If You Woke Up This Morning, You Received A Gift

     This past Friday, Missy and I traveled to Amelia, Virginia to pick up our nephew's daughter Ivy. Ivy is like a granddaughter to us and we enjoy every minute we get to spend with her. She is a sweet, compassionate, young lady and her energy and love of life puts a smile on our faces the moment we see her! Sadly in a week or so we will make a return trip back up Interstate 81 and deliver Ivy back to her family and mark our calendar for the next opportunity to spend some time with our little package of light.
     Just as we were leaving town for Virginia, Missy and I picked up a local radio station where the host of the morning show was posing the "almost impossible trivia question" of the day. His question to the listening audience was "What is the one thing that will put someone in a bad mood as soon as you get out of bed?" As I drove down the road listening to the incoming caller's guesses I just couldn't quit thinking that this is a trick question. Seriously, if some of the things that people were suggesting as the answer to this question were the correct answer then it is no wonder that we have so much road rage, depression, and disconnection with life. Things like no coffee made, alarm didn't work, have to go to work, headache, car wouldn't start, car had a flat tire, the guesses went on and on. These minuscule offerings, petty as they were, put my mind to work. Over the last few years I have learned a great deal about being thankful and grateful in any and all settings that I have found myself. Have to go to work? Be thankful you have a job. Car has a flat tire? Be thankful you have a spare tire. Maybe your car won't start, you can still be thankful you have a car. You wake up with a backache, neck ache, headache, or any other type of body ache, guess what, you woke up and you are able to get up out of bed. See where this is headed? You get to make the choice, Hateful or grateful?
     The concept to grasp with today's FTM is that you have been given a gift, it's call today. What you do, how you react to it, how you commit to the day are all choices that you will have to make. Sadly for some the day will pass with many disappointments and not much joy. I on the other hand have decided just as Joshua did in Joshua 24:15 as he proclaimed, "This is the day that the Lord hath made I will rejoice and be glad in it." Armed with the resolve to make the most of the day how could you wind up in a bad mood? But if you do land in bad mood country don't take up residence there, take the opportunity to have your pity party for a few minutes and then go about the business of thinking about how grateful you should be for all you do have.
     Next week we will dig deeper into the different ways people accept the gift of "today". So until we meet again, choose to rejoice in the moment and be thankful for the day you have been given! Oh yeah, as we traveled up the road and curiously waited on the proposed answer to the almost impossible trivia question we eventually out distanced the radio station's coverage area. Just as I hypothesized I guess, there isn't anything that will put me in a bad mood first thing in the morning or any other time of the day for that matter. Enjoy your day! Coach Carter

Falling Apart or Falling Into Place??

     The other day I was listening to the words of a song by Casting Crowns entitled "Just Be Held" in which the lyrics create a play on words that really grabbed my attention and drives home a valid point for today's FTM. The song  encourages us with the following revelation, "Your world's not falling apart it's falling into place, so stop holding on and just be held!" Wow, what an awesome perspective to have and to find comfort in during life's storms. When the day is going to "chaos" level or your  personal life seems to be spinning out of control, you can stop, take a deep breath, reflect on the situation and realize that we can actually take something very important away from what is happening right now. Hard times, stressed relationships, stretched schedules, sicknesses in your family, and yes even tragedy may seem like a downward spiral that has no hope of ending with a positive outcome, but I want to encourage you to look up when you feel down. Understand that what we may view as a storm, may actually be the nourishment for that seed you have planted and you have just got to nurture and prune a little more to allow the fruit to be produced. What an awesome lesson to teach those we live with, work with, children, and most importantly to learn ourselves. When we feel like things are falling apart how powerful it is to step back from the situation and put things into the perspective that somehow, someway, this is all going to be part of the plan! So don't just hold on, just be held! For I am the LORD your God who takes hold of your right hand and says to you, Do not fear; I will help you. Isaiah 41:13
     This may sound simplistic, but my friend it is that simple. When you feel like the world is crashing in all around you, remember God is in charge, He is there in the storm with you, and He will give you the strength to see things through, you just have to hold on, and have faith that He can and He will.

