The Big Game

I've been a coach's wife for most of my married life. Throughout those years I alway said that the best time of every season is the week just prior to the first game. 

Before the first game everyone's spirits are high. The conversations are vibrant. The dreams are huge. Everything seems possible.

We'll beat that rival team. We'll win our Homecoming game. We'll go undefeated. We'll make it to State. Who knows? This might just be THE YEAR!!! 

It's so easy to be hopeful before you've even set foot on the field. Joy abounds - even in the coach's house!

Once the season starts the mood changes a bit. Even with a winning record there are doubts that creep in. Will we maintain our momentum? Will the players stay healthy? Will we make good decisions on and off the field?

I'll never forget the ride home after my husband's first loss as a head football coach. I had gone to the game with his Dad - a football coach himself (recently retired). We played a bigger school in a division up from us, and it was a tough, hard-fought game. In the end, the other team won, and I was feeling bad, both for my husband, and for myself...because I knew how losses can affect the household. There's almost a mourning period after a loss until the expectation and planning of the next game take hold.

As always, the radio was on in the car, and the announcer was reading the results of every game. Staples 21 - Wadena 10; Detroit Lakes 17 - Fergus Falls 10; Grand Rapids 28 - Aitkin 13...

I was staring out the window and feeling pretty blue, and John reached up and turned down the radio. It startled me a bit, and I glanced over at him. Then he said "Laurie, do you notice how, in every game, one team wins and the other team loses?"

I wasn't sure where he was going with this one, but he continued, "Half of the teams that played today lost. Half of them. This might be the first time, but it certainly won't be the last."

He turned the radio back up.

How do you find hope when you just lost the game? 

You start by thinking about the next game. You look at all the ways you can improve on your performance. You practice. You get excited all over again. 

As a spectator I often wondered how the coach got his players motivated at half time when they went into the locker room after being outplayed and outscored the whole first half. 

That coach probably feels like getting on the bus and heading home. 'Probably wants to tell those kids to hit the showers and forget about it. But there's half a game left and you can't quit now.

Good coaches know how to tell those athletes to face the second half with hope. They know what it means to "win the second half" - to play their best, even if it might not be enough to come out on top. To learn from the mistakes of the first half and make fewer errors. To keep fighting, even if winning doesn't seem possible. To hold their heads high. To take on the attitude that a whole new game is starting, and the mistakes of the first half don't matter any more. 

Good coaches know that life is a lot bigger than the game, even if that game is a state championship, or even a Super Bowl. 

Right now, some of us feel a little like halftime in the throws of a losing battle. 

We've made mistakes.

We've focused on the wrong goal.

We've been injured, and we've seen the injuries that others are enduring.

But don't give up hope because this is life! It can't be the time to throw in the towel or take the long bus ride home. We're here. Our friends and families are here. And not only are we the coaches in this, we're also the players in the big game. 

We can start fresh. We can win the second half. We can do our best. We can keep fighting. Most importantly, we can stop focusing on what came before and fix our eyes on what's ahead of us.

Because at the end of this we all want to be able to say:

I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day - and not only to me, but also to all who have longed for his appearing. 2 Timothy 7-8

So do not give up. 

Have hope.