KXAN photographer extraordinaire Todd Bynum and I say one of the greatest aspects of our job is that we surround ourselves with people whose goal is to make people improve.

They’re called coaches.

Amidst all the preparation for the week’s games are some great theories on life that you don’t get to hear because, let’s face it, we don’t have unlimited time on the air. (Goodness knows how much I would talk if we did.)  Todd and I are convinced we are a little more on our game each day because we get to hear this stuff all the time.

And now, we share them with you. Feel free to add your own too.

1. Success is not final, and failure is not is not fatal.

2. Sometimes you give life everything you’ve got and you still get kicked in the teeth. Give it all you’ve got anyway.

3. Todd found this one in Beijing: Love sport even when it breaks your heart.

4. Come to meetings with questions. Be a student of your game.

5. Potential is nothing. Performance is everything. ( I heard that one on the radio during a Bill Parcells press conference)

6. The season is not a sprint; it’s a marathon. People want you to look like the team you were when you won the championship, but realistically, you’ve got to work toward that goal in order to make it happen.

7. Win.

8. Can you stay focused in the moment?

9. You can only control what you can control. You can’t control outside factors.

10. Each game is an opportunity for greatness.

These are collected from coaches at all levels– high school, college and pro, and others in between. Do I follow them every day? No. Does it help that I hear them, even though I know they are true? Yes.

And let it be known that these came up in the normal course of our job. We were just trying to ask the questions about the next game or the story of the day. They weren’t trying to teach us about life; they were trying to tell their teams about how to succeed that week. But it’s interesting to see how they can stick with a reporter like me long after the game I covered is over.

Like so many other people in the state, the Longhorns football team is dealing with the effects of Hurricane Ike.

The one aspect of Ike the entire team dealt with was that after preparing to face Arkansas, the team was told they’d have last weekend off, which led to these findings from today’s press conference…

 1. Brian Orakpo and Chris Ogbonnaya both talked about the difficulty of talking to their families during the storm. They are both from the Houston area, and both families are okay. Both also said their houses didn’t sustain much damage. Players said Deon Beasley had water in his house, and they also mentioned other Southeast Texas players like Rashad Bobino and Earl Thomas, and said they were keeping them in their thoughts.

2. Jordan Shipley and Colt McCoy watched their brothers play football. McCoy traveled to Shotwell stadium in Abilene to watch his brother play WR at Abilene Christian. Shipley watched the Coppell-Highland Park game.

3. Mack Brown, along with many other players, watched the weekend’s college football games. Brown talked about the importance of the Kansas-South Florida game in relationshp to the team’s preparation for their Big XII schedule. It was a great game to watch, too… if you’re a USF fan. Other games the team talked about– Missouri/Nevada, Oklahoma/Washington and Baylor/Washington State. In fact, quite a few people complemented Bears QB Robert Griffin.

The overall vibe was that getting back to work helps. Starting a new week of practice for a new team (Rice) helps the team move on, and ultimately, start the recovery process.

This morning we relieved our first Hurrican crew of Thomas Costley, Manuel Montana and Shannon Wolfson with myself and Ben Frieberg, Mark Batchelder and Matt Flener reporting. We traveled through Houston that had no cell service and IH 10 was completely shut down. It took a while but we made it to a tiny town called Fannett. we are sitting in the dark parking lot of a gas station that has now been demolished twice, the first time being Hurricane Rita.

Matt and Mark went out on a swamp boat looking for folks who might be trapped with some of the great citizens of this county. This is truly a community that is pulling together and even though his gas station got blown away, the owner donated all of the water and other goodies to the folks down the road at the Volunteer Fire Station to pass out to citizens who lost everything. We even grabbed a few chips and peanuts to pass out to folks who might just need a little pick me up.

The spirit of helping your neighbors is alive and well. Folks here are still amazed at just how bad the damage is. You know the stories of “it’s never been this bad” and i “aint never seen that before” are abundant. Young and old, they were all at the Volunteer Fire Station passing out water and ice and some great BBQ.

Our plans are to head to Port Arthur tonight and then try to give everyone a sense of the severity. it’s one thing to see it on TV, but another to actually feel it and see it in person. I’m always amazed at the strenght of people in the toughest times.

we have several video’s to show you and will try to get them on as soon as possible but right now the wireless internet card is a little slow, but stay tuned to our YouTube channel

In case you were wondering why the streets were blocked off downtown Sunday, and what all those thousands of people in the red shirts were doing running together, it was the worldwide extravaganza known as the Nike + Human Race. Austin luminaries like Matthew McConaughey, Lance Armstrong, Brendan Hansen, Aaron Peirsol and tons of runners took to the streets for a good old fashioned 10K.

I got to chat with Hansen and Peirsol before the race, and we talked about all sorts of stuff, because the Nike people were great to us, and knew we had to talk about the Olympics.

One of my favorite memories of the games was when Hansen talked to NBC reporter Andrea Kremer after the 100M Breaststroke. After being shut out of the medals, he told her he wasn’t through, and the medley relay was “gonna be sick.” Indeed, it was sick. So I asked him about that, and you could tell he was so happy to talk about how the team pulled together and won. A real “git r dun” moment in Olympic Swimming. Hansen also said he’s pacing himself and wants to get ready for London in 2012. It may be early, but there’s the answer to the question about whether or not his Olympic career is over.

Peirsol also talked about the relay, and how it’s a point of pride on the swim team to go out with a bang, so as you can imagine, the relay team thought it was a great thing to end the swimming portion of the games on a high. Peirsol’s most memorable interview was after the trials when he was nearly overwhelmed by the emotion of realizing he had made the games. Obviously he delivered in Beijing, but it was cool to talk about how difficult the trials can be, because they tend to be an afterthought once you get to the games.

The video is online on the sports page– the raw interviews– so you can see what we start with before we edit for time and put all that flashy video on top. Enjoy.