Friday, January 9, 2009

Love the Effort


Just got home from watching our girls take on one of the top teams in the area . . .WCA Knights 7 & 1. . .They battled hard and competed well for a good portion of the game, unfortunately we lost by 20 or so but I was soooooooo proud of the effort that these girls displayed on the court.

As I was driving home I told my own two boys that if they set their minds to making it a habit to work as hard as our girls' team did tonight they would experience a lot of success in the future.

In our highly competitive world it is easy to point out where the doer of deeds could have done better. Heck, if you go on line to http://www.minnesota-scores.net/ and check out the "basketball forum" you will find a number of people posting thoughts that are critical of our #2 ranked / 10 and 0 boys team.

I guess success is in the eye of the beholder but when you have a group of players who are working as hard as our two high school basketball teams are I have a hard time dealing with any negative comments.

That is why I think it is important to be your own judge of your success as an individual and as a team. Don't allow outside forces to establish you as a "success" or a "failure" because you are the only one who really knows if you have fought the good fight.

So even though the girls did not walk away with a victory tonight I still believe they were a huge success!

Bravo Girls! Bravo!

It's Not the Critic That Counts by Theodore Roosevelt

It's not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled, or when the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena; whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions and spends himself in a worth cause; who at the best, knows in the end the triumph of high achievement; and who at the worst if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory or defeat.

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