Bjcorbin's Blog

With our two youngest (Andrew and Bekah) playing for their respective high school basketball teams, we spend a lot of time courtside.  As a matter of fact, we’re in the midst of a five day stretch where either the boy’s team, or the girl’s team, has a night-time away game.  And when you frequently hang around such venues it’s not uncommon to encounter people who think that “basketball is life”.  But from where I sit, it is life that is a lot like basketball.

Like basketball, life requires preparation.  You may get by for a while on natural ability, but at some point you have to invest yourself in it, if you hope to have sustained success.  Just like traversing the length of the floor, and getting to the rim, there will always be situations, scenarios, and obstacles, that stand in your way.  It requires patience, perseverance, and some amount of skill, to negotiate those hurdles.  It is only on rare occasions that you find yourself completely on the other side of these things, with a clear path to the goal.  When those openings come, you must be ready; because such windows of opportunity close quickly.  There are times when you need to press, and other times when you need to let the game come to you.  Sometimes you can simply cover a zone, but other times demand one-on-one attention.  Discerning those times is a significant key to victory.  Likewise, you will find that there are often fouls in life that never get called, times when your teammates won’t pass the ball, and moments when you inexplicably dribble the ball off your own foot, or shoot it over the backboard.  How you handle these moments of disappointment, frustration, and failure, will drastically impact your potential for future achievement.  Finally, there is the noise that surrounds the game.  The instructions of a coach, the cheers and jeers of the crowd, the call of a ref, the encouragement or chastening of a teammate, the trash talk of an opponent, and the little voice inside your head that responds to all of them.  Knowing which voices to listen to, and which ones to tune out, is a crucial skill that every player needs to develop.