so we ignored her. And she got more and more angry about that as the night went one. Nearing 11:00pm, as we were closing in on Hutchinson I simply looked at the GPS and said “Lulu go home, you’re drunk”. My poor daughter can’t stand it when I’m “hip”, and that moment was too much for her. She just looked at me like I was crazy! There was no way for me to explain away the fact that I’d been battling this crazy GPS the entire day. The poor kid just thinks I’m nuts.

So, despite the fact that I never actually left Kansas (I did come within 0.5 miles of the Missouri border four times), I managed to log 660 miles in the van.
I saw four volleyball games in Topeka.
Then I saw my sons wrestle preliminary matches in Overland Park.
I simultaneously got to see my sister-in-law who lives about 15 minutes from the High School
The I saw two more volleyball games
Then I watched my older son earn his hard-fought second place silver medal.
Then I watched two more volleyball games, culminating in a tournament championship.

Don’t bother asking if all the driving and bleacher flattening of my butt was worth it. You should already know the answer. I’m Hella proud of my kids and I got some visiting in too!

The bottom line, I drove and spectated like a champion this past Saturday. I guess you could say I’m living the dream!