Weeks ago, I
told my son, Allen that I was speaking this morning. After he quit laughing, he
gave me wise advice, “Remember no ever gets mad at someone for giving a short
speech.” I will try to follow his advice.
I did not grow
up in Galesburg, but my Grandparent lived in a 2nd floor apartment two
blocks from here on the corner of North and Prairie St. I was named for my
grandfather, Bert Evans, who had been a street car driver, going from Lincoln
Park to Gale Lake. My grandmother was a stay at home mom. Grandma’s best friend
was Nellie Larson. Nellie Larson had a son named Jack, who we all know at this
church. It is a small world.
My grandparents
attended the East Main Congregational Church, but for some reason one Sunday when
visiting Galesburg, they brought me here for Sunday school. Being 5-6 years
old, I was scared. It was huge and I didn’t know anyone. A lady took a some of us up the stairs into
the balcony, and put me in a room next to it. I don’t know if that was a
regular classroom, or if it was a room intended for children with suspected
discipline issues. I spent the entire morning scared that Grandma would never
find me.
My second
experience with this church was when I was a Knox student. I decided to earn money as a ref at the old
YMCA down the street. It was a Church League- what could go wrong? In the first
game, the Methodists and Lutherans let me know I was a horrible ref, which I
already knew. In the second game, it was the Presbyterians turn to yell at me. I
quit after the first night.
I am hoping
things will go better this morning than they did in my first two experiences
with this church.
As a coach, as
we prepare for a game, we try to develop a “game plan” that will allow us to
successfully handle the challenges of a basketball game. Today I would like to
talk about developing a “game plan” to deal with the challenges and adversities
of life.
I could bring up
five of you from the audience, and I am confident in 10 minutes you could learn
a basic offense. It is easy to run an offense when there is no defense. The
problem becomes what do you do if we bring up a defense that doesn’t allow you
to run the offense. We need to practice and prepare to handle obstacles the
defense may present. In sports, there is no substitute for repetition. We try
to repeat skills until the skills become a habit.
No matter how
well practice has gone, often an opponent can surprise you with something
unexpected. The other team may be faster than we were prepared for or their
defense may be different than we were prepared for. What we have practiced may
not seem to be working. If we have gone thru enough repetition, we have built
habits and built confidence. You might say we stick with it because we have
faith in what we have practiced.
For us as
Christians, we would hope our playbook is the Bible. We may be tempted to see
Sunday morning as our game day. I believe Sunday morning is our practice, AND
we would hope we have more “practices” during the week. Practice is our
opportunity to read, study, and learn about Christianity. It is our opportunity
to build habits and strengthen our faith. We hope to use our “Sunday practices”
to then go out into the game of life, prepared to handle challenges. The
reading of verses over and over may allow the thought to become a habit for us.
In basketball,
the stress of a game may cause some players to panic. They may not have
practiced enough, or they may not believe in the game plan. When things get
tough, they decide to go it alone. We call that “hero ball,” when one player
turns from what we practice, and tries to win the game by themselves. Seldom is
hero ball successful, because players are trying things they really have not
practiced, and trying to be successful without their team.
The motto for my
son’s team at Louisiana Tech is “stronger together,” and it is certainly
appropriate in basketball and in life. When we encounter stress, don’t turn
from others, turn to others.
I was very
fortunate to have had Hal Devore as my supervising teacher when I student
taught. I had Hal as a mentor across the hall for my most of my teaching career,
and he was chairman of our social studies department. Hal established our
department as a team. There was a culture where people shared their successes
but also were willing to share our failures. Sometimes in life we need to
remember that we need to seek help. One of many lessons I learned from Hal was
not to be afraid to ask for help. The great thing for us as Christians is that
when we don’t have someone near and we feel alone, we can always reach out in
prayer for help.
Years ago, I had
heart by-pass surgery. I had a tremendous team in my family to give support.
But I was still scared and filled with self-pity. As I woke up after surgery,
there was Rev. Norm Myer standing at my bedside. I remember thinking, “What in
the world are you doing here?” I even
remember thinking, if a minister is coming to my bedside is that a bad sign?
Norm talked to me and then asked if he could pray with me. Whether it was Norm’s
presence, his prayer, or God answering his prayer, that visit changed how I
felt. It still is one of the most profound experiences I have had in my life.
With prayer, we are never alone.
I have received
two lessons about prayer that I would like to share.
When I was a
young boy, my heroes were the HS players in my hometown. Dennis Radabaugh was
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar before Kareem was Kareem. Louis Rameriz was Michael Jordan
before Michael was Michael. At 7-8 years old I noticed several of the really
good players would cross themselves before they shot a free throw. Not being
Catholic, I had no idea what they were doing, but they made their free throws.
My father was a
basketball coach. As any responsible basketball coach, he had built a little
basketball court in our basement. I loved when my dad would go down and play
basketball with me in the evening. One night when he and I went down to play, I
lined up to shoot a free throw. I did all the things my father had taught me. I
toed the line, took a deep breath, dribbled three times, then I crossed myself.
