Losing Games, Winning Perspective
A movie appeared on a large screen to introduce the fundraising crowd to the Grace Academy graduates: there was Thiri, the youngster from Burma who we took in on some days when she knew maybe 10 English words, who had so many double dribbles this year but never stopped hustling, and Zaire, who had little control over where she was running on the soccer field this fall, but somehow channeled that into a pair of steals in our first tie ever in school history. Then there was Jessica “Jess” – quiet at times, not athletically gifted, but had a smile stretching from Main Street to Mystic. She’s also the girl who always dribbled into the corner just like I told her not to, the kid who didn’t once look up when she had the ball but put it all out there even in defeat.
She was always the last to go home after practice and the one who always picked up the balls and put them in the mesh bag after games, and said “thank you coach.” And it was Jess, on this giant movie screen, being asked about the one thing she’ll take with her from her three years here at Grace and all her experiences in and out of the classroom, all her academic and music lessons. This kid, whose teams at times left the court so many points down you wondered how or why they showed up at practice the next day in that damp basement gym on Main Street; the kid whose mom and dad raised a great kid and just couldn’t afford signing her up for a youth league when she was in elementary school. It was this eighth grader, who doesn’t have a drawer of YMCA shirts or medals or trophies like so many kids do – who this fall will walk the halls at Ethel Walker High School. Jess turns to the interviewer on the movie screen and says to the camera, “Something I’ll take with me? You know I never had a chance to play sports as a kid…and Grace gave me a chance.”
Jessica was my 2 guard this year on a 1 and 11 team, my middie on a 2-3 soccer team but she didn’t talk about losing, she didn’t talk about the reality that she probably won’t make the varsity high school basketball team but as she said to that movie camera, she was given a chance. Perspective is a funny thing – some of us don’t have it, some of us don’t want it, and some aspire our whole lives to attain it. I suppose we could all use a good dose of it from time to time. For me, as a coach of a losing team, I got my perspective when I heard this quiet, brave 14 year old’s words on that big movie screen.