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From Scoop # 44 February 20, 2007
Former Chicago Cubs
On a cold February night, I had the opportunity to spend 2 hours at Los Compadres over drinks with John Davis, a regular volunteer during the last campaign cycle, a business owner, family man, star athlete and former strength and conditioning coach for the Chicago Cubs. Our discussion follows. RS-Would you tell Scoop readers about your pioneering experience with the Chicago Cubs-what was your role and how long did you work for the Cubs? JD-Pioneering is definitely what it was. I was the Cubs Strength and Conditioning Coach. I was assigned to work with the major league club and all of the Cubs’ minor league teams. I started working with them in the winter of 1984, doing off-season workouts at Wrigley Field. My first spring training was in 1985 and I worked for the Cubs through the winter of 1992. My job was to set up all of our off-season conditioning programs, contact all the players to make sure they were working out in one uniform program. During the season I traveled with the major league team and I also went out to the minor league teams just to see that conditioning work and training programs were being followed. I also set up workout sites for all the minor league teams in the different cities and worked closely with the trainers-so when I wasn’t there they were my eyes and ears and they saw that the running programs and stretching programs and the in-season weight training programs were all being done by the players the best that they could be done. I would make trips to check in. We tested everyone three times during a season-testing their flexibility, body fat, and a few strength tests-during spring training, the middle of the season and right at the end of the season. This testing helped us see what work needed to be done in the off-season. When I was with any team, mostly the major league team, when we were traveling or at home, I ran all the pitchers, took care of the warm-ups and stretching programs before every game. I would work with individual players that needed a little extra work stretching or getting ready. We did our weight training for position players who weren’t playing and then pitchers, more of the starters, would try and get their lifting in before the game otherwise we’d do something afterward-depending on the outcome of the game would make a lot of difference in the number of attendees I’d have at that time. Basically my role was to keep a conditioning program going year-round. When I started, going to Arizona and my first experience at the Cubs’ HoHoKam Park, in the clubhouse we had a pair of eights a pair of fives and a pair of threes, dumbbells, and that was our weight program. It was a very meager beginning. The whole purpose of the program was to prevent injuries and that was how we had to sell it. At the time I was one of maybe four or five full time strength coaches in all of baseball. There were a few part time people and most of them didn’t really have the background in strength and conditioning, that kind of training. So it was, as you said, a very pioneering beginning. From that we went to where we re-did HoHoKam Park and built a large weight room and training room for the players having all of the facilities on site. I remember my second spring, we rented a side-by-side trailer, 10 feet wide by thirty feet long, and we brought down Nautilus equipment from Chicago. The set-up was not air conditioned, it was hotter than blazes and that’s where we did our work. Then we went to this new building I was talking about; it was really a growing experience. When I started, Jim Frey was the Cubs’ general manager and he was pretty old school. Baseball was the last of the major sports to do any kind of strength training and it took time for many in baseball to grab hold of what we were trying to do. They thought weights were negative to baseball. Many thought players would get bulky and slow and it would affect your swing and your pitching. We really had to show that our training wasn’t going to do that. It was a tough row to hoe at first. RS-How did you motivate players? JD-The thing that the players started to see was that it was injury prevention. We were trying to keep them playing and that was a big motivator. It helped with a lot of the younger players coming from college programs where they were used to weight programs, they just expected it. Some of the older players just bought in right away. At times it was hard. Baseball can be a very superstitious sport. Some players were very gun shy about starting something new. Anything new, like weight training that they had been told all along through high school or Little League, that picking up a weight would affect their throwing and then, all of sudden at the professional level, to have to start buying in to it-so it was a little tough at first. I hate to say that some players didn’t buy in until after they had an injury. One example is Rick Sutcliffe. He was not a lifter and he had been around awhile and had been successful. After his 1984 season where he won the Cy Young, he came in in ’85 pretty much overweight. We were down in Houston, and Rick was pitching the game. I told Vukovich, one of the other coaches, that Sutcliffe was just an accident waiting to happen. He was very overweight, very aggressive, very competitive, and he loved to bat. A little later, about the third inning, he