As another demonstration of the adversity I've been dealing with, I said I'd write another post last weekend, and I didn't get the opportunity. That's how it's been...not that that's a bad thing.
So last time I talked about my son's trip to Children's Hospital for surgery, and how that experience gave me some perspective as I pondered the conditions of so many others connected to that place. This time I want to talk about adversity in general. I've had a lot of adversity over the past couple of years, and it has intensified to a great degree over the past few months. It has been a time of great lessons about life and about myself. A few weeks back I put together a post that lamented the direction my life has taken, along with the general lack of "breaks" I've gotten. I spoke of how everyone needs breaks. In fact, I mentioned specifically one of my favorite topics in lighter posts, the Oklahoma Sooners football team; at the time, they didn't seem to be getting many breaks, either.
Well, here we are today...and both the Sooners and I have learned a lot about ourselves and how to deal with adversity. I know it's a bizarre thing to talk about, because sports seems so far away, so insignificant when compared to the serious issues of life. But those of you who discount sports or call them superfluous or meaningless, take note: this season for the Oklahoma Sooners demonstrates exactly why sports are NOT superfluous or meaningless. As I grew up playing baseball, along with various other sports, I always was told that sports are important for teaching perseverance, teamwork, courage, sportsmanship, and fair play, while still providing an outlet for a competitive spirit (which anyone who knows me well will tell you that I have in spades, even today). Some of those things I learned, and some I didn't. But sometimes, things happen in sports that demonstrate how those values are still ingrained in those who participate.
Let's talk again about the Sooners. After what seemed to be a doomed season, filled with all manner of hardships, my team triumphed. Not just a small triumph, either. After dismissing Rhett Bomar, the quarterback of the future at OU...after the Oregon rip-off...after a tough loss to Texas...after losing all-world running back Adrian Peterson the next week to a freak hard-luck collarbone injury against Iowa State...the Sooners kept fighting. "No excuses," said head coach Bob Stoops.
There weren't any. OU kept winning. The week after losing Adrian Peterson, they stomped Colorado at home. OK, no big deal; after all, lots of teams stomped Colorado this year. Then, OU went to Columbia to play Missouri, a team most figured would win the Big 12 North. OU won pretty handily, 26-10. Next week: Texas A&M, AT COLLEGE STATION. College Station is widely acknowledged by football coaches who know, to be one of the most difficult places to play in the entire sport. OU ignored the fact that they didn't have their star running back, and they left their passing game behind, with backup running back Allan Patrick running for 173 yards and a touchdown. OU fought hard, with the pivotal signature play being Bob Stoops' call to go for it on 4th and short, late in the 4th quarter and deep in their own territory. OU quarterback Paul Thompson (himself an example of the sort of class, leadership, and strength that sports can teach and demonstrate) snuck his way to the first down, and OU held on for the 17-16 win. The next week, OU came back from an first-half 24-10 deficit to defeat Texas Tech and avenge last year's travesty in a game I actually attended with my parents and sister. (That game took my consecutive-seasons-of-attending-at-least-one-OU-game-in-person to eight...we're 6-2 during that time in games I've attended.) Next up was Baylor at home, a team on the rise, but no match as usual for OU; the Sooners put the Bears away, 36-10.
At this point, everyone knew that OU had had a good season. They rebounded well from all the troubles of the first half of the season to go on a 6-win streak. They showed amazing talent, grit, determination, and guts to win those games, including some tough ones on the road. But everyone had pretty much given up on the hopes of more. With Texas cruising, and only games against a rebuilding Kansas State team, and against Texas A&M in Austin remaining on their slate, winning the Big 12 South and a trip to the Big 12 Championship game were out of the question; there was NO WAY Texas would collapse and lose those last two games to allow OU to win the South. We knew OU was going to a bowl, but at that point the most relevant question was if that bowl would be the Gator Bowl or the Cotton Bowl, with the slightly-lower-tier Holiday Bowl also a possibility. This was the way things were going into the Texas Tech game.
Then God smiled down on OU. He decided in His infinite wisdom that OU and its fans had had enough. Enough difficulty, dating all the way back to the Orange Bowl debacle in January 2005. Texas lost to Kansas State (I remember vividly listening to the game on a very distant AM station on the way home with my parents) in an upset for which "stunning" was not hyperbole. Texas' starting QB was injured in that game. But with two weeks to prepare and rest up for Texas A&M, and with that game at Texas, we were not hopeful. Again, God smiled on the Sooners, as Texas A&M held on for an amazing 12-7 victory. OU had its chance. OU still had to beat a difficult Oklahoma State team, in Stillwater, to overtake Texas and win the Big 12 North. In a very difficult game that came down to the wire, OU beat OSU 27-21. OU had won the Big 12 South. The next week OU won a convincing victory against Nebraska to win the Big 12 Championship and earn an invitation to the Fiesta Bowl, part of the BCS bowl rotation. Hope and strength, tempered by adversity, had won out again.
So where am I going with all of this? Who cares about football? Some of you are asking (and you know who you are), "who cares about OU football?" You might not understand if you're not an OU fan, or if you're not experiencing your own set of turmoils, trials, and tribulations. In many ways, OU's football fortunes over the past few years have been an analogue for my own fortunes. We have had numerous setbacks over the past few years, and in roughly the same time period. Things started to get really difficult for both of us in early 2005. OU lost big to USC in the national championship game. I started having more serious financial difficulties. In the 2005 season, OU lost four games, the most it has lost in a season since 1998. I was fighting for parenting time, dealing with more financial difficulties when I could no longer teach regularly, and was struggling to find a good spot in my career. Then this year, more of the same for both of us.
But they kept fighting. Bob Stoops kept his players working hard. He refused to make excuses. He refused to get upset about things he couldn't control. He refused to let his players give up hope. Most importantly, he kept his players progressing, working hard and moving forward in a positive, constructive way. In the end, they were rewarded. We all were rewarded. All the adversity and heartache didn't matter; things happen, and you deal with it and keep moving forward!
I don't know if I've mentioned this but a lot of things in my life, not only OU football, have been pointing me in this direction for the past several months. On a wall somewhere, I saw a poster that had a version of a well-known quote. I've seen versions of the quote attributed to Irving Berlin, Stephen Covey, and some even just anonymous. It goes something like this: "Life is 10 percent what happens to you and 90 percent how you react to what happens to you." I thought about that a lot when I read it, and I realized it's completely true. You can't always control what happens to you, but you can absolutely control how you react, and that can make all the difference. This is so important in handling adversity properly, and it seems so simple, yet it is so difficult in practice.
I've talked a lot about maintaining a positive attitude. When I moved out, that was my #1 goal. Over time, it has proved harder than I ever expected. Ultimately, that positive attitude is about a lot of things. It's about faith that God will continue to be with me, to strengthen and guide me, and to bless me and my loved ones. It's about dealing with fear, the fear that things will get worse or that I won't be able to handle them. It's about hope, remembering that these things will not kill me, and if they do, well, as Paul said, "for me to live is Christ, to die is gain." I wrote many, many months back, much earlier in the process, about Horatio G. Spafford, who wrote my all-time favorite hymn, "It Is Well With My Soul." It amazes me to read that story, or to hear it, and marvel at how he was able to overcome that horrible tragedy with his faith. It is an inspiration. I've seen a lot of inspiration lately. I'm hoping that my life starts to become more like the Sooners' season...they fought hard, and now they're being rewarded. I'm not down or done, by any means. I'm still fighting, and I know I'll win.
More again very soon (I'm not teaching any more...WOO HOO!!!). Thanks for reading along.
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