Insane in the Membrane

Have you ever had a seemingly random idea pop into your head and think, “That’s a great idea.” Did you ever try to follow through with that “great” idea only to end up with a broken spirit, arm or heart? My “great” idea for the semester was taking 18 hours of classes advisors warn never to take together. What’s living without taking risks? Some of the greatest moments in sports’ history started from greatly insane ideas.

Lloyd's of London gave 19-year-old Gertrude Ederle only 7-1 odds that she would become the first woman to complete the 21-mile swim across the English Channel, something no woman and only five men had previously done. During the last few hours, Ederle had to overcome a rough tide running strongly against her, but she finished the swim in 14 hours, 31 minutes - nearly two hours faster than the previous best. When she returned to New York, the city threw its largest ticker-tape parade ever. Ederle’s idea was one small stroke for her and one giant win for women everywhere.

July 1999, Tony Hawk entered the X-Games with one great idea- to land a 900 during competition. After ten failed attempts and long after the allotted competition time had expired, the judges and other skaters allowed Hawk to keep trying. Relentlessly Hawk became the first person to land the two and a half revolution aerial spin. Eleven years later at the age of 43 Hawk can still land the 900 all thanks to one random idea.

            More recently Austrian, Felix Baumgartner became the first person to break the speed of sound without the use of a vehicle reaching speeds of Mach 1.25 (843.6 mph). On October 14, 2012 Baumgartner stepped out of his Red Bull capsule to freefall 127,852.4 feet above New Mexico. The descent took ten minutes but history was changed forever. Innovations that came from that leap of faith were a new parachute system, an innovative treatment for ebullism (formation of gas bubbles in bodily fluids) and new ventilator systems.

So maybe your last idea to jump from the roof of your house into the pool was an epic fail. And yeah taking that eight a.m. class was a theory better left untested but think about everything you learned. Life is about taking chances and seeing where you end up. Sometimes you will end up face down on the ground or up a creek but at least you will have a story to tell. Who knows, maybe your next big idea will take you to a new world, will lead you to be the first or maybe just maybe that idea will put you on the map.