This is the title I chose for my personal blog, which is meant to give me an outlet for one of my favorite crafts – writing – plus to use an image from my favorite sport, golf.  Out of college, my first job was as a reporter for the Daily Astorian in Astoria, Oregon, and I went on from there to practice writing in all my professional positions, including as press secretary in Washington, D.C. for a Democrat Congressman from Oregon (Les AuCoin), as an Oregon state government manager in Salem and Portland, as press secretary for Oregon’s last Republican governor (Vic Atiyeh), and as a private sector lobbyist.  This blog also allows me to link another favorite pastime – politics and the art of developing public policy – to what I write.  I could have called this blog “Middle Ground,” for that is what I long for in both politics and golf.  The middle ground is often where the best public policy decisions lie.  And it is where you want to be on a golf course.

I stumbled across this summary of the way Morocco beat Spain in the World Cup a few days ago.

“When the moment came for Morocco’s Achraf Hakimi to take the most important penalty kick in his country’s history, he was suddenly faced with a million options.

“He had 196 square feet to aim at from 12 yards out.  Go right or left, high or low.  Hard or soft.  All Hakimi had to do to send Morocco past Spain and into the World Cup quarterfinals was put the ball where the goalkeeper wasn’t. 

“Instead, he did the opposite.

“Hakimi took a deep breath, approached the ball with four short steps, and dinked a gentle shot right down the middle of the goal.  Had Spain goalkeeper Unai Simon stood his ground, the ball would have dropped right into his hands.  Unfortunately for Spain, he didn’t.  Simon dived low to his right and was already on his knees by the time Hakimi’s penalty bounced into the net.”

Hakimi became an immediate national hero.

What I learned was that Simon was the latest victim of “the most audacious, most inadvisable gamble in soccer:  The Panenka.”

What?

Well, it turns out that the incredible move has earned the name of person who first did it, Antonin Panenka.

Just like Dick Fosbury.  Remember him?  

He was the high-jumper for Oregon State University who inaugurated what came to be called “The Fosbury Flop” and now, many years later everyone uses it in that part of track and field.

I also remembered that there is a third case of an athletic move named after the athlete who did it, the “Ali Shuffle,” named after Muhammad Ali, the famous boxer.

And, still, I found out there is fourth case that bears the name of the player who invented a move, the “Cruyff turn,” an evasive dribbling move used in soccer named after Dutch player Johan Cruyff.

I knew about the Fosbury Flop and the Ali Shuffle, but not the others.

So, for all of you who have as much on your hands as I do, here is a brief description of all four athlete-named moves – and, to give credit where credit is due, I defer to Mr. Google:

THE PANENKA:  The icy-veined, slightly crazy individual who made it popular was Czechoslovakia’s Antonin Panenka in the final of the 1976 European Championship against West Germany.  The game ended 2-2 in regulation and eventually proceeded to a penalty shootout. That’s when a German miss gave the Czechs a chance to end it.  

Up stepped a 27-year-old wearing the number 7 on his back and a hairbrush of a mustache on his face.  Panenka took a fast run-up as if to hammer the shot.  But at the last moment he simply played a delicate chip down the middle.

The keeper had already thrown himself to his left.  Thus “The Panenka.”

THE FOSBURY FLOP:  This is a high jumping style popularized and perfected by American athlete Dick Fosbury, whose gold medal in the 1968 Summer Olympics in Mexico City brought the style to the world’s attention.

The flop became the dominant style of the event.  Before Fosbury, most elite jumpers used other forms — the straddle technique, Western Roll, Eastern cut-off or scissors jump to clear the bar.

Though the backwards flop technique had been known for years before Fosbury, landing surfaces had been sandpits or low piles of matting and high jumpers had to land on their feet or at least land carefully to prevent injury.  With the advent of deep foam matting, high jumpers were able to be more adventurous in their landing styles and hence experiment with styles of jumping.

Then came Fosbury and the “Fosbury Flop.”

THE ALI SHUFFLE:  This is the famous series of fancy footwork created by Muhammad Ali as a taunting mechanism.  He used it multiple times to win against opponents, cementing his status as one of the greats in a sport I don’t follow – if it really can be called a sport when the aim is to pummel someone into submission.

But, Ali made the “sport” famous, in part by using the “Ali Shuffle.” 

THE CRUYFF TURN:  In the 24th minute of a game against Sweden in the group stage of the 1974 World Cup, while Johan Cruyff had control of the ball in an attacking position but was facing his own goal and being guarded tightly by Swedish defender Jan Olsson, he feigned a pass before dragging the ball behind his standing leg, turning 180 degrees, and accelerating away.

With its simplicity, effectiveness, and unpredictability, the Cruyff turn remains one of the most commonly recognized dribbling moves in modern soccer.

So, we have the “Cruyff Turn.”

There, now you know what I know.  And don’t feel better?