I’ll never forget the first day of football camp at the small college I attended. I’d come hoping to be a part of a winning program and perhaps even a national championship. Our head coach had scheduled a team meeting. As he reviewed the goals, he pulled out the video of last year’s national championship—a game we had lost. I then expected him to share his plan on how we would make it back to the national championship game and win.

Instead, he did something I would never forget: he threw the video to the ground, stomped it to bits, and told us if our only dream was to win a national championship, then we had set our goals too low!

Hockey Chat: One on one isn’t much of a scoring threat.  Two on one creates a bit of worry for the goalie knowing that the odds are against him and the shot may come from either player.  Three on one is a nightmare for the goal tender and almost guaranteed to beat him. 

I was coaching a junior high boy’s basketball team and having a great time. During one game, however, the team was not executing well. I called a time-out and gave the boys a lecture while they sat on the bench. I paused to see if my message was getting through. And that’s when the starting center, a team leader, broke the silence with a goofy imitation of me. He mimicked several of my phrases and the other players were a little nervous about what my reaction would be. I decided to laugh, so the whole team laughed along with me. These were boys who loved to have fun. Scripture says that there is a time for everything (Ec 3:1). There is certainly a time for discipline and teaching, but there are countless opportunities for fun and laughter too.