Waterskiing Into the Week 🌊⛷

🔬Modern science is incredible. In the last week alone, we’ve seen stories about:

• An implant that allows paralyzed patients to breathe without a ventilator

• A bionic hand that allows amputees to control each finger with incredible precision

• Glasses that enable the deaf to understand a conversation in near real-time

• Gene therapy that restored a boy’s sight

The implant device, which recently gained FDA approval, stimulates the diaphragm to draw air into the lungs. For patients who have had the nerve connection between brain and diaphragm severed by injury, this could mean unprecedented freedom from mechanical ventilators. Among the benefits: reduced risk of pneumonia, Improved mobility, better sense of smell, and better ability to speak. For a group of patients with a long list of things to worry about, it’s incredible that breathing might no longer be one of them.

The bionic hand, in tandem with a procedure called neuromuscular reconstruction, could represent a major breakthrough for those with amputations above the elbow. Without getting too far into the science, researchers have developed a means of rewiring the nerves to generate complex movements in the bionic hand. This is stuff straight out of sci-fi movies, but it’s happening!

At Stanford (heard of it, decent school), students built glasses that display instantaneous transcriptions from the person in view. It’s like closed captioning…for life. As someone without a hearing impairment that started turning on subtitles while watching Peaky Blinders and never turned back (can you understand what the Shelbies are saying?!), this is wild to see. Thankfully, the applications are so much more inspiring - perhaps this could be a game-changer for the deaf population.

Thanks to months of gene therapy eyedrops, 14 year old Antonio Carvajal can see again. The drops prevented the regrowth of scar tissue on Antonio’s eyes after a procedure. This breakthrough could apparently be applied to more conditions, with tens of millions potentially benefitting. Is there literally anything more incredible than restored sight?

What a time to be alive! Science, medicine, and technology are combining to resolve so many complicated afflictions, and quality of life is going to skyrocket for an amazing number of deserving people because of it.

🎤 Coop’s got a fast car. Working with Make-A-Wish, 8 year old Cooper’s wish was to meet Luke Combs.

But Cooper had a secret wish within that wish: to sing Fast Car with the country singer.

Secret wish or not, he didn’t expect to end up on stage in front of 50,000 people at Gillette Stadium. Thanks to Combs, that’s precisely where he found himself, and he didn’t shy away from the moment.

Cooper, diagnosed with leukemia at age 3, had the full-throated support of the enthusiastic crowd. He has ours too. Everybody now:

🎶 I-eeee-I had a feeling that I belong! 🎶

🏀 Investing in the future. Last week, Jaylen Brown of the Boston Celtics became the highest-paid player in NBA history. No, that’s not the feel good story here (though it must feel quite good… for Brown).

What makes this noteworthy for our purposes is Brown’s uniquely thoughtful approach to philanthropy. Astute observers will have noticed Brown held his contract press conference at MIT surrounded by kids in something called The Bridge Program.

Through his foundation, Brown founded The Bridge Program to engage young people from under-represented and marginalized communities in a cutting-edge curriculum of science, technology, and leadership. During a 12 week program, students learn from MIT, NASA, and Ginkgo Bioworks professionals among others. Always an eager student, Brown is immersed in the sessions too; he was kept abreast of contract negotiations while remaining attentive to the program.

We’re struck by how targeted and innovative Brown’s efforts are. He’s giving underrepresented members of the next generation tools to be successful in critically important fields. Thanks to him, these kids could go on to make breakthroughs or discoveries that improve life for all of us, and without him, they might not have had the opportunity. That’s real and incredible impact.

So yes, an already-rich athlete got wildly richer last week. Like Scrooge McDuck diving into pools of money rich. But something tells me that because of it, the impact just might be more widely positive than it’s ever been before.

📚 Teachers teaching and taught kindness… Most of us have had special teachers at some point in our lives, the kind that are not only cool and funny, but also have a mastery of the material and a unique ability to convey it. Clayton Guy is that teacher for a group of students in Arizona.

When he wasn’t quite himself, they caught on. And when they found out it was because his wife needed open-heart surgery, they sprang into action to help.

