Quick Hits: Graduation Advice, Court Design Finalists, and A MLB Debut

Former Diamond Duke Ryan Reid made his Major League debut for the Pittsburgh Pirates last night. Reid entered with the bases loaded in the 7th inning of  the Bucs 7-2 loss to the Braves. He got Reed Johnson to ground out and end the inning and then returned in the 8th for a quick three-up, three-down. Not a bad start for a guy who spent 7 years in the Tampa Bay organization before signing with the Pirates this year.

After receiving 65 submissions, the JMU athletic department has selected 10 finalists in the basketball court design contest. Be sure to check out the Top 10 and offer feedback. And to be clear, elements of the most popular designs might be incorporated into the final court set to be revealed this year. There are no plans to implement any of the designs as-is. Translation, votes or “likes” probably don’t matter nearly as much as real feedback about specific elements of each finalist.

I came across this bit of leadership advice about how the simplest praise can make all the difference for your coworkers. That’s good, simple advice at face value. The point is really driven home though by a great anecdote about pick up hoops at JMU open gym (probably in Godwin) back in the day. To be more specific, pick up hoops with former Dukes great Linton Townes and a certain townie named Ralph Sampson.

And finally, most of look back fondly at our time at JMU and are thankful for the experience. We warn the current students not to take it for granted and joke about how much better JMU is than the real world. And then we go about our lives. JMU is not just a four year experience however. JMU challenges us to “be the change”, but that’s not something we can do alone. We need a support system to do it. Some of us struggle to understand how that translates to every day life. Some people do not. Thankfully, one of the latter wrote about it. And if you haven’t read it by now, you should. Like now. We’ll wait. You’ll thank us for it.