The road to....

So often in sports a game is referred to as a battle. Sometimes teams are complimented on their ability to battle. Athletes are asked to battle the elements, the game, the other team, and even themselves at times. Every close game is a battle or a fight. Its one person vs. another or one team vs. another team. Nothing else at that time matters. Only the contest at hand.

Throughout NCAA soccer playoffs and even in my own season at Navy in the last few months the idea of battling or fighting has been an interesting concept to wrestle with and explore. Some teams know how to battle and fight, while other teams struggle to understand what that means or how they can embrace the concept. The interesting thing about this concept is that just like any other skill in life or sports its something that can be learned, developed, and cultivated.

As Ive watched Messiah’s soccer team this year Ive seen a team that has learned what it means to battle and fight for not only a win but for one another and for the continuation of a season. After a loss in the first game of the year, they’ve rattled off 21 straight wins and have managed to find a way to win in all circumstances.

As NCAA’s have approached and progressed in the last month its been interesting to hear people talk about how this years run to the final four has compared to other years and how this year the team has had a relatively easy road. The beauty of the whole situation though is that Messiah did exactly what they were supposed to do. They fought their battles and won each one. What other teams were doing, who they could have/should have played that was better, or who had a tougher road wasn’t their concern- they focused on what they needed to do. Now they are right where they want to be, in a position to spend as much time together as possible, battle for two more games, and hopefully win a National Championship.

Another example of this concept occurred today as I was running a 10k on Thanksgiving morning. I have been wanting to run in a race for a while but haven’t really been looking overly hard nor have I had a lot of time to find a race to run in. Well since I was home this thanksgiving I figured I could find a race this morning and give it a shot. Heading into this morning I didn’t do much to prepare ahead of time, nor have I really been running any kind of distances to be in “racing shape”. With that said I didn’t really know what to expect from the race (other than freezing cold temperatures since its Rochester, NY) or how fast I was capable of running.

I told myself at the beginning of the race that I had to run my own race and not worry about anything beyond that. For me that meant that I wanted to be able to run faster in the last mile and a half of the race than the rest of it. For that to happen I knew I had to run at MY pace and not react to anybody around me. That is sometimes harder than it sounds when there is a person 50 yards away and you want to catch them or when a little kid passes you and every fiber inside you wants to pick up your pace and catch him. This race had to be about my battle and what I could control, not what other people were doing or the battles that other people were fighting. Those weren’t important. They were only traps to keep me from accomplishing my purpose. I had to decide if I was going to fight my battle and run my race and end up in a position to attack the last mile and a half or if I was going to get bogged down in other people’s battles and react to the race around me. In essence it was a choice of doing what was best for me or letting the race dictate how I would feel and how I would finish.

Isnt life a lot like sports when it comes to this? Arent we faced with a lot of battles in life that force us to make a decision? Either face the battle head on and put ourselves in the best position possible or let ourselves be affected by everyone else’s battle, caught up in the roads that aren’t ours. Soccer teams, runners, and other athletes are not the only people that must learn to battle and fight. Everybody has battles from time to time. Sometimes it’s a sporting event, other times it’s a career decision, maybe it’s a academic struggle. Whatever the fight may be, there’s always two ways to handle it and 9 times out of 10 one is better than the other. The problem is that we usually choose the 9 wrong answers before we choose the right one. We take a look around at everyone else’s fight or wish we had a different situation well before we rise above the battle and embrace the One that has overcome anything we will ever face. Its only then that we really can block out the distractions and battle the competition that stares us in the face and win.

In the end, life isn’t really that different than athletic competition. We learn to battle, and fight, and we have to rise above the challenge. The road we get put on in life isn’t too far off from the road to the final four. In each one we must battle one thing at a time and we must not get sidetracked by someone else’s bracket………the best we can do is to try to win our own.