I Found a Reason to Be Proud of BJ Penn!

Well, I have received my share of being bashed lately because of my opinions on my favorite sport and tonight I discovered another new opinion.

This may surprise quite a few of Granny's critics, but Grandma just found a very good reason to be proud of BJ Penn.

As a former educator I am very fond of sports professionals who are unafraid to teach their sports techniques to others, even though they may someday be competing against these students.

A long time ago when my husband and I were competing at horse shows, I bought a gelding that had been trained in cutting and reining by a well know Illinois professional horse trainer. At the time I did not know how famous the trainer was, but became an immediate fan when he requested that I ride the horse in front of him before he would agree to sell it to me.

That is when I began to suspect that he was indeed a pro.

That horse turned out to adore my then boyfriend Mel and soon the feeling became mutual.

Redling Lad was the fastest, most well trained horse we have ever owned. We bought many other horses with a lot of potential and turned them into tremendous performing horses, but Red is the only one we bought with all the bells and whistles already in place.

This horse made Mel have quite a reputation as a horseman within our social circle: Red was the strongest, most determined to persevere horse we have ever known.

It bothered me to no end to hear our other amateur-friends/trainers claim that Don Ellis who had trained our horse "was really not that much of a trainer" in our friends' opinions.

Don was a professional that knew that if he sold a well trained horse to a competitor or demonstrated a training technique to someone else, they would only be able to do with it what their own potential allowed.

No "John Doe" who walked in off the street could hold a match to Don Ellis who competed at the biggest, toughest AQHA horse shows; he had nothing at all to fear from sharing his secrets and he was well aware of that fact.

This is what I admired about BJ tonight as I watched Joe Lauzon fight Jeremy Stephens at Fight Night 17 held in Tampa, Florida.

Now this is exactly how the Penn v GSP II fight should have looked!

As Joe Lauzon had beaten BJ's rival Jenns Pulver unexpectedly early in his career, BJ Penn adopted Joe and took a special interest in him as he coached Joe on the TUF series.

After the series, BJ believing in J-Lau's potential, moved him out to Hawaii to work with BJ at his gym.

I imagine that as with Uriah Faber, another invitee to train with Penn, that this was a tremendous thrill and the absolute best time of Joe's young life.

How generous of BJ to train and teach techniques to a kid who was just starting out in the UFC!

Now I don't know about anyone else, but I just have to admire BJ for doing this and I believe that much of Joe's success is due to BJ's tutelage.

So for this reason, if no other, Grandma Dee can love BJ Penn!