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In our culture, patience is becoming less and less common. We’re an instant gratification society, so when things don’t go according to our timetable or plans, we get frustrated and sometimes angry. How many times have coaches lost their tempers when athletes failed to make the right plays or the right decisions?
The 2010 Winter Olympics provided many wonderful, heart-warming stories about overcoming obstacles and having great perseverance. Sadly, we also were given a few painful life lessons as well. One of them involved the Netherlands’ Sven Kramer, arguably the greatest long-distance speed skater in the world.
Last Tuesday, as he was on his way to setting a world record in the 10,000-meters, something went wrong. It seemed he had skated eight laps in the wrong lane. The video replay revealed a confused Kramer being told by his coach to change lanes, which he eventually did. However, his coach had been mistaken; Kramer was in the correct lane at the time. The mistake cost him a gold medal and a world record performance.
In ancient times, a soldier was only as good as the equipment he had. His only source of protection was his armor and his sword. In ancient warfare, there wasn’t the option to carry out attacks from miles away like we can today. It was always up-close, in a large crowd with hand-to-hand combat, and you needed armor that could protect you from every side.
Have you ever gone to a restaurant that serves bread before the meal and, when the bread got to your table you just stared at it? Say you have just worked out and you are incredibly hungry. Everyone in the restaurant can hear your stomach growling, but all you do is just sit and stare at the bread. People around you start talking to each other and asking questions like, “Why are you just staring at the bread? Eat it!” But you just sit and stare, wondering why you aren’t satisfied.
Take a deep breath … Can you smell it? The air puts a special swagger in your step … Can you feel it? Today is not any other day. It is GAME DAY! Game day is a special day. Thoughts and feelings rush through your mind as you wait for the game to arrive. I can still feel, hear and see the home crowd at our season opener in basketball as if it was just yesterday. The songs played by the band, the smell of popcorn in the air, the sounds of people moving around, anxiously awaiting for what this year's team will give the crowd. Every player and coach works for one thing: game day. Game day is about preparation mentally and physically for the battle ahead. Game day is here now. Let the game begin!
The power of Thanksgiving is in the action.
After every practice and every game, Jessie would approach me before leaving the field and utter one small but powerful sentence: “Thank you, coach!” During the entire two years she played on our high school girl’s lacrosse team, she never missed a single day of saying those three powerful words. Jessie understood the value of gratitude, and she wanted to make sure I knew that she did not take a single practice or game for granted. Jessie not only had an attitude of thanksgiving, but she also put it into action.
Be the one.
Our integrity is revealed when we’re faced with a decision to do what we know is right, even if it conflicts with what we want. We are called to act according to God’s will instead of our own.
It was a beautiful spring day in 1980 in northwestern New York State, a great day for a lacrosse game. The Watertown Cyclones, a powerhouse team, was visiting their cross-town rivals, the General Brown Lions. Though underdogs, the Lions were a gritty blue-collar team, and they had home field advantage. If all their starters played at 100 percent, they had a chance to upset the Cyclones. It was exciting!
My son’s “fifteen and under” AAU basketball team scrimmaged a “seventeen and under” team and were losing badly. Although it was painful to watch, I noticed two distinct styles of play that greatly affected the outcome.
Our team’s guards repeatedly dribbled through obvious traps in the opponent’s defense. Our coach switched players, changed the offense, and diagramed simple plays to run, but often the player with the ball tried to dribble into oncoming pressure. Each player had different mechanical problems. One dribbled with his head down and another wouldn’t use both hands. Our coach spent all his time trying to correct mistakes.
I wonder sometimes if we coaches miss opportunities to really know our athletes. The stars quite naturally stand out, but are we missing something about the remainder of the team? Do we often overlook the athlete who works hard every day just to be noticed by us? When we think about it, we had a great example of a person who took great care to bring individuals to himself. Christ’s life on earth serves as the ideal of how we are to treat every individual on our team, and focusing on Him is crucial because we are prone to forget that an athletic team is made up of more than the stars. Each member is important.
It is easy to praise and worship the Lord when our team is scoring touchdowns, making three-pointers and scoring goals. But often we find ourselves in positions where things are not working out quite the way we would like. It is during the tough times that we have the greatest opportunity to reflect God’s light and love.
If you run around the soccer field for 90 minutes, you tend to sweat a lot. When you sweat excessively, your body loses much of its natural salt. Without salt in your body, you cannot stay hydrated. Being “salty” is an important part of being able to compete at a high level.
In the same respect, without a relationship with Jesus, you cannot absorb and learn from His Word. Learning God’s ways by reading the Bible will impact your approach to competition, but not until you give your life fully to God and accept what His Son did for you on the cross.
As athletes, we workout to better ourselves for competition. We hit the weights to gain strength, speed and size. But have you ever had one of those days in which your strength wasn't where you wanted it to be or you just didn't feel strong? If you compete long enough, you’re bound to have those days occasionally.
Have you ever had one of those days in life where you were feeling the same way spiritually? Like you just weren’t strong in your faith at all? In those times, we have to remember that it is not about us, it's about Jesus Christ. He is the One who gives us strength. It says in Psalm 33:16: "A king is not saved by a large army; a warrior will not be delivered by great strength."