hits a ground ball and he has to try beat out the throw to first. He stretches for it, and he’s a big guy, and he tears his hamstring. After that, we got him back into shape and healthy again he was then a big believer in the program. And that happened a few times. RS-The Inside Scoop’s Brad Robinson wanted me to ask if you think there is any validity to the idea that by playing so many day games the Cubs aren’t as fresh late in the season and that is one of the reasons they can't seem to win more games down the stretch? JD-I have heard that before. When we weren’t playing well you would hear more of that kind of talk, especially on the Friday businessman specials-the 1:15 or 3pm game-just trying to get the game in and accommodate the fans, maybe it wasn’t in the best interest of the players. Honestly, I think most of the players, in the years I was there, liked the day games because it was more like a regular routine and schedule. We would get there early in the morning. The players would have breakfast, come to the park, and get there by 9 or 10. We in the coaching ranks would get in a lot earlier-usually by 7:30 or 8. Guys would get in, have a couple of hours to get ready, get themselves going for a 1pm game, do any post game work and still be home by 6, 6:30 go out to dinner get a good night sleep do it over again the next day. I think the routine was much better. When we were traveling and playing, or when the lights came in and we would play those night games, and you would get a long inning game and you’re there 10:30-11. Then go home and unwind and you’re not getting to bed until 1 or 2 and you’re sleeping later in the day-that schedule is a little different. I found traveling and having night games the first couple games of a series were tough on our guys because our eating habits changed-we didn’t play as well then. I liked the day games and I can’t really remember anyone complaining to strongly about having the day games, I think they liked it. RS-More of an excuse when they were losing? JD-Yes, oh yes. RS-Despite the focus on health and conditioning in today’s sports world, I have heard that many baseball players are still heavy smokers-did you see a lot of that? JD-That’s a good question. Early on-yes. I was amazed especially my first year. Players would come off the field in between innings, come into the clubhouse and have a smoke. After the game they would smoke heavy. It just boggled my mind. In one way it was a testament to just how good of athletes these guys were, they could do that to themselves and still go out and perform, and you have to wonder just how much better could they have been. In ’85 and ’86 it really stopped. We had a few players, and I won’t mention any names, that were really heavy smokers, but by ’87 I don’t think we had anybody smoking. A number of the coaches were still smokers but not the players. I was just as surprised to see smoking with other teams too. A lot of the veterans and older players had gone up through the ranks smoking and it was something they carried into the end of their careers, but it did surprise me. Baseball is such an anaerobic, sprinting speed game. I was trying to convince them that any given time they could be as fast as they ever were one time, but what I wanted to do was have them be that fast multiple times. You never knew when you would have to beat out a throw at first, steal second, bring it home from second on the hit behind you-three major sprints in a row-and then maybe you have to go out and play the outfield and sprint there. That’s where we tried to convert the players way of thinking and make them realize that they needed to do more so they could repeat these sprints and be healthier all the way through a game. RS-The cloud over baseball today to some is steroids. I don’t know if you have read Jose Canseco’s book “Juiced”? JD-I won’t give him any money for that. RS-Well, in it Canseco claims that it’s harder to find players that haven’t used steroids than have. Do you agree with that statement? JD-I can only speak from the eight years I was there. In those years Canseco was a player. I knew Canseco, I knew his bother (Ozzie) and their cousin played for the Cubs, and I was a good friend of Canseco’s cousin. We knew Jose Canseco was using steroids. I mean look at his twin brother at that time and it was like looking at Laurel and Hardy, Canseco was huge and his brother wasn’t. Jose Canseco wasn’t shy about telling anyone that he used these things. In the eight years I was there not once, and I was the strength and conditioning coach, not once was I ever approached by a player to get something. Not once was I ever approached by anybody outside to get to a player. Yes I think we had one, maybe two minor league kids that we suspected just because they had some pretty terrible injuries during the season that you just don’t expect to see unless they were doing something unnatural, something their body couldn’t handle. One kid tore his abdominal muscle right off the bone and rolled it up like a window shade, and then he came to camp 20-25 pounds heavier, and ripped, and that just doesn’t happen that quickly and we suspected but he denied it. Never once in the majors did I see it. We knew players that were doing it but it was never as accessible as Canseco says it is. Yes, we were aware of it but in our organization I had never once been approached with it. I think that Canseco coming out with his book after