Remembering Nothing is Ever Good Or Bad

As we began our trip to Shepherd University things starting seemingly falling apart. Before we departed, we almost left our practice gear in the locker room and then once we arrived, we found we have left the Blueberry (our nickname for the DVD player). This created quite a ruckus among the athletes as I queried them about who was supposed to bring it as none of them wanted to face my wrath. Of course, I knew what they didn't. I wasn't going to go crazy. Nope. Instead I was going to find a way to make things work without it.

Once we got to the hotel, we discovered our gym time we had reserved with the hotel's gym had been usurped by the government. I didn't know the government had imminent domain over hotel gyms! Since we had been denied practice time at Shepherd University, my wonderful staff started working on finding us a place to have a morning practice. When it was discovered our men's team had a practice time at Shepherd while we were not afforded one, we begged for a time there. After calling local schools, churches and fitness centers, we finally resorted to asking if we could use the upstairs gymnasium at SU. When we got an affirmation, we hurriedly assembled the team and got on the bus before we somehow missed our golden opportunity to prepare for the game.

Once we got upstairs to their practice facility, a class had taken over the gym. Without even batting an eye or letting a curse world slide off my lips, I led the team across the facility to the other side which looked like it was used as purgatory for wayward athletic teams and decided it would have to suffice for us. So with our men's team on the real court and a class on the next best court, we were stuffed in a makeshift rectangular hellhole with a blue rubber floor and no basketball hoops. As the team started to make comments about how everything seemed to be going wrong, I stopped them with one of my infamous stares and told them, "This is not bad or good. It is what we make of it. We can decide to use this as an excuse and tell our sad story or we can find a way to make it work. It is our choice to decide what we want to do."

I know when I was younger I would have taken every misstep as a sign things were going badly and I would have plummeted to despair and hopelessness believing the game was already lost before we had even stepped on the court. Good thing I am no longer that youngster and know better than to attach an emotion to a series of events. I now know that events happen and they are neither good nor bad; they just are. We are responsible for the emotions. And in this situation, our choice was to find a way rather than to find an excuse.

I don't yet know the outcome of the game as I am writing this before the game has occurred, but I do know this--we will not allow the events which transpired before the game to affect our thoughts about our abilities to win the game.

PLAY HARD. PLAY TOGETHER.