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Hockey Chat: You may not remember Ned Harkness when you think of hockey’s greatest, but he truly was. His name is not inscribed on the Stanley Cup but it is in the Hockey Hall of Fame. He didn’t run up the scoreboard with goals but filled the hearts and minds of the players with knowledge and passion.
When was the last time you heard someone repeat something you said? It happened to me last night. While coaching my son's little league team, I told one of the other coaches that I thought we could win the game because we had more talent than our opponents. My son overheard my comment and, well, it got repeated a little differently than when I had said it. The next thing I knew, my son had gathered several of his teammates together and was telling them, "We will kill this team! My dad thinks they stink!"
After the proverbial, "Oops," I gathered my troops and gave them my best Lou Holtz impression. I told them that the opposing team could easily beat us if we were not careful. Eighteen runs later we walked away victorious.
We don’t often hear of Apelles or the Christians who lived in the household of Aristobulus. Most of us read quickly past these names and never give much thought to who they were or what their role was in the church at Rome. Yet, to Paul, they were important enough to be mentioned in his letter to the Romans. This tells us that in Christ’s service, the “little guys” are as important as the “all-stars.”
One of my favorite things about John Wooden’s coaching was that he taught his players each year to put on their socks and tie their shoes properly. You’d think college-age athletes could already do this, but Wooden took nothing for granted. He paid attention to the little things which made the big things come easier for his teams over the years.
Of course, Coach Wooden wanted to teach his players a lesson: if they were going to play in his program, they had to put aside what they wanted to do and follow his plans for the team. That discipline in the small things gave his teams great results, winning ten national championships and setting an example for us of the fact that little things make the biggest difference.
Hockey Chat: Wood, aluminum, carbon composite, fiberglass. Hockey sticks are made up of all kinds of different materials. It takes time and practice, but once you find YOUR stick, you know it and use it with confidence. You puck handle and shoot the best you can with your stick. Have you ever broke a stick and had to grab a different one quickly. Right off the bat you know it’s not going to work well. Your not use to it. It’s not yours. You have to play with it before you get comfortable using it regularly.
This summer I was helping out a summer program with a series of outdoor trips. On one of the trips, we went whitewater rafting in the morning and then whitewater kayaking in the afternoon. Oh, and the river was a scorching 52 degrees. One of the other leaders and I wanted to go down the major rapid at the end while holding a sign in hopes of getting our picture on the display board.
Hockey Chat: There is a term in hockey known as being “back on your heels”. It means to be playing lazily and timidly. Hockey is not a game for the weak hearted because it takes desire to want the puck, strength to work and win board battles, and clear mindedness to know the right plays to make.
One of the hardest obstacles for some people to overcome when it comes to accepting the Bible as infallible truth is the pervasive presence of paradox. The inclusion of these seemingly contradictory statements often plays tricks on the logical mind, even though the truth behind them can always be substantiated by neighboring Scriptures or by concepts revealed in more distant parts of God’s Word.
Most of these paradoxical statements can be located in the four Gospels, where Jesus confounded the religious leaders of His time. For example, in Matthew 11:29-30, Jesus tells us that we can find rest in working for Him. In Matthew 19:30, He says that the “first will be last, and many who are last will be first” (NIV).
Ask anyone associated with the American Basketball Association (ABA) or National Basketball Association (NBA) throughout the mid to late ’70s and the early ’80s about the hardest-working players in professional hoops and inevitably one name will come up time and again: Bobby Jones.
Legends such as Julius Erving, Charles Barkley, Larry Brown and Dean Smith—men who all played alongside or coached Jones—all give the same glowing praise of his blue-collar work ethic, his respect for the game and its rules, and his virtuous life of integrity.
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