Seth Hedman

Edit: I am not a parent and do not intend this to be telling any parent they are doing it wrong. This is intended as a slightly tongue in cheek look at Santa by combining my experience working with kids for 3 years and 4 years with college students. These are the reasons for what my approach to my kids will be, as far as it applies to your current or future kids, take it for what it is. I'm also not trying to get rid of fun, just give a little context. Read through to the end and you'll see. Merry Christmas :) Kids will believe anything.  I worked at Boys & Girls Club for close to three years, mostly with 6-7 year olds, and sometimes the staff just couldn't resist the humor from a little white lie.  For example, one time a hilarious 6 year old we all loved, we'll call him Randy, asked a staff member what they were doing that day.  The staff answered, "We're going on a field trip."  "We're going to the future!?" Randy replied.  The tem...

Thank you President Maxwell. Hello fellow graduates and congratulations.  It is a special opportunity here at the December commencement to share the stage with not only my esteemed fellow undergraduates, but the masters, law, and doctorate graduates as well.  Your hard work and dedication is truly inspiring.  Family and friends, thank you for all of your support and love along the way.  Without you, none of us would be here. I'm going to spend a few minutes talking about one simple word that we've all seen all over campus.  You may have walked by it and never seen it, or never thought about what it means.  In front of the library, at Olmsted, and on podiums.  In fact, its on the front of this podium right now.   Veritas .  Latin for Truth.  It is Drake's one word motto printed on our logo next to the lamp and and enlightened book, representing our academic search to shine a line in the darkness, to find what is true.  But too of...

The Thrill of Competition and the Agony of Defeat Last time I wrote about the early years of my football career, when football was purely fun.  At it's very core, football was always about running around and hitting people with your friends.  That's what those early years built into me. School Ball Begins But with 8th grade, something began to change.  You see in 8th grade we entered "School Ball," where the five youth league teams were consolidated into two teams that were officially sponsored and coached by the school.  Now each team had upwards of 50 people and a new element of football was introduced to me: competition. Of course, football was always a competitive sport about hitting and beating the person lined up across from you.  But with so many people on a team, I was introduced to competition against your own teammates for playing time on the field.  This was entirely foreign to me.  But I wanted to play, so I gritted my teeth and determ...