Tag: blog

Blogpost, posh, SoccerLifeBalance

How’s It Going to Be? (Post Ferguson Era)

Pete Huryk

It’s one of those places in time I can return to with absolute clarity. I was sitting on an airplane flying back from Europe in the summer of 1998. My best friend and I had spent almost a month roaming through England, Spain, Germany, and France, with the World Cup as our backdrop. We went to five matches. Traveled hundreds of miles by train and metro. Had my friend’s passport stolen. Filed a police report in Spanish. Befriended two Australian backpackers. Got nudged by one riot cop. And, for the first time in my life, popped a soccer ball. We were exhausted, sunburned, and broke—but happy to be heading home. Mostly.

Somewhere over the Atlantic, with my CD Walkman resting on my knee, I listened to “How’s It Going to Be?” by Third Eye Blind. The song framed what I already knew was coming: the beginning of the end of a years-long, on-again-off-again relationship. During that month in Europe we’d managed to speak only once, and our pattern was familiar—every six months, a breakup, followed by the realization that life felt better together than apart. But on that plane ride, something in me knew this time was different. And when I got home, I was right. No reunion. Just an ending. And the long quiet question of how things would be moving forward.

At that point in my life, I had no idea who Peterborough United were. In one pub, a fellow patron ranted to my friend and me for twenty minutes about the villainy of Millwall, but beyond that my knowledge of lower-league football was almost nonexistent.

Fast forward nearly three decades and a lot has changed, but I find myself processing another separation from an on-again-off-again figure in my life. Darren Ferguson is gone again, and this time—strictly in the managerial sense—I believe it’s the last time. As much as I wanted him to stay, it feels like, for one reason or another, it had to happen. Just as it did with that old relationship, something in the way things worked together simply stopped working.

As I’ve written before, Ferguson was more than the manager. His brand of football set the tone for who Peterborough United have become in the modern era: forward-thinking, fearless, often outscoring everyone in sight. Darragh in the owner’s box and Darren on the touchline became the intermittent winning formula. A rhythm. A cycle. Something dependable even when it wasn’t permanent.

Now that it’s over, I’m left with reverence—and sadness—because of how it ended. My gut tells me Darren will manage again and lift another club to promotion. If that happens, I’ll find myself wondering whether things could have gone differently here. It’s possible that the only road to success—for both the POSH and for Ferguson—was a diverging one.

For now, all I can do is hope that Luke Williams can pull off what no one at Manchester United has managed yet: replacing a club legend.

Up the POSH!

Pete

Blogpost, self-reliance

Believe In The Nothing

Pete Huryk

For many people, it’s a problem. Especially now. Our world is full of quick routes to small prizes. A short video gives us a hit of superiority because someone somewhere fell flat on their face. A quick drive to the coffee shop delivers our non-prescription drug of choice and a sense of handcrafted individuality (see: You’ve Got Mail). Everything is laid out in front of us like a merchant at the feelings flea market. The action and the result sit so close together that we almost forget to ask whether the juice is worth the squeeze. And since it’s all pre-squeezed, we don’t get any of the fiber anyway.

So my humble reader, I’m asking you—along with myself—to believe in the nothing.

The really important things in this world almost never show up instantly. When you go to the gym or eat a healthy meal or choose the right thing instead of the easy thing, there’s usually nothing. You’re not suddenly fitter or glowing with virtue. The city isn’t handing you a key that probably doesn’t open anything anyway. It’s like brushing your teeth: minty feeling aside, nothing looks different after one brush. The key is the consistency. Believing that if you keep walking the path of “nothing,” you eventually arrive somewhere that changes everything.

It’s a tall order, because the world is engineered to short-circuit your brain at every turn. Grubby mitts are always reaching for your time, your attention, and all the other currencies you carry—because yes, money isn’t the only one. That’s why I’m begging you to believe in the nothing. Do the things that will absolutely work if you’ll simply see them through. Trust the quiet, the unremarkable, the days where it feels like nothing is happening.

Because nothing is exactly where the good stuff begins.

There’s nothing to it.

Pete

Blogpost

Split Duets: We Rely On Each Other

Pete Huryk

Two songs that exist on my ’90s playlist are “All I Wanna Do” by Sheryl Crow and “Thursday Side of the Street” by Knapsack. While extremely different in popularity and tone, the two songs share the same basic content: a woman goes to a bar looking for companionship. Despite that common ground, they stand alone just fine. They were never meant to be paired together, a kind of split duet.

