If there’s one thing that permeates our culture more than anything besides God and religion, it’s sports.
Any given Friday night, you’re most likely going to see me at a local high school football game. On any Saturday this fall, you’re going to find me either inside a college football stadium whether it’s in the stands, sidelines or press box or you’re going to see me watching a lot of football on TV.
If I’m doing good, I might actually be doing some housework, but when I’m watching the Auburn Tigers, I pretty much have to stop and watch. I’ve had to cut back on the nervous eating. Otherwise, my wellness coach might be getting on my case.
Thankfully, I can usually get 5,000 steps in easily if I head to the football game itself. I’ve walked as far as a mile, sometimes carrying a computer and camera bag into football stadiums.
Ole Miss has the media spoiled. They are gracious enough to let us have parking places in the deck right next to the stadium. While we can’t park right next to the stadium at Davis Wade, Mississippi State’s media relations people make the trip a lot easier by offering a golf cart shuttle.
I appreciate both of those schools accommodating us.
While I enjoy the privilege to observe local and college football teams up close, I’ve seen a number of amazing things happen over the years. And the one thing I’ve always learned by watching these teams is to never give up, and never count somebody out.
A good case and point was this week. Few gave Newton County much of a chance to beat Union. I know our picking panel picked Union across the board. In the Football Fever contest, I only recall one or two entries that picked Newton County.
The Cougars didn’t listen to that. They kept fighting and wound up winning 13-0. Sure, County caught some breaks, and they could have given up when Union drove inside the red zone three times in the second half.
However, they showed character by rallying to win last week. And Union could have given up when they fell behind 13-0, but they kept fighting until the end.
That’s all you can ask your teams to do. Keep fighting and don’t give up.
And that’s a lesson we can all be reminded of. When life gets tough, keep going. When the chips are stacked against you, keep fighting.
If a business failed, learn from your mistakes and try again. If you get fired from a job, think about what went wrong, learn from it, pull yourself up and go find another job.
Many times, we allow one failure to define us, but the successful people don’t. Alabama’s Nick Saban is a master of this. He preaches to his players to focus on the here and now.
If you mess up on one play, you get back up and put it out of your mind.
And if there’s one thing Saban has been good at, it’s seizing opportunities. From the 2001 LSU team that backed into the SEC Championship after Auburn failed to lock it up late in the season to the Tide taking advantage of Ole Miss’s loss to Arkansas in 2015 to clinch the SEC West on the way to the national championship.
In both cases, those teams could have given up when the scenario looked bleak, but they didn’t and had huge successes.
Sometimes, you’re biggest successes come after a loss.
