I wanted to write a piece like this, but it was written much better by someone else. Somehow this post is what I wanted to talk about today. You can view it on this great site.
I played basketball for a church team when I was a young lad of fourteen years. Our coach said our name was going to be the Cosmopolitans. He told us this made us part of our own world, but able to touch people outside of our circles. We did not understand that. We wanted a cool, ferocious name like Lions, Tigers…..and Bears. (Oh my!) To be young and dumb and not listen to the wisdom of elders.
We were a team team comprised of youngsters ranging from ten to sixteen years old. At the time I was a strapping lad of 5′ 6″ and 120 Lbs. I was told I was starting guard. My basketball skills were limited. I had “perfected” said skills in a neighborhood of really untalented people. Good enough for my neighborhood, good enough to start, but overall I stunk.
The one thing that I heard and learned from this honorable man was so simple, but so true but took twenty years to understand was “Offense sells tickets, but Defense wins games”. What the heck did this mean? We all wanted to score twenty points a game. To hell with defense, no girl in the crowd was impressed by good man-to-man coverage. To get noticed, you shoot the rock and nail the J, that is all we understood. We went zero and six with one game left. We stunk badly! We were smaller, underdeveloped and just not as athletic as the other teams. The last game the coach brought in a huge substitute for the game. We were playing against another church team, but no one on the team was younger than twenty.
Visual that. A basketball court of prepubescents against MEN. It was intimidating to put it mildly. First quarter down umpteen points. Half time losing really bad. These MEN had no shame on running the court and dunking on twelve to fourteen olds. They double teamed us, stole the ball and would perform exaggerated dunks for the crowd. So Coach brings in the “Super Sub” at the start of the third quarter. Derek, the “Super Sub”, gets the toss and runs up the court and slams it home. Every play Coach tells us “Get the ball to Derek”. We do, He does. Next thing we know it is tied with just a few minutes to play. The crowd was standing up, very excited. The cheering for us was like nothing we had ever witnessed that season. We were beating Goliath and it was good. Everybody loves an underdog. Coach calls a time out and brings us to the sideline. The he did it. HE SITS DEREK! What? We could win this game, and what does that genius say: “Offense sells tickets, but defense wins games.” We went down by four quickly. I was pressured bringing the ball down court and I got trapped. I threw the ball at his legs and it went out of bounds. We had a chance to run a set play. I tossed the ball across the key to an open man. Perfect pass, perfect handle…in and out of the rim. GAME OVER. We lost.
After the game we asked Coach why he had pulled Derek. He asked if it made us feel good hearing the cheers. Heck yeah it did. He asked if we were disappointed in losing. NO, it was so close. “If you would have just left Derek in we could have won,” we said. “If I would not have brought Derek, how close would the game been?” That was when someone from the other team said “It would have been a pain in the *** ‘cuz these little kids don’t slow down.”
The little life lesson to this story is: You can throw a huge offensive at your tasks, problems or debt. Unless you are willing to face some setbacks and adversities, you are not in a position to win.
We were and still are winners for that night. In a debt reduction strategy, the big boys will always loom and there will be quarters that you are down. A good long term plan of reduction and savings will make you prosperous. When you have the open shot, pay down the debt. Little by little you are back in the game. I thank Coach for his wisdom, although it took me sixteen years to comprehend.
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