the fact is sour grapes and it is his way to get back into the limelight one more time. RS-How often are steroids being used today? JD-I can’t speak to that. I still have contact with a lot of the coaches and some players that we had are coaches now. It is an issue-the whole McGwire thing, Sosa and Bonds now. In my opinion I don’t think the use of steroids is as bad as Canseco says. I think it’s there and with anything in baseball a lot of the players follow the old aspirin adage that if 2 are good, 10 might be better-so the players will look for things and some are easily swayed into taking something that they probably shouldn’t. Is it always steroids? Probably not. In the 8years I was with the Cubs I didn’t know of anyone that was using steroids. RS-From your perspective do you think Major League Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig and Donald Fehr and the Players’ Union are doing enough to effectively confront this issue? JD-They’re starting to do more, but I’ve been disappointed over the last 4-6 years. I think that they should have been doing what they currently are doing earlier. The Players’ Union is very strong and I think the Players’ Union has done more to harm the game. They protect players to a fault and it blackens the image in the normal fans’ perspective. The players would have been a lot better off if they would have reacted harder to the few players that came out and then policed themselves on steroids, but now it has gotten out of hand. I think Selig is now doing more and doing a better job of it. I wish it would have been earlier. RS-This next question is from the voice of the Wisconsin Timber Rattlers, Chris Mehring. Which players that you worked with showed the most leadership skills and how did they display them? JD-I don’t know if it was because we were about the same age, but Andre Dawson was an amazing guy. Towards the end of his career his knees were so, so bad. He would spend an hour and a half to two hours just getting his knees taped, both knees, to get him going. Then we would go through the warm-up and stretching, one-on-one, even more than other players just to get that tape loosened and stretched out a bit. He was always in pain. He never complained. Here’s a guy that has been around forever and was a home run leader, doing everything and anything I asked him to do for stretches. Some guys would complain, especially in the mid-part of the season if we weren’t doing well. Not once, ever did Dawson complain. When I had assigned workouts, he was there, always. Dawson wasn’t a vocal type of leader. You don’t see too much of that at the professional level and especially in baseball except for playoff time which is a different story. He was definitely a leader by example. Everybody looked up to him and he was just a great guy. He worked hard. If you watched his daily routine and what he did, you couldn’t help but admire him, and that’s how he led and was a good leader. Joe Girardi was a good guy like that. He was a hard worker, a hard, hard worker and he would take extra hitting all the time and work on fundamentals and his catching all the time. He is just a good role model of how it should be done. I think Ryne Sandberg was again one of those guys, a leader, just by how he worked. His work ethic was good and consistent. I knew Greg Maddux since he was a Double A pitcher. He first came up and I had him and he was just a young kid, more into the Nintendo and the games and goofy stuff like that, but he worked hard when he ran. Ron Cey was another one, because of his experience. Some of those guys like the Sarge (Gary Matthews), they had been there, to the World Series and had experience-they were good role models. Vance Law was a good player role model, but my favorite and the guy I got along best with was Andre Dawson. RS-Another question from the Scoop’s Brad Robinson-did the players during your time with the Cubs respect and understand the history of Wrigley Field and being a Cub? JD-They respected it. A lot of that respect had to do with cable and WGN because everywhere we went we had a following. It really meant something to be a Cub. In the days St. Louis wasn’t doing well and we weren’t either, we’d go down there for a series and there were just as many Cub fans as Cardinal fans. We would go to Atlanta and many times there would be more Cub fans than Atlanta fans-same thing in Houston. It meant something, that mystique. Everybody followed the Cubs. We’d go out west and we’d pack the places all the time wherever we went. It was that “Cub thing”. I can’t tell you how many times I have run into fans that say I’m the best Cub fan or I’m the oldest Cub fan, I’m such a die-hard Cub fan. The players hear that and yes it really means something. They had success right before I got there in 1984 and it just shot everyone’s expectations up, fans wanted to see more and they kept coming out for that. Then in 1989, when we won the division, the National League East, and the frenzy was on again. An example; we set a record for the number of media when we first opened our playoff series against San Francisco in Chicago. I’m warming up the starting players behind the batting cage like I always did, and I couldn’t move. There were cameras and media everywhere, from all over the world, just watching us stretch. We heard that there were more media covering this game then any other sporting event, Super Bowl included, because it was the Cubs.
