Wednesday, September 10, 2014

Embittered Competitor: Day 9

Word Count: 54,002

Summary of Events:
Chapter 17:
Terri watched the beginning of the rodeo with the bareback bronc competition. Rawlinson Haring's horse was rather fired up and reared in its chute and got stuck. It was freed and Rawlinson managed to ride for the full eight seconds. Steele competed and got a 6.5 second time. Spencer roped his calf, but the calf got its legs freed before the time was up. Spencer got upset and caused his gelding to be nervous and run around for a bit. After helping Spencer catch his gelding Steele went and watched the rest of the rodeo competition.
Chapter 18:
After the rodeo competition was over for the night Steele headed back to his trailer. G.D. Hagen had been on watch but it appeared that he'd fallen asleep. Steele noticed a light under his tack room door, so he opened the door and found Spencer working on sabotaging his stirrup. He confronted Spencer and condemned him for resorting to sabotage. Terri came and talked with him as well and they took Spencer back to his trailer, Terri then told Steele some of Spencer's personal history that she'd looked up.

Excerpt of the Day:
"Steele nodded. "But additionally," he said. "You've gone and handled things in an incorrect manner."
"By being caught," Spencer said.
"No," Steele replied. "You've gone wrong by looking outward. The source of your problem is not me, it's not anyone else. It's not outside of you. You hold the problem in yourself."
"No I don't," Spencer snapped.
"Yes you do," Steele said. "The problem is within you because you're obviously not good enough. You need to make yourself better, you need to work and train harder. You need to work on increasing your speed, your communication with read, reducing your reaction time. It's all because you're not good enough. You have room to improve. But you don't want to. You're comfortable where you're at, and therefore you refuse to change yourself, but resort to such underhanded tactics and activities as causing injury, cost, danger, and the risk of death to your fellow competitors. You need to change. You need to improve. That is the only way you're going to outdo me."
Spencer was silent. There was a mixture of rage and shame on his face. Steele looked at Spencer calmly. Spencer was like the masses. They thought they were all good and perfect, and that it was something someone else had done that had caused all their problems.
"Everyone in the rodeo is constantly working to improve themselves," Steele said. "And we do that because — even if it may not appear to be so — we are athletes. Like hockey players, football players, snowboarders, track and field athletes, basketball players, divers, swimmers, skiers, and any other athletes, we need to continue to improve. We can never stop because everyone around is is working to get better, and so to keep up we need to keep going. You can't stop. You can't plateau. You need to work. Genuine work and effort yields innumerable rewards that bring satisfaction. You're an athlete and athletes never stop improving."
Spencer's dark eyes simmered and he tightened his jaw again, looking like his rage was taking over his shame.
"If you want to be the best work is required," Steele said. "That's why I'm as good as I am. I work. And I work hard. Sure you've done better at the NFR than I've ever done, but that doesn't mean you're good enough. You haven't won it. You and I both can, and need to improve if we ever want to have the NFR championship buckle for ourselves. What you've done doesn't get you the NFR championship buckle, it gets you fines and even banishment from the PCRA."
"I don't want your help," Spencer hissed through his teeth.
"And that's not what I'm offering," Steele replied. "I'm not offering you anything. I'm just telling you the truth, the reality, and how things are. There'll be consequences for you because you've made the choices you have, denying the truth and reality that you need to improve and thinking that by doing criminally negligent sabotage you'll be able to come out on top.""

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