I’m a Mike Leach fan. For years I was just a casual observer and was fascinated by his offenses at Kentucky, Oklahoma, and Texas Tech. However, when I read his book last summer I became a big fan.

I found the following excerpt from his book Swing Your Sword pretty profound and wanted to share it with you. It’s a little long so I’m keeping my thoughts short.

Let me tease you with one of my favorite lines, “We have too many “non-tryers” these days. They’re afraid of how things may look. Rather than experiencing the journey, they’re worried about how they’ll be perceived. It’s really unfortunate.”

Trust me, it’s worth the read. I Look forward to hearing your thoughts.

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I went to see Michael Jordan play for the Chicago Bulls a few times, but I didn’t become a big Jordan fan until I heard that, at the age of 31, he was trading in his high-tops for baseball spikes.

That announcement created quite a commotion. All of a sudden, you had all of these commentators criticizing him for trying to play baseball. I thought that was one of the stupidest reactions I’d ever seen. This guy had accomplished a tremendous amount as a basketball player, led his team to championships, won MVP awards, and now he wanted to check out something else. He wanted to go slay another dragon. I thought he should be admired, not ridiculed. Keep in mind that this guy had been told flat out that he couldn’t play basketball after he failed to make his high school team.

But Michael Jordan wasn’t picking up a baseball bat for the cynics. He left to play baseball because he wanted to see if he could play baseball.

We have too many “non-tryers” these days. They’re afraid of how things may look. Rather than experiencing the journey, they’re worried about how they’ll be perceived. It’s really unfortunate.

Come the spring of 1994 there was a daily Michael Jordan watch from the media. He had a lot of 0-for-4s at the plate. He batted around .200 in Class AA ball, but he did steal 30 bases. The press boys got in their digs and called him “Err Jordan.” Sports Illustrated put him on their cover. Next to a picture of him breathlessly flailing at a pitch, the headline read: “Bag it, Michael! Jordan and the White Sox are embarrassing baseball.”It seemed like people were enjoying watching him struggle. They wanted him to admit that he was overmatched. They wanted him to fail. They loved to report that he didn’t do particularly well. The thing about it is, particularly well, compared to whom?

First of all, he got on the team. Most people couldn’t even dream of making a team at the professional level. He was athletic enough to compete in not one, but two sports. Everybody wants to gauge Jordan’s baseball success by whether he became a major leaguer, hit .300, or played in a World Series. In my eyes, he was an incredible success in baseball. He had the opportunity to try something he was interested in. He had the opportunity to test his abilities in a different field and to see where starting from scratch would take him. You had the greatest athlete in his sport at that time riding busses between dusty little Southern towns playing minor league baseball. In that alone there is something noble. This was a guy that craved experience, wanted to test himself and see what else he could accomplish. Yet all of these people giddily point out that he didn’t make it to the major leagues. So he wasn’t successful? That’s crazy. Just having the desire to be more, to do more, well, that’s a big part of the reason why he is Michael Jordan, and that’s why I think his baseball experiment was an incredible success.

You never know who you really are until you get out of your comfort zone. Some of the media’s take on him was just cowardly. The stories were probably written by some short-sighted guys afraid of independent thought. How dare Michael Jordan step out of his box? He’s testing the norms? It’s like telling that reporter at Sports Illustrated that he should never try to write the Great American Novel because he’ll never be more than a sports journalist and then ridiculing him if he makes the effort.

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Leach, Mike; Feldman, Bruce  (2011-06-27). Swing Your Sword: Leading the Charge in Football and Life (Kindle Location 755). Diversion Publishing. Kindle Edition.