Bouncing balls and confidence

Graham has recently taken to bouncing a soccer ball excitedly, even commanding me to do it "hand to hand," i.e. dribbling one-handed. I cannot tell you how much glee this fills me with. Mastery of balls is everything for guys. It is the form and emblem of confidence.

Women just don't get it, so much of the time. They decry sports as a waste of time, but they don't get that, through several thousand reps of different muscle movement combinations, learning to control balls with hands, head, feet, racket, what have you, is all about decision-making, trust, learning to accept and react to uncertainty, all in the blinkling of an eye. Muscular memory becomes magic, as the case of one Earvin Johnson will attest, but equally Zidane.

And then you add crowds to the picture, the added pressure of people watching you while all this magic is taking place, and you see why sports are such great preparation for life. How what really great athletes bring to the table is supreme composure and comfort (though surely there are plenty of flakes like Allen Iverson to blow that theory).

That's why nerds without ball sense -- Bill Gates springs to mind immediately -- have to work at times so hard to project confidence. The world's richest man and he's defensive and passive-aggressive on camera. He should have been out back working on his handle.