Notes from the coach’s desk…

October 30, 2006 (Day 82 of Chuuk)

And another one bites the dust! We claim another victory for Saramen Chuuk Academy. This victory is sweet and it is way sweeter than defeat. Yet the defeat we dished out left a very bitter taste in that of the opposing team. Pentecost was not happy to lose. We showed them that we were there to play and win from the moment that we ran out on that court! It is a great feeling to have the boys run from the locker room (the teacher’s office on the 1st floor) to the court passing all the cheering fans and the high fives. People joining in, running along. I like the rituals we are starting, I hope they continue. People are trying hard to find ways to beat us! Which means that we have to work harder on our practices to come up with something new! Keep other teams on their toes! By us beating Xavier High School, Chuuk High knows that isn’t the only team to beat anymore, but we are!!! If anyone wants the championships they know they will have to get through us first! And we aren’t going to let them!!! We have been practicing the longest, working the hardest, striving the most to be the best team. This only means that we have to run harder, work faster and continue to be the best that we can be 100% of the time and to give that 100% as much as we possibly can!!! We have created a team to beat! We are a team that other teams want to be and are afraid of! We instill fear into the hearts of other teams!!! Oh, I love being a coach!!! What is amazing is that we started this season we were not a team to beat. I remember sitting in the ISC meeting at Saram, and the coaches were not even considering SCA as a team they will have to work hard to beat. We weren’t even on their radar. I remember sitting there listening and wanting so bad to put Saram on the radar. To make people in Chuuk know that SCA knows how to play basketball! I remember thinking before our first game about whether or not we actually had what it takes to go as far as I had dreamed. To do the impossible, to beat Xavier High School. To make history. And so we are and so we did!!! We are making history as we speak, and forever we will be remembered as the first team in the History of Saramen Chuuk Academy to beat Xavier High School in a basketball game. What’s amazing thinking back to those first few weeks of practice, and thinking about those early speeches I gave to the boys. I had always talked about beating Xavier for some reason that became my agenda. When I first announced the team at assembly, I announced them as the team that would beat Xavier HS. And now that prediction has come true! They have fulfilled the prophesy and the path is coming true. I believed in them, and they now believe in themselves. But, I still remember the very first time I spoke about the championships, I spoke about the possibility of us becoming the Chuuk state champions, and I remember how their eyes lit up. It gave me goose bumps just thinking about it. A light went off in the boy’s heads saying, “Oh yeah, we could win that too!” The first glimpses in belief of themselves, of something to strive for, of something to run for, to work hard for! We have a goal, and we go out to every practice, to every game to accomplish that goal. To move ourselves one step closer to that goal, to make that dream a reality! To play basketball with all your heart, body and soul! Mind, body and soul!!!

Our team has become one. We are a family, we trust each other, and we play with that trust! We have been practicing for a long time. We have built trust and bonds! Our team has developed that sense of trust and that sense of work ethic together. It didn’t happen over night! It happened with time, and dedication. And that time was needed to build a strong team. We work hard as a team, we suffer as a team, and we win as a team, everyone contributes. We all win no matter what! We have to stay together and stick together and Play Hard!!!

You know Elibie (official referee for our games) was saying that a thing that Chuukese people struggle with is commitment. I couldn’t understand why the Campus Ministry office would choose “commitment” as the theme of our school year for the staff. But I think about last year, SCA might have had an amazing team, if it was chosen right. Yet they didn’t win, they didn’t have a coach half the time. And the other half there wasn’t much learning, from what the boys have told me. There was a lack of commitment. I see now why the guys were excited to have the “Americans” come and coach (even though Lincoln is Canadian). I didn’t think that I would live up to their expectations, especially when they spoke of me as having all these mad ball handling skills. But commitment, hard work, determination, effort and dedication to these boys and building bonds of trust has allowed us to do just that! Its all about dedication.

I had been struggling recently with where the place of Living justice in my life was coming from. I was struggling with focusing on the forms of social justice that quickly come to mind when you think of the words. I forgot about the nature of simply loving someone with all your heart and giving them your best just as Jesus did. Giving someone care and letting them know that someone believes in them. Right now I am living justice through basketball, or so I hope I am. Through believing in these boys and offering them an opportunity to learn and to believe in themselves and to see that anything is possible if they want it bad enough. Making the difference in just one person’s life. This is a ministry, a calling and we are blessed. I am blessed to be a witness!!! I don’t know if this is simplifying justice too much or if is me struggling to put it into action, but I struggle daily with the restructuring of the things and words that I once knew! God has brought me here and shattered a lot of what I thought to be one way and just as the Eucharist is, our lives are blessed, broken and shared. I hope that I may take this brokenness, put it together and attempt to come to an understanding of what it is that I can share with the world! Hopefully I am doing so!