Evolution is inevitable

When I started announcing sporting events, I had a microphone and a roster. I soon realized that having a pen with which to write notes and pronunciations of names was imperative. Adding a clipboard for football games, where I need to go down to the field pregame, was the next step.

And now I’ve reached a stage where, if you see me in the gym or in the pressbox or near a ball diamond, I will have all that and more. My laptop is with for music, I have a sheet to keep track of plays on a football drive, my roster sheet might include columns for stats, and in the gym I have a tablet to control the different volumes of things. You’ll see me wearing a headset to call the game on Hudl.

Everything evolves. If you would have told me even ten years ago that I would be surrounded by all these devices, I never would have believed it. I had a job to do, which didn’t require much fuss. But as the sound systems changed and we added streaming, my job evolved. And I love it!

If you have been at your job for some time, you’ve likely seen evolution too. It’s not always overt, but subtle changes over the years can cause you to look back and think about how different your job is now compared to ten, twenty, thirty years ago.

When I student taught, one of my students showed me how to use a web browser. I knew about this new email concept that was catching on, but checking out Ask Jeeves and finding information easily was brand new. 

We used to fill out bubble sheets for our grades at the end of the quarter. I remember a mimeograph machine to make copies at my first teaching experience during college. We’d wheel in a TV with a VCR player to show a movie and have to rewind it between classes to show it again.

Now technology has made all that easier. I hit a single button in JMC, our online grading program, and my grades are at the office. We have a copy machine that can receive instructions from my computer and what to print and how. I only use a DVD player for one thing I show; everything else is on a streaming service or YouTube.

Teaching has evolved. Your job has evolved. Our homes have evolved. And most of the time, this is good.

Homes evolve, much like other things, without us really noticing. You might change out the old thermostat for one that is on a timer for turning on and off the air conditioner or furnace. When your children aren’t young and fraught with peril, you might take out the carpet and have hardwood floors. When it’s time to paint the outside, you might decide to go with siding instead. These are all evolutions of your house, making your home something you feel more and more comfortable calling yours.

Sometimes my students will ask me my opinion on the greatest basketball player of all time. My answer is always Michael Jordan. Many of them favor Lebron James. However, comparing the two is difficult if you reach beyond the statistics. The game of basketball has evolved since Jordan last put on his shoes. Defense is played differently, and officials call the game differently. Good or bad is up to you on this evolution.

I was officiating a basketball game not long ago and heard cries of “Traveling!” frequently from the stands. I sighed and kept calling the game. Sports evolve, and so do the interpretations of the rules. The traveling violation is not called the same as we did even ten years ago. The rulebook definition of traveling is moving one or both feet illegally while in possession of the ball. Pretty clear, right?

Nope. Back during the state tournament runs at NRHEG, some of our players were taking large steps to the basket, something that was on the outer fringes of what is now known as the Euro Step. They’d get called for traveling because it looked wrong and hadn’t been seen at a high school level. Today, if you come to a game, you’ll see that move, along with the step through, all the time. It’s not traveling. 

Our vehicles have evolved, though I’m not always sure everything is for the better. They are safer now than they have been, but the move to use computers to control so many elements of a car has made it more difficult to fix them and sometimes even more difficult to diagnose exactly what’s wrong. When my car decided that driving more than 10 MPH was not an option last summer, the mechanic ran all the diagnostics and fixed what it said. It still didn’t work. That was just one element of the problem. He had to go back in, take everything apart, and work on another element. 

That’s the equivalent of building a shelf and having to take apart the sides you just attached to the base because you need to add another part to stabilize it. You should be able to do that during the process without having to go back and start over.

Good or bad, evolution is inevitable. We might want to hold onto the old ways, but ideas and inventions will catch up to us at some point. I used to say I didn’t need to text people; I would just call them if I had something to say. Yeah, about that…

Take a look back and see how your life has evolved: your home, your job, and everything in-between. You might be surprised. And in ten years, you might have taken more leaps ahead in your own evolution.

Word of the Week: This week’s word is monophagy, which means the eating of only one type of food, as in, “Her monophagy with salads changed when she was exposed to the glory of a bacon cheeseburger.” Impress your friends and confuse your enemies!