So, who are you pulling for tonight? The Virginia/Texas Tech game will be the culmination of another exciting college basketball season.
This year we’ve seen a ton of great, last second, lucky shots. These OMG! moments thrill one side and crush another.
But, are the shots really lucky? My definition of lucky is they pulled some slob who’s never had a basketball in his hands out of the stands, put him at mid-court, and he drains the shot. That’s lucky! (And, let’s be honest, it’s more of a fling than a shot.)
However, some kid who has been playing for years, spent untold hours practicing, has been coached to the max and is in great physical condition isn’t lucky when the ball bounces and rolls around the 18-inches of NO!…and then drops in; he or she is fortunate. They were a little off the mark, but not so much that they miss.
Do you see the difference? One is the outcome of chance, the other is the outcome of trying.
That difference is much bigger than we often recognize. If you are willing to try you have a opportunity. If you don’t try, your chance of scoring is zero.
As Michael Jordan once said, “I've missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I've lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I've been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I've failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.”
What do you know you should be trying, but aren’t? What do you deeply want, but right now it’s simply a dream? What type of trying gets you closer to the dream? The chances of the dream just walking through the door is really low.
The number of times a slob comes out of the stands and hits that mid-court shot is so small it is almost non-existent. The kid who is hurt and tired and puts it up with 2 seconds on the clock, thousands of people screaming and a championship on the line has tried this shot before…thousands of times…and has a lot better chance of that 18-inches of No! saying….YES!!!
Come on out on the court with us and start trying. We’ll welcome the teamwork or the competition.