RS-Who
was the best player that you saw play? RS-What was Don Zimmer like during a game? JD-I worked with Don, he was our third base coach when I first came in. He was very intense. I think he was more into the game then when he was a manager. As a manager he changed, he had to be a little more reserved. I remember when he was the third base coach he would go off ranting and raving on somebody and I didn’t see that as often when he was manager because he had so much more to think about as a manager. But I remember him being pretty animated as a third base coach. I remember one time we were playing a day game and he’s by third base and there was a play at third. The throw was coming to third and we had a runner coming into third and Zimmer is down, in his box, bringing the runner in waving the player down to slide. The umpire comes running up and Zim is there motioning the runner to slide and the umpire comes up and thought Zimmer was in his way. He grabs Zimmer by the scruff of his neck, picked him up and threw him back and Zimmer went flying onto his back. Everyone was watching the play and didn’t see this, but I was on the wall of the dugout and he almost landed in front of me. I’m watching this and I couldn’t believe it. Zim looks at me and says, ‘did you see that S.O.B?!’ And I said ‘Don, you’re darn right’. Zimmer just ran up to the umpire and I thought he was going to tear his head off-he was so hot about it. He could be very animated. Talk about a guy with some stories to tell. He is an interesting character. RS-Zimmer was let go as manager during a season and was replaced by Jim Essian. How does an in-season managerial change affect a team? JD-It’s tough. Jim came in and was different than Zimmer. Don Zimmer didn’t necessarily believe in the conditioning program, he was very old school. What I liked about Essian was that he came in and he believed in the program. When he became manager I thought this was going to be really good for the program and what we trying to accomplish. But he came in at a tough time, when things weren’t going so well. Jim was pretty handcuffed. A lot of the players had played for him earlier at Triple A so a lot of his guys were already with the Cubs. And then you had players that weren’t used to Jim Essian. And talk about a live wire. I remember when he was managing Double A and going to Pittsfield, Massachusetts, and I’m getting off the subject a little bit, but I’m at the game to see the players and when I went to see a minor league team I would stay with the team and sit on the bench with the guys and everything and I actually got a lot done that way-hearing what was going on with them. I worked the team like I worked the major league team, warming them up, running, etc. Anyway, I’m at the game, and it’s a close game and I have never seen this before or since. The managers in the minor leagues coach from third base. Well, Essian charged the other team’s pitcher from third base. It was one of those situations where the pitcher had hit one of our guys-and Essian charged him. It surprised us, surprised the other team. And he clocked the guy. It just turned into a melee, everyone was out. If you played for Essian and you gave your best, he’d go to war for you. You’ve heard that phrase before, but he would. It was tough on Essian and he was never able to get going at the major league level. I thought he could have been a really successful manager but a lot of players weren’t supportive, didn’t know him or believe in him and I think that’s why he didn’t last. RS-The 1989 Cubs won the National League East that year. What was that season like from your perspective? JD-We were so new. Andre Dawson had only been there, I think it was two years and outside of a few veterans it was a very young team. We weren’t even on the radar, so there were no expectations. These guys played like that. They went, ‘what the heck let’s just go out and have fun’. Well, we started rolling and winning and beating teams decisively, coming back and winning games that we had to win and winning those that we were supposed to win and gaining respect…it was definitely the highlight of my time with the Cubs. It was the most fun. These guys just battled. They worked and they really were a team. You hear about chemistry all the time, well we had that chemistry. Guys grew and learned through the season what had to be done to win and it was just an exciting time. Everyone was together, everyone liked each other. There wasn’t any of the bickering. The young guys coming in got along with the vets and the vets got along with the young guys, it was just clicking. It was all just