It reminds me of other projects from that era — movies like Tombstone and Wyatt Earp, or Prefontaine and Without Limits. They covered the same ground but chose to take separate paths.

Conversely, some songs — and some situations — rely on the tension of two. Think “Islands in the Stream” by Kenny Rogers and Dolly Parton, or “Somebody That I Used to Know” by Gotye and Kimbra. In these, the juxtaposition of two perspectives is what gives the piece its power. One voice alone wouldn’t be enough to drive the point home. It’s the push and pull between them that raises the stakes.

Duets are powerful because they capture two perspectives moving toward the same destination. Obviously, Sheryl Crow and the boys from Knapsack were never going to collaborate — it just wouldn’t fit. Likewise, the producers of Tombstone and Wyatt Earp had different visions for their stories. They ended up releasing two similar movies within about a year of each other. Each has strengths, but maybe together they could have created something even more compelling.

At the moment, we seem to be stuck in a world of split duets, despite the fact that we desperately need to be singing the same tune. Relationally and politically, we’re going “solo” because “the other side is just [fill in the blank].” In relationships, there seems to be a growing disconnect between men and women. Maybe I’m in a content silo, but my own experience seems to back it up: men and women increasingly seem at odds over how relationships should work.

Politically, we also seem to believe that one side can “fix” what the other has broken. But the unspoken role of government now seems more about thwarting the other side than moving the country forward.

These are duets that cannot be split. Men and women need to be willing to engage in meaningful, fruitful relationships — for the sake of future generations, if nothing else. Our elected officials must find ways to work together if they truly hope to govern. Splitting these duets would lead only to poor outcomes for us all.

So how do we start singing from the same song sheet? First, recognize — as Dolly and Kenny said — “we rely on each other.” Despite the preference for encountering a bear in the woods, no genie is going to make all the men (or women) disappear. Even if it were possible, the consequences would be disastrous. We have to bring each other back to the table.

Seeing the value of the other voice is part of the equation. No one gets to hit all the important notes alone — the song only works when it flows together.

None of this is easy. And no, it won’t be solved by a single blogpost. There’s too much momentum behind the splitting. But the first step is recognizing that this is a duet, and solo performances just aren’t going to cut it anymore.

We need to find our way back to a collective mindset — not an exclusionary one. Again, not easy. Just necessary.

“We rely on each other!”

Blogpost, self-reliance

The Limbo and High Jump

Pete Huryk

In elementary school gym class, the limbo was one of my favorite activities. My younger self was extremely adept at contorting my body in order to get low to the ground without touching it or knocking off the bar. In middle school, I was introduced to high jump. The concept was largely the same but in reverse. Do everything that you could in order to avoid knocking the bar off the standards while going over. If you’ve never run track and field, you might not know that the term used for the platform/measuring device is the standards. To be honest, I’d not given the word much thought until I came up with the idea for the blogpost.

The limbo and high jump are largely opposites that never meet because one is often a drunken party game and the other is an athletic event only done by a handful of people. Mostly the limbo creates comedy as increasingly more people fail in mildly ridiculous ways. High jump creates heartbreak and champions (more the former than the latter) as individuals look to push themselves to the very last inch, centimeter or millimeter. While I loved both at one time, I’ve spent a lot more time pursuing high jump. As an event, it’s more interesting. My concern is that not enough people are choosing high jump, they’re opting for the limbo (metaphorically speaking).

Everyday people make choices about who they are going to be in their lives. No doubt, there are lots of stresses and issues that people deal with regularly. In no way do I want to diminish anyone’s struggles. My concern comes from what seems to be a cultural shift toward limboing through life. The bar keeps getting lowered and some people seem to be intent on trying to slide underneath. More effort seems to be put into finding cheats or excuses than toward the project at hand.

On the other side of the equation is the high jump. The metaphorical and incremental increase of ability, attention and training until you eventually reach your true limits. It’s daunting because it requires squarely facing our inadequacies, shortcomings and self-image. Reaching higher heights only brings us closer to finding out what we’re not capable of doing (yet)!

As anyone who has read my blog for a while knows, this is not a finger wagging session meant to make anyone feel badly about their diet, career, workout program… whatever. It’s a self-reflection that I put out into the world in the hopes that the things that I struggle with can help someone else. So if you, like me, have been doing the limbo in an area of your life where you’d like to be high jumping, remember! There’s always a bar (or standard). You can choose to go above it or below it. That’s up to you! I’d rather live in a world where more people are high jumping than limboing!

Explode!

Pete