Today is July 12 and Navigate the Chaos question to consider is “How often do you believe you are 100% in charge of your life?”
In 1972, then 22 year-old Dave Wottle took charge of his life, got married, and won a gold medal.
The vision of Wottle, a lanky, shaggy-haired 22-year-old in a golf cap, making up a 10-meter deficit on the final lap to catch Soviet star Evgeni Arzhenov at the line in the 800-meter final, is one of the indelible Olympic images of the last 50 years.
But inextricably tied to his Olympic story is another gala event -- his wedding to his wife, Jan, which. “I was married six days after the Olympic trials, July 15, 1972," Wottle said. "Part of our honeymoon was at the pre-Olympic training camp at Bowdoin College in Maine."
That honeymoon wasn't universally well-received. Bill Bowerman, the legendary Oregon coach who helmed the Olympic track team in 1972, was not pleased with Wottle's nuptials. "He was old-school, and I'm trying to think how to put this tactfully," Wottle said, "but he thought women weaken legs."
So much so, that after Wottle qualified for the Games in both his specialty, the 1,500 meters, and in the 800, Bowerman tried to talk the freshly minted Bowling Green graduate out of his wedding. Wottle politely refused.
The Wottles wed, spent a few days together at a state park in Ohio, and headed off to training camp in Maine. Although Wottle was in peak condition at the trials he went out hard the first day of training -- "trying to show people I was ready even after I got married," he said -- and hurt his left knee.
The tendinitis kept him from running for more than a week and curtailed much of his training in the run-up to the Games. Jan kept reassuring her husband that things would work out. She was right.
As entrepreneur and author Gary Vaynerchuk "You are 100 Fucking percent in charge of your life - stop fucking bitching." Wottle took control over his life. Are you?