Though I'm not reading regular news this week, I did read a sports story about the University of Connecticut women's basketball team. They just won their 71st game in a row, breaking their own record from about 8 years ago, and it doesn't look like anyone is stopping them any time soon. They've won every game by double digits, and the closest any opponent as gotten to them in this streak is 12 points. They've beaten up on everyone, including other teams in the top 10.

What invariably happens whenever a team or individual looks like they're vastly superior to their competition is commentary that it might not be good for "whatever" having that kind of superiority. It's a strange commentary on the world, Americans in general, whenever this kind of thing is said.

Let's face the fact that most of us love to see someone who's really good at something. Our reasons are vastly different, however. Some people love to hate those winners; I hate the New York Yankees, probably because my Boston Red Sox suffered for so many years. Yet other people hate my Dallas Cowboys because they were the epitome of success and style for a long time.

There's always a love-hate relationship when it comes to looking at the best of things. I have my own story about being the best. Back in 9th grade, I was put in a math class that was a grade level behind most people in my class; I have no idea why. What it resulted in was my getting a 100 on every test for the first two quarters. Initially some of the people in class resented it because that meant there was no curve that the teacher could give the class. Eventually, what happened is that some of the students began to step up, to the point where even though there was still no curve, many of them started getting at least into the low 80's. The day I didn't get a 100, when I got a 97, they all cheered, but it wasn't malicious at all because they'd joined me in the mission to see how long I could continue being perfect in class.

Of course, we can look to a bigger scale and use as an example the U.S. Men's basketball team from 1992, known as the Dream Team. Remember the hall of famer's who were on that team? Remember that team averaged more than 50 points a game per win against teams that obviously were inferior to the best the United States had to offer. All you then had to do was to go forward 4 years to the next Olympics, which we still won, but by a much closer margin. By 2000 the rest of the world had caught up to us, even though we were still sending top quality NBA athletes.

Tiger Woods is still the best golfer in the world. Remember when we all talked about the Tiger Slam? He won one major tournament by 18 strokes; that was just phenomenal. And yet, within 3 years, many pro golfers had caught up to him. Well, that's not quite true, since he's still number one, but suddenly he wasn't winning every single tournament. And it wasn't that he was suddenly playing badly; it was that some players stepped up their game, realizing that if Tiger Woods is in the tournament, they have to bring their top game to life.

There's no such thing as too good. You might think most people would quit, and that still might be true. But there are some hardy souls who won't stay down without a fight, and as they work harder, they get better. They might not always overcome, but they'll get closer, and as they improve, everything else improves at the same time.

Give me "too good" every time; I love reaching standards that no one expects of me. What about you?