They raised $10,000 to defray the cost of the expensive operation, moving the teacher to tears. While it’s easy to be skeptical of younger generations sometimes, Mr. Guy bluntly sets the record straight:

“I mean, yes, they’re on their phones. But they care about people They have friends and they care about people.”

So next time you glare with disdain at a floppy-haired teenager buried in his phone, yes, there’s a 99.9% chance he’s doomscrolling TikTok, but don’t forget there’s also a chance he’s working on a GoFundMe for someone in need. When he lifts his head up from the almighty screen, he’s not so different from you after all.

Teacher-student kindness goes both ways. Just check out this video of a principal shaving his head as a show of solidarity for a student.

Nothing gets the crowd going like a person in a position of power getting their head shaved! Mr. Feeny could never.

Feeny! Fee-hee-hee-heenay!

🚂 America’s beauty, seen from the train. A week ago, Nat Read completed an unusual odyssey.

By traveling via train from Boston to Brunswick, Maine, the 84 year old completed a decades-long quest to ride all 21,400 miles of the Amtrak railroad.

So why do it?

“I have a fascination with watching America go by. Sitting up high in a rail car and looking at the deserts of the West, the farmlands of the Midwest, the small communities of the Northeast, and being on a magic carpet to watch America unfold. I’ve never grown tired of that.”

Damn, I’m oddly emotional. So simple, and yet so profoundly beautiful. I wonder what Nat thought of the old Penn Station in Manhattan, though. That was a stop I’d avoid on the ole magic carpet ride.

Congratulations on the achievement, Nat. We hope it’s brought you a lifetime of beautiful memories and a few fruitful trips to the bar cart.

“Dudes rock.” Sometimes we just get absolutely boneheaded-stupid ideas of things we think would be awesome. Occasionally… juuust occasionally…those boneheaded ideas DO turn out to be awesome.

Way back in the winter of 1922, Ralph Samuelson was shredding the slopes with his bros when he had one of those ideas. He thought: if you can ski on snow, why can’t you ski on water?

After much trial and error, replacing his snow skis with pine boards and adopting a starting position with the tips out of the water, Samuelson finally did it: he triumphantly cruised the waters of Lake Pepin in Minnesota on water skis. While there are differing accounts of which day he actually achieved the feat, July 31st works for us.

Thanks to Ralphie, generations have enjoyed the timeless pastime of waterskiing and its close relative, wakeboarding. In our books, that makes him one of the gnarliest men in history. And it all started with a classic “dudes rock” dumb idea.

The lesson? Sometimes the most ingenious inventions and fun activities are born from the craziest-sounding ideas.

We see countless incredible stories each week of good Samaritans acting selflessly to help those in urgent need, so it’s hard to select just one tale of heroism to share. One observer’s colorful letter to the editor of the Ocala News made this week’s choice easy on us.

Jonathan Snobers described the scene when a car collided with debris on the highway, sending it airborne in a perilous cycle of flips.

“Without hesitation, this dude raced towards the crashed car, heart pounding with adrenaline.”

Oh hell yeah, Jonathan. Set that scene!

“This guy wasn’t gonna give up. He saw that the car was leaking fuel, and smoke was coming from the front, completely destroyed. It was a ticking time bomb. he sprang into action, helping two people escape through the moon roof.”

Basically, the great Samaritan did it all. Rescued people from the car. Applied first aid. Called 9-1-1. Kept the injured passengers calm.

“Last night was a real nightmare, but this dude turned it around. He saved lives, kept his cool, and was pretty much just awesome. In the face of danger, he was a shining example of heroism.”

Sadly, we don’t know the hero’s identity, though the writer recalls he may have told one of the passengers his name was Dan. One thing’s for sure when it comes to Dan…Jonathan said it best: “What a legend!”

Love that Jonathan was just enjoying some popcorn and taking notes for his letter to the editor while Dan went into full action hero mode. Some people make badass rescues, some people write badass recaps of them - the key is to know which one you are.

I salute ‘em both!

