World T.E.A.M. Sports at 20 Years October 2013 | Page 2

WORLD T.E.A.M. SPORTS AT 20 YEARS

Living the Dream
THE BEGINNING OF WORLD T.E.A.M. SPORTS
BY JAMES BENSON
WORLD T.E.A.M. SPORTS CHAIRMAN AND FOUNDER

I

don’t think there’s a greater joy than to be on the receiving end
of an unexpected positive situation or on the giving end.
Have you ever heard the term “butterfly effect”? The
butterfly effect is a scientific theory that goes back about 100 years or
so. It was developed in France, and the idea was that if a butterfly
flaps its wings in Madagascar, it will influence the weather eventually
in Nova Scotia. Meaning that all actions and activity has an impact
will change the world forever. And, the term for that is sensitive
dependence upon initial conditions. This has actually been proven
supposedly in science over the course of the last 100 years.
I don’t know if it’s true in science, but I do believe it is true in
human conditions. I think every action does have a ripple effect, and it
does go out and change the world forever. If we had positive actions,

positive things that we did would change the world forever. And
perhaps, provide unexpected positive impacts.
I’m not a butterfly, I haven’t really done anything that would
indicate the starting of something, but when I was in high school, I
had two experiences. One, in particular, was transformative as far as
experiencing the butterfly effect and the unexpected positive. I was a
freshman in high school in 1960 in the little town of McHenry, Illinois.
It was a little smaller at that time than Rice Lake, and a little bit larger
than Wayzata. It was a very small town outside of Chicago, and we
had a high school sports banquet. We had a speaker come to that
particular banquet. His name was Ara Parseghian. At the time, Ara
Parseghian was not the world famous coach of Notre Dame. He was
the athletic director and football coach at Northwestern.