Why Lute Olson is Luckier Than You

Who is Lute? He's the 73 year old head men's basketball coach at the University of Arizona.

Why is he luckier than you and millions of other Americans? No, clearly, it's not his age. It's because just days ago re-assumed his position as head coach after taking a whole year off of running the program to deal with not health problems, but "personal issues."

See, Lute's first wife he was married to for over 40 years died from ovarian cancer in January 2001. Since that tragedy in his life, he had re-married in 2003 to some woman. Well, things didn't go as well as they did with his first wife, and he filed for d-i-v-o-r-c-e in December of 2007.

He took the whole year off beginning in November 2007 until now to deal with his impending d-i-v-o-r-c-e.

The reason Lute is luckier than millions of Americans is that he was granted the time to take off. Now I'm not sure he still got paid, there was nothing I read that highlighted if he was or wasn't still getting his salary. But, for Lute to be able to take off a whopping 5 months of his full time job as the head coach of a basketball program, during the time they are actually playing games, is good for him. Bad, for you.

The nation as a whole is not given a good amount of time off at their workplace when they go through a d-i-v-o-r-c-e. Perhaps they shouldn't because maybe some would abuse the system too much. But, I still think there should be more stringent health and well being policies implemented throughout the private workplace to allow people to take time off when they are in deep mental anguish.

Studies have consistently shown that a happier worker is a more productive worker. This is also the reason I believe people should be allowed to do more work at home on their own time, via telecommuting. It solves two problems, traffic congestion and global warming.