I have the heart and spirit of a great athlete. Sadly, I never had the skills. My peak sports achievement was lettering in high school basketball, but even that small achievement is less impressive than it seems. You see, I played on the "C" team reserved for those not good enough for the "B" team, junior varsity, or varsity.

Despite my unfulfilled athletic ambitions, I love sports, especially the Olympics. So when I was asked to carry the Olympic torch during a leg of the relay preceding the 2004 games in Athens, you’d think I’d won the Nobel Prize. I relished this honor and ignored comments suggesting I was selected as a representative of the "spectacularly unfit."

But my torch run was topped when I was asked to participate in a series of intensive training sessions for all the athletes who have a serious chance of being chosen to represent the U.S. in the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing. What was really cool was I got to share this assignment with a handful of exceptionally successful, smart, and articulate Olympians from prior Games.

When I first entered the room filled with diverse but mostly young men and women, I was surprised that only a few looked like elite athletes. The rest were unremarkable in appearance, masking the one thing they had in common: They are among the best on the planet at what they do. Whether we’re talking about soccer or speed walking, that level of achievement is daunting.

As I met them, it was clear they had been invited to that room not simply because of genetic talent, but because of dedication and discipline. As in every other endeavor, competence gets you in the game, but character is the decisive difference.

This is Michael Josephson reminding you that character counts.