A reflection on basketball

Now there are 16 teams. Since Thursday we have been spectators to some incredible basketball with a couple of games going into over time and others determined by the last shot taken. Oh, there have been too many runaways, but they truly pale in comparison to the cliffhangers and upsets.

There are the underdog teams such as Cornell, Washington, Missouri, and Old Dominion. But, then there is the giant killer Northern Iowa and the Cinderella team St. Mary’s, California.

We have witnessed incredible athletic ability, unbelievable coaching, and deep emotions of young men who have had “their card punched” for the next round or painfully saw their journey end on the hardwood boards of a basketball court.

The game itself continues to grow. In 1891 the number of pages in the rulebook for basketball was 2 pages. In 1991 it had grown to 114 pages. The game is kind of a reflective life itself.

Sometimes we win, sometimes we lose. Sometimes we are out of control, sometimes, sometimes we find our rhythm. Sometimes we are able to make the long-shots, sometimes we miss the sure dunk. Sometimes we get to play, sometimes we have to sit on the bench and simply watch. Sometimes we should take the shot, sometimes we need to pass the ball ... but at all times we really should give it our best regardless of our energy level remembering that we may never come this way again.

The one thing that is required from all of us is to get in the game … we were not created to be spectators!

Quote for today: “It is almost as presumptuous to think you can do nothing as to think you can do everything.” Phillips Brooks