The Importance of Learning to Fail

     In last week's Flat Tire Ministries Thought we looked at the whole idea of taking and accepting responsibility for the outcomes in athletics and effectually in life. Far too many people spend their condolences from a loss attempting to place the blame on someone else for the loss rather than look for the opportunity to grow from the experience, which ultimately should be our goal for our children, athletes, students, and ourselves.
     Why is it that we are always looking for someone else to blame when it comes to personal defeat? Why do we seek to blame the referee for the loss due to his or her bad calls? Why do we console our children with ideas like the only reason you got beat is because the other team cheated? My studies, and my own experiences have led me to the belief that as a society we do not want our children to experience defeat. We want everything in life to be in their favor. We want everyone to get a trophy for participating. Today's FTM stresses the point that not everyone gets a trophy in life and the lessons we learn from our failures are critical stepping stones to becoming men and women of character.
     Being a coach is so much more than trying to go undefeated and winning championships. I was reminded of this fact earlier this week when a former student/athlete of mine posted a comment about something I used to tell our wrestlers in practice. In regards to winning championships I would always tell the kids that "if we take care of business, business will take care of itself." Well my application of this life lesson in my coaching stuck around in Cody's mind because now almost 20 years later, Cody is applying that lesson we learned in wrestling to his own personal business experience as he reminds himself each day the importance of doing things the right way and getting back up on your feet when you fall down. That is the purpose of athletics, to teach life lessons that will turn young men and women into great leaders, business owners, parents, and spouses, not to tell everyone on my team how great they are and how they should never get beat unless someone cheats them out of it!
      I often use an analogy of a baby learning to walk to the efforts of an athlete to learn a new skill or move in my coaching. You see a baby doesn't stand to her feet and take off across the room the first time an attempt to walk is made. Instead each time she stands up and plops down on her Pampered bottom, she gets back up and equipped with a little more knowledge about why that didn't work and educated a little more about what needs to be done differently to avoid that same plop, she takes a couple more steps towards the apple of her eye on the coffee table across the way. That's how we learn. Or maybe I should say that is how we should want our children, students, and athletes to learn. If every time we fall down or fail to win a competition, or we aren't successful in attempting a move or a specific technique we give up and quit or even worse make excuses and remove ourselves from the equation we lose, we fail, and we are defeated.
     Think about it, the lesson is in the loss. We teach our students in school, they practice what we teach them, some level of success should be reached, but perfection is not the goal because we are still learning, we reteach and practice some more, we apply it to real life situations, and then we eventually assess the lesson learned to see if we learned anything along the way. Well if you are a parent that believes your child should never bring home anything but straight "A's" on their grade card you may want to rethink that, because they may need to be challenged more to stretch their minds to it's fullest capacity. And the same holds true in athletics, if you win every time you compete you probably need to play some tougher competition.
     What you have to understand is that we learn from our mistakes in life. Believe me when I tell you I have gained an additional degree in learning from my mistakes in life. The author of the Book of James in the Bible explained it like this in James 1:2-3 Count it all joy when you face trials, because the testing of your faith produces perseverance. We have to teach our children that it isn't the gold medal that we want them to win, it's the effort it takes to win the gold medal that will see them down the road when life presents them with challenges and trials of all kinds. We have to teach them to get back up when they get knocked down. We have to teach them that if you really want that trophy, you're going to have to work really hard to get it, not just show up. Just as Paul taught the Christians in Corinth you have to train to win the race regardless of whether you win every race every time. The training you are doing is so that when it is your time to shine you will be ready to go for it! That's my paraphrase of 1 Corinthians 9:24-27.
     You have to start somewhere. We don't want to beat down the confidence of our children, students, or athletes but we don't need to build them up to a place where they can't see the benefits of learning from a loss either. Instill perseverance because it builds character as Romans 5:3-5 points out, We can rejoice, too, when we run into problems and trials, for we know that they help us develop endurance. And endurance develops strength of character, and character strengthens our confident hope of salvation. And this hope will not lead to disappointment.
The lesson is in the struggle not always in the victory! Enjoy your week and do something amazing!
Coach Carter

Whose Fault Is It Anyway?

