Garry BjorklundPres. Thomas S. Monson:
The Mark of Effort--It is not enough to want to make the effort and to say we'll make the effort. We must actually MAKE the effort. It's in the DOING, not just the THINKING, that we accomplish our goals. If we constantly put our goals off, we will never see them fulfilled. Someone put it this way: Live only for tomorrow, and you will have a lot of empty yesterdays today.
Garry Bjorkland's story as told by Pres. Monson:
In July of 1976, runner Garry Bjorklund was determined to qualify for the US Olympic team's 10,000 meter race which would be run at the Montreal Olympics. Halfway through the grinding qualifying race, however, he lost his lfet shoe. What would you and I do if that were our experience? I suppose he could have given up and stopped. He could have blamed his bad luck and lost the opportunity of participating in the greatest race of his life, but this champion athlete did not do that. He ran on without his shoe. He knew that he would have to run faster than he had ever run in his life. He knew that his competitors now had an advantage that they did not have at the beginning of the race. Over that cinder track he ran, with one shoe on and one shoe off, finishing third and qualifying for the opportunity to participate in the race for the gold medal. His own running time was the best he had ever recorded.
Another detailed part of this same story:
It was another Hayward Field moment, another example of the crowd embracing an athlete and willing him forward. The date was June 22, 1976. The event was the men's 10,000 meters, won by Frank Shorter, who bested Craig Virgin.
But it was the race for third, and the last spot on the U.S. Olympic team, that drew the crowd's attention, not because there was a Eugene runner in the race, or a Duck, but because halfway through, a 25-year-old Minnesota grad named Garry Bjorklund lost a shoe. Wrote Blaine Newnham in The Register-Guard:
As he started his drive to make the team, the East Grandstand echoed `BJ, BJ, BJ.' They were calling for their man - the guy with one shoe on and one shoe off - to overhaul Bill Rodgers. They probably remembered that he had his left foot operated on in 1972 and missed the Trials, the same foot which lost its shoe with three miles to go in the race, that he's given up six years of his life to make the Olympic team, that he's moved from Minnesota to Baton Rouge, La., to Boulder, Colo., to prepare himself for this one chance.
How would you like to run three miles with Shorter, Rodgers and Virgin on a 4:30 pace? Everything's going to plan in this, your big chance, and you lose your shoe. Garry slid his bare foot along the sand brown Urethane of Hayward Field. He tried not to think about it.
At the bell, Bjorklund was 25 yards behind Rodgers; he pulled even and passed Rodgers with 50 yards remaining, running 28 minutes, 3.74 seconds to claim third by less than a second. "To be honest with you, the thing that got me there, the thing that kept me going, was the people in those stands," Bjorklund said. "They were chanting `BJ, BJ,' and I could feel it pulsating through me. You don't even know you have feet at that point."
President Monson said: He put forth the effort necessary to achieve his goal.
My Thoughts:
First off I love stories about the lives of people. There is so much to be learned from them and each other's experiences we all have. Such was the case for me with Garry Bjorklund.
When I first heard and read this story I was simply amazed. Sometimes the biggest lessons in life are in these simple stories that come from the lives of regular people like you and I.
Since Garry exhibited effort to achieve his goal, exactly what is effort? The dictionary defines it this way:
The Mark of Effort--It is not enough to want to make the effort and to say we'll make the effort. We must actually MAKE the effort. It's in the DOING, not just the THINKING, that we accomplish our goals. If we constantly put our goals off, we will never see them fulfilled. Someone put it this way: Live only for tomorrow, and you will have a lot of empty yesterdays today.
Garry Bjorkland's story as told by Pres. Monson:
In July of 1976, runner Garry Bjorklund was determined to qualify for the US Olympic team's 10,000 meter race which would be run at the Montreal Olympics. Halfway through the grinding qualifying race, however, he lost his lfet shoe. What would you and I do if that were our experience? I suppose he could have given up and stopped. He could have blamed his bad luck and lost the opportunity of participating in the greatest race of his life, but this champion athlete did not do that. He ran on without his shoe. He knew that he would have to run faster than he had ever run in his life. He knew that his competitors now had an advantage that they did not have at the beginning of the race. Over that cinder track he ran, with one shoe on and one shoe off, finishing third and qualifying for the opportunity to participate in the race for the gold medal. His own running time was the best he had ever recorded.
