the carrot and stick approach

talk about the carrot and stick approach:

Boom Boom's village loses road project after boxer's loss

CEBU CITY -- The shocking defeat of Rey "Boom-boom" Bautista by Mexico's Daniel Ponce de Leon did not only sadden his fellow Boholanos. It also cost his village a cemented road.

A dismayed Bohol Gov. Erico Aumentado said that the plan to cement the provincial road going to Barangay Can-uling, Bautista's home village in the town of Candijay, would not push through -- for now.

Aumentado admitted that before the fight, he promised the young Boholano boxer that the road would be cemented but only if he won.

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if we could only find a truly effective way of motivating our athletes, then maybe our basketball team wouldn't have to apologize to us after failing in the fiba asia olympic qualifier. maybe we'd even get that elusive gold in the olympics! we can rule the world!

i remember something i read in time magazine years ago. as a way of 'encouraging' the iraq national football team, saddam's son uday hussein would beat the soles of their feet with a cane everytime they lost. unlike the good governor of bohol, uday did not believe in the power of the carrot, only the stick. it had to take the fall of saddam for iraq's soccer team to finally win big, a testament to the validity of uday's motivational approach.

i can imagine gma placing a call to manny pacquiao before his rematch with marco antonio barrera:

gma: hello manny?

manny: yis ma'am! gud ibning ma'am!

gma: my husband just bet 100 million on your coming fight with barrera. if you win this fight, i promise you, on the next election, you will have the hordes of garci and lintang bedol in your disposal! you will finally get that seat in congress! or like migz, even become senator, if you like!

manny: and... uh... if i lose?

gma: i'll just issue an executive order sparing the rest of the country from your singing career [mike arroyo sniggers in the background]

manny: oh, is that all madam president?

gma: yes manny, have a good fight then! bye!

gma hangs up. mike arroyo is later taken to the hospital for laughing too hard. and manny pacquiao regains his focus, forgets about ara mina, goes back to LA, spends his remaining time training hard, and clobbers marco antonio barrera on fight night.