     I have been involved in athletics for around forty years starting out as a little league right fielder ( baseball wasn't my strong suit), participating in wrestling and cross country in high school, and then as a coach for the majority of my life, approximately thirty-one years. What time I wasn't directly "in the game" I have been a spectator at athletic competitions on all levels, pee-wee through professional, developmental and competitive and in almost every setting possible. There is a common theme that pervades the outcome of competitions when the score on the scoreboard doesn't necessarily go in favor of our team. In too many instances the "blame" for a loss sits directly in the lap of the referee or the scandalous techniques of the other team that cheated their way to victory. My proposal today is that we all sit back and reflect on what we are teaching our children and others when we point the finger of blame in the direction of someone else in these game like situations? Is this the proper approach to teach personal accountability and responsibility? In my mind it is directly counter intuitive to what we should desire for those that are learning how to conduct themselves from our words and actions.
     I distinctly remember an elementary school ball game where a parent had to be escorted out of the gym because he was almost in a rage over what he perceived as a number of "bad" calls that were being made against his child's team. After the game was over, which our team won by the way, it is almost certain that if you had walked up to this athletic team supporter ( the word supporter is being used loosely) and asked him why his child's team lost that game the response would emphatically be that "the referees lost that game for them ". I feel it is pertinent that I impart a little of my own disclaimer at this point.
      I have stepped into the other side of that equation over the last few years and donned the whistle and stripped shirt of a referee. I will be the first to admit I have botched some calls and probably some that were made at game point in the third set that ended one team's comeback and sealed the deal for the winning team. At no point have I ever intentionally made a call or missed a call in an effort to help or hurt a team. Refereeing is hard and if you want a better appreciation for the job that a referee does sign up to become one and see how the shirt feels on the other side! Enuf said. Back to today's FTM.
     The mentality that any victory is directly related to our efforts and abilities, while any loss is adversely directly related to the calls that the referee made or didn't make, or even worse creating a scenario where the other team "cheated" to win is a treacherous road to travel when molding mindsets for life whether it be our children or our "fan base". Personal responsibility or accountability has always been a teaching point for me as a coach both to my athletes and to my athlete's parents. I won't allow my kids to blame the referee for a loss due to what is perceived to be a bad call or several bad calls. I tell them that if that one call or if one person not playing the game controlled the outcome of the game then we didn't do our job of taking care of business. One play or person could not have beaten us. We are responsible for the outcome of the game, match, or results. One of the most important skills we can foster in sports and in life is personal accountability.
     There's an old saying about pointing a finger at someone else that when we do so there are three fingers pointing back at us. When accountability is accepted and expected the outcome becomes so different. Instead of just looking at the end result we each can look at and analyze our input in comparison to the output at the end of the day. To teach this life skill to our children in athletics or in any other area of life we have to model it just as we model our expectations in other areas of our daily walk. Working hard in practice, focusing on the task at hand, being persistent in our efforts, and learning from mistakes instead of making excuses for them are all contributing factors in learning to be accountable. If we teach our proteges to take ownership of their education, their game, their mistakes, or their own efforts, and we teach them to give credit to others for the team effort win or lose we are taking steps toward teaching them to take personal responsibility for their own journey in life.  If parents, coaches, teachers, politicians, and others in leadership roles step up to set high expectations, coupled with an emphasis on teaching personal accountability for those they are leading the end result will be success without a doubt! The score on the scoreboard may tell who won the game, but the score doesn't show the real winner, that  comes later in life! Teach' em to own it! Good or bad it's theirs and they are responsible for what they do with it!
Have a great week!