Dreams and Dream Boxes

Yesterday was the first day of school and the first day of a new journey for our basketball team. There was excitement and anxiety in the air as the team gathered at 6:15 a.m. for our first team challenge. We require our players to pass five challenges which include a 12 minute run and four strength tests. This is our way of determining mental toughness as well as fitness. For those who pass on the first day, we celebrate with them. For those who fail, they receive the opportunity to try again and again and again until they are able to make the Golden Eagle standard. When a player passes her challenges, she sends the message to her teammates that she has expended the energy over the summer months to work hard on her dream of being the best she can be. We believe in dreams here. We believe that dreams are the first step to reality and that the more a player can dream and feel that dream resonate within her, the more likely she is to become her dream. Over the summer months, we asked the players to keep a dream box--a box where they place quotes, articles, and pictures cut out from magazines, books, and newspapers which represent their dreams. The idea was that every day they would feed their dreams. Last night when we met as a team, each player brought her dream box to share with teammates. Every player had an opportunity to talk briefly about her dream box and to share with the group a favorite item from her box. As I sat there listening to them, I was moved by the passion with which they spoke. Almost every quote had something to do with heart, determination, or team. Afterward, Jihan, our team clown, pulled out a roll of toilet paper from her box to share with the coaches. She explained to us, "I wanted to make certain that we flushed last year down the toilet." I think it is a good idea to leave last year behind us while keeping the lessons that we learned from that experience in front of us. As we think about this year, we want to keep our beliefs lined up with our dreams. We want to feed those dreams daily keeping them fresh in our minds and hearts.