Another detailed part of this same story:
It was another Hayward Field moment, another example of the crowd embracing an athlete and willing him forward. The date was June 22, 1976. The event was the men's 10,000 meters, won by Frank Shorter, who bested Craig Virgin.
But it was the race for third, and the last spot on the U.S. Olympic team, that drew the crowd's attention, not because there was a Eugene runner in the race, or a Duck, but because halfway through, a 25-year-old Minnesota grad named Garry Bjorklund lost a shoe. Wrote Blaine Newnham in The Register-Guard:
As he started his drive to make the team, the East Grandstand echoed `BJ, BJ, BJ.' They were calling for their man - the guy with one shoe on and one shoe off - to overhaul Bill Rodgers. They probably remembered that he had his left foot operated on in 1972 and missed the Trials, the same foot which lost its shoe with three miles to go in the race, that he's given up six years of his life to make the Olympic team, that he's moved from Minnesota to Baton Rouge, La., to Boulder, Colo., to prepare himself for this one chance.
How would you like to run three miles with Shorter, Rodgers and Virgin on a 4:30 pace? Everything's going to plan in this, your big chance, and you lose your shoe. Garry slid his bare foot along the sand brown Urethane of Hayward Field. He tried not to think about it.
At the bell, Bjorklund was 25 yards behind Rodgers; he pulled even and passed Rodgers with 50 yards remaining, running 28 minutes, 3.74 seconds to claim third by less than a second. "To be honest with you, the thing that got me there, the thing that kept me going, was the people in those stands," Bjorklund said. "They were chanting `BJ, BJ,' and I could feel it pulsating through me. You don't even know you have feet at that point."
President Monson said: He put forth the effort necessary to achieve his goal.
My Thoughts:
First off I love stories about the lives of people. There is so much to be learned from them and each other's experiences we all have. Such was the case for me with Garry Bjorklund.
When I first heard and read this story I was simply amazed. Sometimes the biggest lessons in life are in these simple stories that come from the lives of regular people like you and I.
Since Garry exhibited effort to achieve his goal, exactly what is effort? The dictionary defines it this way:
Effort---What does that mean?
The dictionary says:
1. the active use of energy in producing a result
2. elbow grease
3. exertion
4. labor
5. work
6. force
7. energy
8. power
9. might
The dictionary says:
1. the active use of energy in producing a result
2. elbow grease
3. exertion
4. labor
5. work
6. force
7. energy
8. power
9. might
Garry had his eye on his target, 3rd place in the Montreal Olympics. Because that mattered to him, he put forth the effort necessary to obtain that goal.
Do our goals that we set for ourselves really matter to us? Are they THAT important? Do they MEAN everything to us to achieve? Maybe we should begin there and determine that, not just something we THINK we would like, but something that really and truly matters to us, enough that we WILL put forth the EFFORT.
Someone once said: Obstacles are those fearful looking things you see when you take your eye off the ball.
I hope through this story you will recognize that maybe putting forth the effort necessary to achieve your heartfelt goals, as I did for myself, require effort and determination, something that I often lack because I think about goals rather than trying to actually achieve or accomplish them.
Do our goals that we set for ourselves really matter to us? Are they THAT important? Do they MEAN everything to us to achieve? Maybe we should begin there and determine that, not just something we THINK we would like, but something that really and truly matters to us, enough that we WILL put forth the EFFORT.
Someone once said: Obstacles are those fearful looking things you see when you take your eye off the ball.
I hope through this story you will recognize that maybe putting forth the effort necessary to achieve your heartfelt goals, as I did for myself, require effort and determination, something that I often lack because I think about goals rather than trying to actually achieve or accomplish them.
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