As athletes and coaches, we have a tendency to dream big. We dream of championships and of finding success on the field or court. But sometimes we forget that we are already champions in Christ, and that God has big dreams for us of His own! Just what are some of those dreams?
As a young athlete, I thought winning was everything. The competitive juices would always flow through me. I wanted to win every time I competed. Whether it was a big high school game against our rivals or just a pick-up basketball game against my brothers, I wanted to win. For me, there was nothing more important than a good win! One of the greatest NFL coaches of all time, Vincent Lombardi, once said, "Winning isn't everything. Wanting to win is." As an athlete, I had a lot of wanting, even though I didn't win every time.
High school football season is in full swing, so it’s a good time for me as a coach to do some evaluating by asking what kind of effort we are giving in order to make our team successful. As I’ve been examining the effort of our team, I’ve thought a lot about spiritual matters, as well.
Many coaches and athletes will give maximum effort in order to be a winning team. There is great satisfaction in giving your all and having it pay off. And when November arrives, some of these teams will have secured playoff berths and won championships. They will feel rewarded for their efforts.
A couple summers ago I was fortunate to travel to Manchester, England, as a coach for a lacrosse tour. The tour was a wonderful success and both the players and coaches made some awesome lifelong connections. For me, however, it went much deeper.
As a student-athlete in high school, the only thing that I liked about myself was my basketball ability. My self-worth was based completely on my performance on the court. Although I knew Christ, it took a lot of painful losing and poor performances for me once I got to college to realize that my self-worth was very skewed.
After I began to read the Bible more, I realized that none of the verses showed that God loved me any less based on my performance. I did, however, find many verses based on how God viewed me as His child.
Coaches are familiar with famous slogans. We put them on T-shirts and in pictures or paint them on walls to try to motivate our athletes. One famous slogan is, “TEAM, me.” “Team” is capitalized because that’s where everyone’s focus should be. “Me” is in lower case to show that individual goals are secondary to the team goals.
During one baseball game, our lead-off batter got a hit and was on first base. It’s exciting to be in the coach’s box down the third base line in the first inning with your lead-off man on first and your best hitter at the plate. I gave the steal sign, yet my player stayed at first base. On the next pitch, I gave the steal sign again. Again he didn’t jump as the pitcher released the ball. Then, the batter hit a line shot to the fence, and I was filled with a mixture of emotions. I was excited that we had back-to-back hits, but on the other side, had my lead-off hitter gotten the signal, he could have walked into home plate.
As a coach and a player it can be a challenge to have the right attitude. Many times we will say of a player, “He needs an attitude adjustment,” or “Her attitude stinks,” or especially, “If he had the right attitude, he could be a great player.”
Sometimes when we are experiencing winning, we can have a prideful or cocky attitude that is not pleasing to God. Sometimes we need to be humbled, and that humbling can be quite painful.
As a young coach I had a short fuse, especially when it came to dealing with men in stripes. It was hard keeping my mouth shut, and I often said things that got me in trouble. One game in particular, I thought my team was being treated unfairly, and I was quick to point it out. Late in the game, I stood up and yelled, “What?!” It was only one word, but the officials had heard enough. I got a technical foul that cost my team the game.
Coach Peacock’s team had just won a state championship. They were celebrating in the locker room, and Coach was hugging his players right and left. As the congratulations continued, the coach noticed one player in particular sitting alone on a bench, watching him. Coach Peacock knew that the young man’s mother and father were divorced, that his dad was also an alcoholic who never attended any of his son’s games. So he walked over to the player and asked if he was okay. The young man responded, “Yes, Coach, but I was just wondering. Could I have another hug?”
When people think of excellence in higher education, Oxford University is often mentioned. That’s because some of the world’s most foundational philosophical ideas in government, religion, sociology, literature and business have been intellectually designed and developed by men and women who attended its various colleges. Luminaries such as John Wycliffe, Adam Smith, John Wesley, William Penn, J. R. R. Tolkien, T. S. Eliot, Margaret Thatcher and C. S. Lewis are just a few notables to have walked Oxford’s hallowed halls.
But anyone who believes brilliance can only come from places like Oxford, Cambridge or perhaps places in America like MIT or the Ivy League schools fails to recognize the simplicity of wisdom.
If you have played sports at any level, you’ve probably noted that certain “levels” are established quickly on teams. We’ve all been part of teams where there were good players and not-so-good players. Inevitably, we all know what happens when these levels are realized: The good players start to interact negatively with the bad players. Some of the interactions even come in the form of picking on or even bullying. I am embarrassed to say that I know all about these situations based on firsthand experience. I wish I could say I was the target, but I am guilty of dishing out the abuse to those I thought of as less talented.
What we speak and how we speak comes out of our hearts. We all can let things come out of our mouths and realize that there’s a problem. Sometimes when I hear my players say certain things, I’m reminded of what Jesus said in Matthew 12:34, “For the mouth speaks from the overflow of the heart.” So you have to be a role model. You have to be an example. It takes action, and it takes attitude. Actions speak louder than words and attitude speaks louder than actions. You have to live by what you say. That speaks to a person’s integrity. Living it out is much more powerful than just saying it. Jesus lived it. We have His words, but we also have His actions. That’s so powerful.
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