Every day on Facebook, I get a pop up memory from something I posted on the current calendar date a certain number of years ago, usually from one to three. Not long ago, the memory selected was a blog I penned about one of my players, Jordyn, who received our first ever Capri Sun Player Of The Week Trophy. The remembrance was accompanied by the picture accompanying the blog which is shown above, our WCS middle school girls basketball squad of 2013-2014. It was a fun year and I love seeing the older kids who are now getting close to graduation! Time speeds up after 8th grade!
I showed the picture to some of the kids on that team who are now juniors but were 7th graders when the shot was taken. We laughed at how much they have grown in the four years. Lots of kids drift off into other extracurriculars after middle school and this bunch was no different. High school basketball is so time consuming and physically demanding that you have to have a great love of the game to continue playing. It's funny- I have no idea what our record was but I do recall that we were competitive. There is one thing I've never forgotten, though. The girl in the front left is Elizabeth. She was an 8th grader and had not played the year before. In the insert picture you will see what I remember. You see, Elizabeth had a terrible issue with injuries that season. She might have played in three or four games at the max. In the above photograph, she is wearing a boot because she had just had bones removed for her foot. When she recovered from that, it was something else injured. She just never really healed all season. And yet, that's why I'm writing about her. Elizabeth suited up every day for practice. Every Day. Most days, she physically could not get on the floor with the rest of us......... but she suited up every day. If you coach for a living, you know how rare that is. The tendency is for kids to disappear when they are having any sort of injury problem- that is the antithesis of Elizabeth. She was as loyal a teammate as I have ever coached. Too bad they don't have a stat for that. (I also let the kids referee in the spring and Elizabeth was the best player/ref we've ever had..... but that's a story for another day.)
Too many times we get caught up in the big picture when the story is in the little picture. Elizabeth's season was noble because she persisted when the normal rewards- playing time, points, praise for scoring- weren't available to her. She's gone on to other things- she's amazingly talented in other arenas that will outlast athletics. Today I showed a film clip in my classes from CBS On The Road With Steve Hartman. It was about a middle school boy who plays basketball with no arms. You read that right- no arms! And yet there was so much more to the kid! My later classes had the bonus question of writing about Jamarion Stiles but they couldn't talk about his physical challenge. I was proud of the insights my kids showed. That's what you need to see about Elizabeth. It wasn't that she played little- it's how she was an an example of all of us in handling adversity. In Philippians 1:3, Paul famously wrote by inspiration that, "I thank my God every time I remember you." That's how I remember Elizabeth every day when I'm blessed to see her in the hall. That's why we coach and that's how we should live.
Click to watch the short piece from CBS NEWS:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=He7-yN6GVg4
Applicable quote of the day:
A good teammate is someone willing to get outside of personal thoughts and emotions, a friend who tries to understand, appreciate, and encourage other members of the team.
Don Kardong
God bless,
Steve
Luke 18:1
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