The Standout
I’m not a standout, unless you measure my girth, that is. I never have been. Average at school, average at sport and just your average, sort of normal guy - mostly. I think we’ve all had times when we’d have loved to be a standout. Like when the prizes were dished out, when the winners were announced and on many more occasions.
I remember many standouts from my schooldays. There was Carey Nichols - quiet, unassuming, probably introverted guy – but amazingly intelligent. His perception and depth of understanding were mind-blowing, to me. I never saw or heard of him after school and can only wonder how he applied his brilliance later in life. And during the same period at school, there was Hilton Budlender who took top academic honours every year and would probably have played cricket or hockey for the national sides had he tried out.
The late Tony Greig, with whom I shared a cubicle in my last school year, was a standout sportsman playing first team rugby and cricket for the school before going on to captain England’s cricket team. A tall, lanky all-rounder, he eventually became a commentator in Australia.
Malcolm Wiggle, feared Old Skunk (I was his skunk or first-year skivvy) who broke school and national records, hurling a discus across the sports field. He’d make me throw it back to him and it took three of my throws to his one. And beneath the tough exterior, a gentle giant with a soft heart and a genuine respect for people.
My best friend, Jean Andrews, who won the Buffalo Half Mile swim in her day, everyone's friend, one of the crowd person until she got into the pool. The only battle she ever lost was with the dreaded cancer.
These, and many other people I’ve met (as well ha countless I haven’t) are, or were, standouts. To me, what made them standouts wasn’t the fact that they were over achievers. It was that they did so with humbleness. None of the people I mentioned traded on their talent. They just did it – in the nicest possible way.
Like the flower above - which, for me, stood out from all the others at the Chelsea exhibition in Stanford.
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