right there. We just faltered at the wrong time. If we had done it right we could have been out there experiencing the earthquake out in California at the time. RS-I still remember Bilecki in the series ending loss to the Giants-he just pitched an awesome game… JD-We just went cold at the wrong time. We were solid hitting we were just in the valley at the wrong time. I think if we could have gotten through there we would have done something special after that. It was disappointing, but where we went to, from where we began the season, was impressive and really exciting. RS-And the following year almost the entire starting rotation was injured at the same time, was it just a freakish thing? JD-That was the second time that that had happened to me. I don’t know, I almost believe in that curse in some respects. When we started in ’85, having won the National League East in ’84, and we had a pitching staff that made people think we were going to repeat. Every starter went down and it was my first spring and I thought I was going to be gone for sure. When things are going good it’s the great managing and the coaching, but when things go bad it’s the support staff that gets a lot of the blame. So, in ’90, talk about history repeating itself, we just had a terrible time again-freaky things too. It was like we were snake-bitten RS-Which player do you think you were able to help the most while you were with the Cubs? JD-I think that I had an impact on quite a few, but the one that comes to mind is Mark Grace. Grace came in as a young kid, a very low draft pick, but a very likable kid. He was a hard worker, had talent but he was lacking in a few things. He threw himself in to it full bull. In the off season, I always coordinated all the workouts and sent out everything to everybody and we had players in Latin America and all over the country. We also had some players stay in Chicago and do workouts. And I would get from 8 to 15 guys, some major league some minor league, and we would weight train right in the clubhouse at Wrigley. I would do some aerobic programs. Sometimes, we’d go out and run the City of Chicago. We’d run to the zoo, we’d run to the lake, we’d run all around Wrigley itself in the snow and everything. When we signed Grace, after his first spring, he worked his tail off in the winter, I mean really. At Spring Training in ’89 we had the whole 40 man group and I ran them. I have a football background and a lot of things we did when I was playing football, and after workouts we’d run like in football. I’d run around the park, which was Fitch Park our minor league park-one lap around was almost a mile. We’d run around twice-two miles. I remember Leon Durham coming into camp in terrible shape. I liked Leon and he was a great guy but he wouldn’t always put the effort in during the off season. And Grace, and Girardi too, both of these young guys coming in were at the front of the running pack. Leon however is walking and he and Lee Smith are at the back of the pack and they could barely run/walk. Zimmer came up to me and says, ‘what the hell’s wrong with Leon, with Durham?’ I said, ‘Zim he’s just out of shape and he’s just got himself overweight.’ And Zim looks at me and says, ‘he may have just eaten himself out of a position.’ And Grace took it over after that. Grace was always a believer in the program. Girardi was the same way. Both of those guys came from programs in colleges and places that they just naturally did conditioning. Steve Lake was one too, a good friend of mine, a catcher and he really threw himself into as well. I think that helped him when he got to St. Louis. He didn’t have that kind of routine before but he took that with him and when he was playing in St. Louis he got into the World Series. I think it helped him quite a bit. Some of the pitchers, getting them involved in the running-Bilecki was one, and I can’t remember all of the others, but overall I think I’d have to say it was Mark Grace. RS-So how did you get to that point in your life, what was your athletic background before coaching for the Cubs? JD-I was a three sport athlete. I lettered four years in football, swimming and track at Lawrence University in Appleton. I was a second team All-American, All-Conference my senior year. We won the conference my senior year. I was MVP that year as well. I was captain of swimming, captain of track. For me participating made me a better student. I was able to budget my time. I loved athletics and I loved the sports. My dad was coaching at Lawrence in swimming and in track so I participated in those sports all four years as well. It was something I loved