Who bats for you?

p. 153 - The Last Lecture

When Dennis Cosgrove was an undergraduate student of mine at the University of
Virginia in the early 1990s, I found him to be impressive. He was doing terrific work in my computer lab. He was a teaching assistant in the operating systems course. He was taking graduate level courses. And he was an A sutdent.

Well, in most classes he was an A student. In Calculus III, he was an F student. It wasn't that he lacked the ability. He was just so focused on his computer courses, being a teaching assistant, and a research assistant in my lab that he simply stopped going to calculus class.

That turned out to be a serious problem, as it was not the first time he had a semester in which he earned straight A's with an F.

It was two weeks into a new semeser when Dennis's checkered academic record caught the attention of a certain dean. He knew how smart Dennis was; he had seen his SAT and AP scores. In his view, the F's were all due to attitude, not aptitude. He wanted to expel Dennis. But I knew Dennis had never received a single warning about any of this. In fact, all of his A's offset his F's to the point where he couldn't even be academically suspended. Yet, the Dean invoked an obscure rule that left expulsion on the table. I decided to go to bat for my student. ...

"I want to vouch for Dennis because I believe in him."

He passed Calculus III, did us all proud, and after graduating, went on to become an award-winning star in computer science. He's been part of my life and my labs ever since. In fact, he was one of the early fathers of the Alice project. As a designer, he did groundbreaking programming work to help make the virtual reality system more accessible to young people.

I went to bat for Dennis when he was twenty-one years old. Now at age thirty-seven, he's going to go to bat for me. I've entrusted him with carrying Alice into the future as the research scientist designing and implementing my professional legacy.

I enabled Dennis's dream way back when he needed it... and now that I need it,, he is enabling mine.

** Are you enabling the dreams of others? I always think it's so warm hearted and it takes that extra courage to go that extra mile for that someone. When you expect someone to love you, have you given your best to do all you can for the person? Although, I'm a Christian...I do deeply believe what goes around comes around. You help others, one day others will help you when you're in need. Bat for someone requires the faith that you see the differences and uniqueness in someone, and willing to trust despite the circumstances tell you not so. It requires the consistency, simplicity, and foremost the sacrifice love...that you only think the best of the person not yourself.

If you see that special someone.....bat for him/her!
Make his/her life different...b/c there's always a greater potential than you can expect.