🏊‍♂️ Marching past the GOAT. Numerous world records fell at the World Aquatics Championships in Fukuoka last week, but we’re highlighting Leon Marchand’s achievement in the 400 meter individual medley for good reason. The French swimmer’s performance erased the very last of Michael Phelps’ world records from the board.

Think about that: the undisputed GOAT of a sport has had every last one of his world records displaced. No matter how bright the stars of the past, humans continue to evolve, advance, and improve. We swim faster, we push the bar higher, we test the limits and surpass them.

What’s that mean for you? Simple. Just because someone else is doing something well now or did something well in the past doesn’t mean you can’t excel too.

So attack your goals with all the blind confidence of Michael Phelps choosing to rock a man bun.

🙏 A massive relief. Young men have a troubling history of collapsing on basketball courts due to heart issues. Hank Gathers and Reggie Lewis, may they rest in peace, are two well-known examples of players whose lives were tragically cut short.

So it’s hard to imagine what went through the minds of those close to Bronny James when he collapsed on the court and went into cardiac arrest at USC last week.

Not even officially a freshman yet, Bronny is about as famous as basketball players of that age can be, and hopes for his future are incredibly bright; LeBron’s dreams of playing on the same NBA team as his son are well known. For a moment, all of that was in terrifying jeopardy.

Thanks to the quick work of the training staff and doctors, Bronny has made a near-miraculous recovery, returning home from the hospital after just a couple of days. This video - posted by LeBron to Instagram - reminds us what his family stood to lose and fills us with joy and immense relief that they didn’t.

He’s right where he belongs, and we’ll be hoping the brightest future still awaits him.

🇨🇴 Can’t stop Caicedo. Imagine living your dream at age 15. Everything you ever wanted, coming to fruition. A beautiful present at your fingertips and an even bright future ahead.

Then imagine that not only your dream - but your entire life - is in jeopardy.

That was reality for Linda Caicedo, a Colombian footballer. At age 15, she was already playing professionally and demonstrating her precocious talent on a regular basis. A prolific future in the sport was near-assured.

And then, in 2020, she started experiencing sharp stomach pains. But this was no stomach issue or gastritis; she had ovarian cancer.

Imagine the pit in her stomach realizing that instead of being on the brink of everything she ever wanted, she would be fighting for her life.

Fight she did. Treatments. Surgeries. All of it.

As it turns out, nothing could keep this dynamo from reaching her dreams. Cancer was barely able to slow her tenacious progress.

This was not the end. This was only the end of the very beginning.

By age 18, not only was she cancer free, but her dreams were alive and thriving. In January, she sealed a transfer to Real Madrid, the ultimate destination for anybody but a Barcelona fan.

Over the last year, Caicedo has played in three (!) World Cups: the Under-17, the U-20, and now the real deal. She made her official debut in a 2-0 win against South Korea last week, scoring a goal after a dazzling run down the left. Yesterday, she put Colombia up 1-0 over Germany with a beautiful, finessed strike.

She’s still only 18, and she’s lived a lifetime of adversity and triumph. We have a sneaking suspicion she’s got a lot more of the latter in her future - the whole world will be wishing that for her!

🏈 Take him back, for Saquon’s sake. We close this week’s edition with some light-hearted fun from NFL training camps.

When your girlfriend calls it quits on your relationship, there’s only one logical thing left to do: go to training camp and get an NFL star to sign your poster to win her back. That’ll do it! A foolproof plan. This is all she ever really wanted from you.

Whether the plan is doomed to fail or not, it’s still very heartening to see Saquon happily oblige the man’s efforts. Bros helping bros. We’ll keep our fingers crossed for him. If Saquon can’t do it, maybe it’s just not meant to be.

Meanwhile in Chicago, rookie offensive lineman Darnell Wright passed his conditioning test with flying colors. Like utterly smashed it. As it turns out…it’s because he was accidentally training for the test given to wide receivers. It’s comforting to know NFL rookies are just like us starting a new job: extremely anxious and eager to impress.

But hey, what’s the old saying? Shoot for the wide receivers, and you’ll land well ahead of the offensive lineman.