to do. Football was my first love. We went from a record of 1-8-1 my freshman year, and it was the first year that freshman were able to play varsity, and half way through the year all the freshman were playing, starting, and we went to where we won it all our senior year and missed going to the playoffs. At that time they had a four team playoff. And we were ranked in the Top 10 all year. We were undefeated, we had already won the conference, going into our last game and we lost and we found out if we would have won our last game we would have been invited to the playoffs. So I had a really good experience that way, we had good chemistry like we talked about earlier, and I enjoyed Lawrence a lot because I could play and play right away. Maybe I could have played at a bigger school but you don’t know if you would play right away or not until your senior year so I enjoyed being able to play right away. RS-If memory serves, you were inducted into Lawrence’s Hall of Fame? JD-Yes, that’s correct. RS-So its 1992 and you are no longer with the Cubs, what have you been up to the last 15 years? JD-Well to tell you how this all happened, its kind of a funny story. Jim Frey was the Cubs General manager then. Jim and I had known each other for quite a long time and he was under a lot of pressure to win. I came back from our instructional league in Arizona in October of 1991 and I was informed that our conditioning program had been ended, so I was being fired. Jim Frey was fired about a week after that. Larry Himes comes in and takes over for Frey and I’m hired back. I worked with Larry for awhile but Larry’s expectations of the program that I had developed over the last 8 years-and I was the longest most senior member of any strength and conditioning program in baseball I was 38-39 and the old man in baseball-were different. They wanted to change everything and I was already traveling three weeks out of every month during the season, either with the team or in the minor leagues, and they wanted more travel. My wife Beth and I had a third baby and when Jim Frey was fired and Larry Himes came in everyone changed. It was a domino thing. Himes got rid of all the coaches, everybody, and it wasn’t fun, so I left. So, we were living in Chicago and I started working with a former Chicago Bear, Kenny Taylor a back-up defensive back, and John Augustine the strength coach with the Bulls. With our backgrounds the three of us hooked up and started a business doing motivational programs, speaking and a lot of programs that would inform high school kids about the harmful effects of steroids. And we were doing pretty well. Then one thing led to another and I had a friend call me saying that LaSalle Clinic, at the time the LaSalle Clinic, was looking for or thinking about doing something in health promotion and wellness. So I developed a program on dealing with health promotion issues for businesses and they liked it and they hired me. They made me an offer and I took it and having grown up here and with three young kids knowing the schools were good, we came back. So I started and I worked for LaSalle for about two-and-a-half years and hated it. Basically it was because I went from wearing workout clothes, shorts and tennis shoes to wearing a suit and a tie-it wasn’t me. I missed the athletic side, the training and the conditioning side so I started my own business-its John R. Davis Health Promotions, Inc., and I started doing personal training, corporate consulting and work on health and wellness issues. That’s what I have been doing ever since. I carry anywhere between 21-24 full time clients depending on the time of the year. I have athletes from high school, college to senior citizens. My oldest client is an 80 year old grandmother. I cover a variety of issues and concerns from triathlons to specific sports training, to just wanting to stay in shape, getting ready for the golf season, losing weight, and all kinds of things. When I was younger with the Cubs and before that a high school coach, I never would have dreamed that I’d be a one-on-one personal trainer. I really enjoy it and it’s always different. I have a good rapport with all my clients and I still do some coaching. I coached at Lawrence for a couple of years in the 1990s. For eight years I coached the age group swim program at the Neenah-Menasha YMCA. My son is a sophomore at Neenah High School and I have been helping with the LaCrosse team and their conditioning and during the summer I will get with him and his friends and run them through their running programs. RS-Speaking of sons, both of mine each asked me to ask you a question. My 