“There's a sign on the wall but she wants to be sure
And you know sometimes words have two meanings
In the tree by the brook there's a songbird who sings
Sometimes all of our thoughts are misgiven”

Greetings from Sydney’s apartment.

This thing has bothered me for quite some time. And I am serious about this, as it is something I wouldn’t take lightly. Everyday you watch on the news, you read in the paper, and you hear in casual conversations of people that have recently passed away from one of too many diseases we have in the world. Why is it that just about EVERY single time someone’s passing is caused by a disease people (often media) say “Terry Adams lost a long fight with Lou Gehrig’s disease Tuesday morning.” Or “Randal Myers lost his all to short fight with cancer yesterday.” I think the one that really got me thinking was a similar quote about Jimmy Valvano. I’m sorry, but I don’t buy that. Jimmy V wasn’t a loser….not at anything. Sure he lost some games…he lost a lot of games. But a fight should not always be characterized by the end result that way (and aren’t we all going to succumb to the same “end result” eventually?) ...actually whether someone “wins” a fight or not should actually be characterized by the fight itself. Anybody who has seen the original Rocky knows what I am talking about….and for those who haven’t in a while…I feel I should let you know that before he became a caricature of himself Rocky was actually an amazing character, and still is a great great movie. He fights the impossible fight at the end…goes longer than anybody thinks is humanly possible, and clearly shows himself to be a winner. While a visibly battered Rocky is trying to find the one person he wants to celebrate with, the judges are revealing the results of his fight to the crowd (and movie watchers). But Rocky isn’t listening to find out if the judges say he won (he didn’t), and neither are we. We already know, and it has nothing to do with a score.

If it is absolutely necessary to include “lost their fight” when dealing with disease, then why not use it in other cases of death? “Fred Merkle lost his abruptly short (but just long enough) fight with gravity after slipping off the cliff Tuesday evening,” or “Dwight Smith lost his fight to stay warm in the waters of Lake Anawanna this morning.” How about this one, “Jim Bullinger lost his extremely long fight with time just moments ago.” And if you think those examples are ridiculous, then cant we AT LEAST use the terms “lost” and “fight” when we are REALLY dealing with someone who lost a fight? Like, “Luis Salazar lost his 3 minute long fight to Paul Bako yesterday after receiving four gunshot wounds to the neck.” No, of course not. That would be tacky. So its ok to say Jimmy V lost his fight with cancer (sub headline: “Cancer Wins Again")…but it would be in bad taste to say Luis Salazar lost his gunfight to Paul Bako.

Jimmy V changed more peoples life by "losing" than any traditional "winner" I can think of. And to me, that means that he won the fight...and actually, it wasn't even close (think IU v Purdue 2007).