My husband is a big college basketball fan, and the month of March is his favorite time of year! What we love most about the NCAA tournament, known as March Madness, is that ANY TEAM that makes it to the Round of 64 teams, can win the tournament. Doesn’t matter their ranking, or the conference they’ve come from, or the obstacles they’ve faced throughout the season. Truly ANY TEAM can win it all!
Every year the tournament is a veritable exposition of effort, perseverance, and grit! This year proved no different as we saw one of the wildest tournaments in recent history, which encompassed numerous incredible moments, including a rare upset of a 16-seed team beating out a number1-seed team in the first round of play!
The tournament is so full of life lessons, but one scenario caught my eye this year. Kansas State was a struggling team with a brand-new coach. But their new hire, Coach Jerome Tang, connected with and lit a fire underneath the team. The coach and players developed a special bond, and the team rose up and played their hearts out all season, ending up as a #3 seed in the tournament. They won in the first and second rounds of the tournament, and made it to the Sweet 16 and then on to the Elite 8. What a feat!
But then they faced FAU. Florida Atlantic University. An unlikely rival. The Florida Atlantic Owls were an underdog team with ZERO NCAA Tournament wins–ever. They entered the tournament as a #9 seed and it looked like the #3 ranked Kansas State team would likely overtake them handily. But despite Kansas State’s herculean efforts all season, the Florida Atlantic Owls stunned the Kansas State Wildcats with a 79-76 victory that would advance them on to the school’s first ever Final Four.
One can imagine Kansas State’s disappointment to work so hard and to come so close—within three points—of a chance at the Final Four!
I loved watching the coach of the defeated Kansas State Team. As his team made their way to the locker room after the loss, he greeted every heartbroken member of the team with a hand slap and the comment, “Head up!” He later talked to them about losses being part of life. “You can sit around and mope and cry about it, or you can really think about the love and the joy that you’ve had through the season. And winners keep their heads up! They don’t drop their heads. Our guys are not going to walk off the floor with their heads down. Tough things are going to happen in our life, and we don’t get to wallow in it. We’ve got to keep moving forward. This is more of a lesson on becoming men than it is about basketball.”
He went on to say, “Don’t misunderstand. The loss was painful to all, as it should be. This hurts right now, but I wouldn’t trade these guys for ten players, ten others, or twenty others,” Tang said. “I wouldn’t trade them for anything in the world.”
Following the loss to the Owls, Tang even went into THEIR locker room. “Y’all are the toughest son of a guns we’ve played all year long,” he told them. He congratulated them and wished them luck in the Final Four.
What a great lesson for each of us as we face personal disappointments, and also as we work with our mentees and walk with them through life’s ups and downs. Life is hard; the road is long and bumpy, but if we wallow in it, we just may miss the perspectives and the opportunities that make us stronger and better going forward. It is the losses and the disappointments that educate and motivate change in us.
One final note. As Coach Tang was preparing to lead his team into the Sweet 16 round of play, rather than doing last minute coaching preparations, he made a single phone call 30 minutes before game time. A young Kansas State student who was an avid Wildcat fan, had lost her life in a car accident less than two weeks before. Coach Tang called her parents to let them know he was thinking about them and praying for them.
There are so many lessons here that are metaphors for life that we can pass on by word, deed, and example to our mentees. ANYONE can win, no matter where you’ve been or what you’ve come from. Our connections to each other matter most. Head up. Reach outside of yourself and your own stress and pain to help another. All these are recipes for a successful and more meaningful life.