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It’s an empty feeling.
Feels like everybody’s going to a big party and we weren’t invited. So we’re at home. It’s quiet. Not sure what to do nor what to get focused on now that our Wake Forest basketball team probably won’t make the March Madness field of 68.
It didn’t go as we had hoped. No Final Four party in Arizona. Isn’t that life? We hope for things that don’t pan out. We work towards goals we don’t achieve. Someone dies suddenly. Our boss tells us they want to go in another direction, a direction that doesn’t include you.
I am thinking now about the day my older brother called me from Madison Square Garden in 1975 to tell me he had scored 18 points in the opening round of the National Invitational Tournament. I remember the excitement in his voice. I was 12.
He was playing for Princeton and this game happened in his sophomore year. In the next round, he scored 12 points.
In the greatest basketball arena in the world, my brother shined on the court. Princeton wasn’t supposed to go anywhere in that tournament so winning the first two games was already a big success.
But they kept going. My family gathered around a TV and watched Princeton win in the semi-finals and then the finals. Princeton won the NIT, and it remains one of the greatest runs by any college basketball team.
Wake Forest is probably going to get a bid to the NIT and I hope they approach the opportunity the same way Princeton did in 1975, honored to be invited and intent on winning the whole thing. Attitude is everything in all situations I don’t care if they win the whole thing. I care that each guy plays as if they are totally focused on winning it all. Effort is what matters most.
I want these guys to go out and play with heart and high energy like they did against Duke when they upset them and in many other games this season.
Play hard. And you will make us all proud. You’ve already given us one of the most thrilling basketball seasons in the past ten or fifteen years. We appreciate that so much. Our days have been more exciting. We’re connected more with Wake friends.
You showed toughness, competitiveness, and the ability to overcome setbacks. All that encourages us to keep doing the same in our own lies. You, Wake Forest players, help us press on by how you approach the game of basketball.
So much of what I’ve learned about life happened at Wake Forest. I learned the meaning of a word in college: perfunctory. It’s the comment my Shakespeare class professor wrote on a paper I wrote for his class.
Perfunctory means ordinary and done as a duty. The professor was right. I wrote that paper because I had to pass the class and didn’t do anything to make it extraordinary. Since then I try not to write anything perfunctory. It may come out that way but my goals are always higher.
I hope the Wake basketball team doesn’t approach this opportunity in a perfunctory way. That’s not impressive, honorable, or consistent with what Wake Forest stands for.
Wake Forest isn’t ordinary. Students there aren’t encouraged to do things as a duty; they’re pushed to soar above the mundane to be well above average and approach academics with passion.
In a similar way, Wake basketball players shouldn’t just show up and play basketball half-heartedly and run out the season without caring much.
They aim for higher than ordinary. They don’t do things as a duty; they do them to excel and soar and elevate each other and the fans who watch them.
You possess the power to fill the emptiness we feel with pride, joy, excitement, and inspiration. You can do all this.
We’re sure. Because you already have.
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Sammy Sportface, a sports blogger, galvanizes, inspires, and amuses The Baby Boomer Brotherhood. And you can learn about his vision and join this group's Facebook page here:
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