My wife and I are getting closer to a long-time dream of visiting the Galapagos Islands.  As that time approaches, I find myself more and more drawn to literature about this place, and also to books and articles about the islands’ most famous visitor, Charles Darwin.

In Borrowing Brilliance (Gotham Books, 2009), author David Kord Murray points out something about Darwin’s genius I had been missing:  “. . . while others were traveling the world and sorting and cataloging different species by noting subtle differences among various plants and animals, Darwin did the opposite and began cataloging their similarities.”  Kord asserts, “This was radical thinking . . . It was opposite thinking.”

Kord develops the idea that some of the best ideas come from doing the opposite of what others are doing.  “Study the most successful company in your industry, and then do the opposite,” he writes.

Kord’s observations resonate with me because I’ve long felt that the key to high school sports – the genius of interscholastic athletics, if you wish – is in being different from college and professional sports.  We cannot possibly compete with their glitz and glamour and the apparently endless resources they can bring to making their enterprises bigger and better each year.

If we try to compete with these enterprises, we are doomed to failure.  On the other hand, if we steer the opposite course – to a low-commercial, local brand of sports focused more on education than entertainment – we may arrive at a unique destination in the world of sports.

In accepting the dominance of these competitors, and doing the opposite, we may actually be more competitive, earning “brand loyalty” for our niche of the sports world that is impossible for others to shake.

(See borrowingbrilliance.com for more.)