I shot and made it. I was pretty proud of myself! I was waiting for some praise
from my dad.
My father had grown
up as a Methodist in a small, rural church. At Middlebury Church, the women sat
on one side and the men on the other. It was conservative in its beliefs. It quickly
became obvious my Dad wasn’t into me crossing myself before a FT. Dad’s line
was something to effect, “Prayer to God to help you be a nice person, you take
care of your own free throws.”
Many years later,
after a hip replacement, when they got me up to walk, at the end of the hall
was a sign that read, “Don’t pray for an easy life, pray for yourself to be
strong.” It turns out this quote was part of a 19th century sermon
by Rev. Phillip Brooks. “O, do not pray for easy lives. Pray to be stronger
men. Do not pray for tasks equal to your powers. Pray for powers equal to your
tasks. Then the doing of your work shall be no miracle. But you shall be the
miracle. Every day you shall wonder at yourself, at the richness of life which
has come to you by the grace of God.”
To this point I
have tried to say that we need practice as Christians, and when we encounter
tough times, we need to remember to turn to God for help. The last part, we
need to make sure we are clear on who we are as Christians and what our “game
plan” is as a Christian.
None of us when we go on vacation, pack our
bags, load up the car, and our way down the driveway start talking about where
we are going. We have a plan before we go out the door. I would argue
that we need a plan in our lives also. We need to clarify to ourselves who we
are as Christian.
Dick Bennett was
a very successful HS and college basketball coach in Wisconsin. Bennett was a
very intense coach, and he was also very intense about his faith. He reached
the following conclusion, “If my faith is real to me and important, then
somehow, some way, I’d like it to play out in my vocation.” After reflection,
he came up with Five Pillars based on his Christian beliefs, that I would like
to share with you.
#1- Humility
Luke 14:11- “For
everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be
exalted.”
Humility allows
us to understand we have room to grow and improve in our lives.
#2- Passion
Revelations
3:15-16- “I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot, I wish you were
either one or the other! So, because you are lukewarm- neither hot nor cold- I
am about to spit you out of my mouth.”
We can impact
other people not just by what we do, but how we do it. We can be an energy
giver with our love, our energy, and our work ethic.
#3- Unity
Mark 3:25- “If a
house is divided against itself, that house cannot stand.”
Basketball and
life are team sports, together we always achieve more. We are tougher together.
#4- Servanthood
Phillippians
2:3-4- “Do nothing of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility
consider others better than yourself. Each of you should look not only to your
own interests, but also to the interests of others.”
The best teams
in life, help each teammate become better versions of themselves.
#5 Thankfulness
Ephesians 4:19-20-
“Speak to one another with psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs. Sing and make
music in your heart to the Lord, always giving thanks to God the Father for
everything in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
Gratitude must
be a constant drumbeat. Don’t forget to express your appreciation. And,
appreciate and learn from each circumstance, both success and failure.
Dick’s son, Tony
Bennett is the coach at the University of Virginia. He adopted his father’s
Five Pillars for both himself and for his team. In 2018 Virginia was unranked at the beginning of the year.
As the year went on, they kept winning and winning. At the end of the year, Virginia
was ranked as the top #1 seed of the entire NCAA tourney. In the first game of
the 2018 NCAA tourney, Virginia became the first #1 seed to lose to a #16 seed.
It is considered the worst loss in college basketball history. This certainly
would have been a time for self-pity, anger, selfishness, and many other
negative emotions.
While Tony Bennett was very disappointed and not
happy with the loss, he seemed to choose to focus on three of his Five Pillars-
Humility- “We need to become better.”
Unity- “We did this together, we must own
it.”
Thankfulness- “Don’t just be thankful for
successes, be
thankful for what you learn through hard
times. There is
great wisdom in those experiences.”
From the low of 2018, in 2019 the Virginia
team went onto win the NCAA championship. In a press conference, Bennett held
up two tickets. One ticket was from their 2018 loss, and the other from their
2019 championship. His message was simple, they could not have experienced
their success without having experienced their failure. He was thankful for both experiences. The Christian
foundation Tony Bennett had built had allowed him and his team to successfully
overcome adversity, to triumph in the next year.
Before the 2020 season, Bennett was offered a
huge raise by the University. After discussing it with his wife, they turned down
the raise. Tony said, “Virginia was very
gracious in what they offered to me as a potential contract, but I already have
a very good contract. I have more than enough, if there are ways that this money
can help others in the athletic department - that is my desire.”
Tony Bennett has specifically defined who he
is as a Christian. His Christianity is not just a Sunday thing. When he
encounters life’s challenges, he has a game plan. His game plan is based on
five Christian values.
What is our game plan? What are the Christian
values that we want to be at the core of our life.
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