And To Improve Myself…
…in Spirit, Mind, and Body. Amen.
I took the night off from video games, just for you guys, my readers.
Today was one of the last practices for the YMCA team that I coach along with Flattop. (I apologize that I have not blogged about the boys before. I guess it slipped my mind when it came to blogging time.) We are The Spartans. 12-14 year old boys, we started in June and have worked hard to get better and have fun, and by God, we have.
We supposedly have our biggest game of the season on Saturday. This is the team coached by the man who beat us 4 times last year, handing us our only 4 losses of the season. Coach Ryan and I dislike this man, not for who he is (by the way, he’s possibly the nicest guy involved with the YMCA) but for what he did to us. He ruined our rookie coaching season. He scarred us. For life.
It’s really not that serious, but we really want to win. We’ve blown this game up to massive proportions, telling our kids it will be the biggest test of their basketball careers (or at least their YMCA careers). But the interesting thing is, this team we play, this “huge obstacle” in our way, really isn’t all that intimidating.
In fact, they aren’t very good. They’ve already lost, twice, to a team we beat handily. This actually is related to my main point:
Playing from behind as the underdog gives a party, be it a team or an individual, a certain kind of advantage. A “nothing to lose” mentality can completely switch the balance in situations. This can pertain to sports or school work or a career or even a disease. If nobody expects you to succeed, it gives added motivation to press on and to tell the naysayers, “NAY! NAY I SAY!”
I’ve seen the power of this, I’ve experienced this, I believe in this. Give somebody something to prove, or better yet, somebody to prove wrong, and I wouldn’t bet against them.
Secretly, unknown to my team, I expect to win this game by a healthy margin. I just hope I’m not too over confident.
For your musical pleasure, I will end tonight’s post with a music video. In the recent past, I have immediately turned off the radio at the first sign of a Mariah Carey song. This one is bearable, I guess.
