(“You could be playing volleyball or tag team shuffleboard. “)

I listen to NPR for a reason. Today’s question which, as I recall, comes from WNYC’s Radiolab: what do Albert Camus, Vladimir Nabokov, Che Guevara, Julio Iglesias, Itzhak Perlman, and Pope John Paul II have in common?

Time’s up!

Answer: Earlier in their lives they were all soccer goalies. So what exactly does this mean, and how does it tie in to dressage? The soccer goalie is on his team, but in a sense, not of his team. Like the football placekicker, his interaction with his mates is one step removed. In (not always) splendid isolation his individual success or failure is more apparent to every watcher than that of, say, a striker or an offensive tackle.

Are certain personalities drawn to such a role, or does one fall into the job only to be engulfed and redefined by its nature?
Dressage riders, too, choose the solitary path. During a test bet you haven’t noticed much of a crowd gathering at X. And on their pre-adolescent report cards, not many future dressagists had that block checked: “Plays well with others.”

Why subject yourself to this torture? You could be playing volleyball or tag team shuffleboard. Broadway legend Frank Loesser said it best. Why did he choose to work without a collaborator? Only by being both composer and lyricist, he explained, could he “preserve the exclusivity of failure.”

See? Surrounding every silver lining, you can find a cloud.