10 year old son Ryan wanted me to ask you how old should someone be before throwing a curveball? JD-Personally, and from a training perspective I’d say 14-high school age. A lot of times they want to at age 12 already in Little League they want to start throwing those but boy its more about strength and being able to handle the curveball and what it does-just the torque and the mechanics and what it does to a players elbow and shoulder. And some kids mature a little earlier than others so it’s hard to say an exact age. I normally don’t like to see kids really weight train too early. Start something at 12, where they learn the mechanics and the how-to of weight training. After that, after a player has had a few years experience with strength and flexibility and more maturity I think then curveballs. You can talk to someone else and they will tell you differently. I’d rather see kids just work at throwing across the plate, throwing strikes and not worry about the curveball. If you hurt yourself early you’re in for a lot of hurt the rest of the way. RS-My eight year old son Greg wants to know what the Cub players eat before a game? JD-That’s a good question. It has changed now. The issues of exercise and health are really popular so there are a lot of companies selling the latest and greatest in nutrition. My perspective on nutrition is that your best bet is to get everything you need from a grocery store. Complex carbohydrates, which are fruits and vegetables, multiple grains, total grain breads, pastas and potatoes are the best things. Lean meat, fish, chicken and good cuts of beef all make up a sound diet. Every athlete is different, but before a game some athletes can’t eat anything because they’re so nervous. I recommend some form of carbohydrate that will digest quickly, not something that is a heavy protein-like a big chunk of meat that will just sit there. You shouldn’t eat anything an hour and a half before you compete so your stomach is more empty than full. You want to make sure you are hydrated before you begin. What the Cubs did was have a soup, some sandwiches, maybe some kind of pasta and a light salad which always came down from the kitchen. The guys could make maybe a tuna or chicken salad sandwich or a turkey sandwich with a cup of soup or something like that. It was just something to tide them over. You are not going to gain a lot from what you eat the day of in terms of energy. You’re competing on what eaten a day or two prior-that’s the whole concept behind carbohydrate loading. So the day of it is what you feel comfortable with-if it’s a sandwich or a cup of soup, great. With baseball being a more stop start sport you are going to eat differently than someone who is running a marathon where you need to be more conscientious about energy and how to use it during a race because you will be using it. Supplements are so misleading, not only misleading to athletes, but to my clients and us weekend warrior types. Most people just don’t know what’s good to eat. Overall I’d stick with fruits, vegetables, multiple grains and don’t over eat anything. RS-You volunteered a lot of your time during the recent campaign, why did you? What would you tell someone else if they were considering volunteering for a campaign? JD-I felt guilty. I saw this election and with the issues involved I felt more in tune to what was going on. I didn’t want to be complaining and not doing something about it. So, I wanted to get involved. Tim Higgins is a really good friend of mine-he’s Mr. Republican-and I saw all the work and the time that he was volunteering and I was just amazed by that. I just wasn’t happy and I felt the things that were being addressed by the Democrats, and then by the Republicans, and being more of a Republican over the years, I was afraid where the Democrats were going to take things. I didn’t want to just talk about it. I felt and I knew I needed to do something. And not having done it before, any little thing I thought could help. So I came in on a weekly basis and was making phone calls and trying to get people involved. It was discouraging to see the tactics that the Democrats were using and turning it into such a nasty type of campaign, especially over the phone. It was unfortunate how it all came out.
You just can’t sit back and leave it
to others. I think if you have strong enough feelings about things,
if you want to have any kind of impact on what is going to affect
you-you have to get involved. It is one thing to complain and then
do something, but to complain and do nothing is hypocritical. |
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