Character and Perseverance

Last night, my basketball team played a rival school. After the first few minutes of the game, we were tied 10-10. A few bad plays later, we were down 40-15 at half time. It's so depressing, so crushing, so will-breaking when that happens. I had every intention of winning that game, and we narrowed the final margin to 61-44. Our team had a lot of positives that night. We scored more than we had in a game. I got my groove back. We hustled like never before. But we still make some very bad mistakes and forget our coaching. We've played around 15 games already, and won only two. We're getting better, we're playing harder, we're scoring more, and yet we're still losing badly. I wanted to quit and cry at halftime over the misery, but then I realized something: this is where character and perseverance are built.

When you have character, you won't sweat a loss so much. When you have character, you won't cuss the other team out, or rant on your own team's mistakes. Perseverance enables you to keep going after a tough loss. It'll help you accept your losses and focus on how to win next time. These two core values combined will help you focus on the game and not the score. They'll make you realize it's not worth having a rotten attitude.

I could whine or bemoan myself. Sure, but what'll that do? If nothing else, it'd be sinful. I realized last night that a real man wouldn't have a bad attitude after a game. I've seen teammates explode on teammates, and coaches cuss players out, and players walk out on coaches, all because of bad attitudes. With a good attitude and heavenly mindset, you won't have a stinky attitude or even think about cussing anyone out or quitting.

Those are two core values I want because I want to keep my cool through hard circumstances and to stand strong amidst terrible loses, on or off the court. I don't want to be so emotionally weak that I blame everyone except myself, or get angry with a teammate, or argue with my coach. It's not whether you win or lose, it's how you play the game.