“Just think,” one of my friends said, “We’ll be the guys running our last lap in three years.”
We had just finished our last football practice as college freshmen and I was the driver of the car escorting four of us back to the main campus. Minutes ago, we had watched as the seniors on our team had taken their last lap around the practice field at the last practice of the season.
The car was quiet for a brief second as we all let that thought sink in. But a few seconds later, I broke the silence.
“No, no we won’t,” I replied. The passengers in my car remained quiet but I sensed a bit of unease with the statement. “We aren’t going to know when our last game is.”
As I think back now, some 27+ years later, I had no business making that claim. Our college was losing its conference affiliation and without that, the road to an NAIA playoff berth would be much tougher than it would be if we were in a conference. Our record my freshman year was 7-3, hardly good enough to crack the Top-25, let alone the Top-16 where we would need to finish the season in order to garner an at-large berth. But here I was, making a claim that appeared to be next to impossible at the time.
Of course, the next season was even worse. We finished with a losing record, four wins against six losses, and I was a starter on that team. I probably had no business being on the field. I mean, I was a decent football player but at 19, I was a boy among men. Yet, I soon found myself doubling down on my statement from the year before.
As the second semester started, our head coach had called a team meeting of all returning players. He asked a very simple question: What are your goals? I told the room that my goal was to win a national championship, that was my goal every year and if that is not our team goal, then what was? I don’t remember anyone patting me on the back after that and I am not sure I cared. We still did not have a conference affiliation and we were probably farther away from the playoffs than we were 12 months ago.
I’m sure my coaches thought I was nuts. Some of my teammates may have laughed to themselves. Who in their right mind would set a goal of a national championship just weeks after the team had experienced a losing season?
Fast forward nearly two years and my football career ended in a semifinal game of the 1992 NAIA Division II playoffs in Findlay, OH. My statement from three years earlier had been proven correct. For those of us that remained, we really didn’t know when our last game would be played and I know we never took that last lap around the practice field.
As the years have passed, I’ve lost a bit of that edge I had as a teenager/young adult. Okay, I’ve lost a lot of that edge. Like most adults, I’ve stopped dreaming the big dreams. But as we head into 2017, I’ve resolved to rekindle that fire.
My dreams now revolve more around becoming the best version of myself (which is just as hard, if not harder than becoming a national champion!). And I have discovered that I am happiest and I am my best self when I am helping others become the best version of themselves. I want to help my wife, my children, my family, my friends, and everyone I meet achieve their dreams.
Hopefully, you’ll join me on this journey in 2017: Accept nothing, question everything, and dream big. Let’s stop falling for the popular beliefs of this culture/world. Many of those beliefs are completely and utterly false. Instead, let’s start living the lives for which God has designed us.