Pregame Speech (March 2006)

Thoughts, stories, examples and ideas on challenging your team to perform at their highest level possible.

Autistic Teen's Hoop Dreams (Life lessons beyond the Wins and Losses)

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(Belated) Valentine's Day Story
By Author Unknown

John Blanchard stood up from the bench, straightened his Army uniform, and studied the crowd of people making their way through Grand Central Station. He looked for the girl whose heart he knew, but whose face he didn't, the girl with the rose. His interest in her had begun thirteen
months before in a Florida library. Taking a book off the shelf he found himself intrigued, not with the words of the book, but with the notes penciled in the margin. The soft handwriting reflected a
thoughtful soul and insightful mind. In the front of the book, he discovered the previous owner's name, Miss Hollis Maynell. With time and effort he located her address. She now lived in New York City. He wrote her a letter introducing himself and inviting her to correspond.

The next day he was shipped overseas for service in World War II. During the next year and one month the two grew to know each other through the mail. Each letter was a seed falling on a fertile heart. A romance was budding. Blanchard requested a photograph, but she refused. She felt that if he really cared, it wouldn't matter what she looked like. When the day finally came for him to return from Europe, they scheduled their first meeting - 7:00 PM at the Grand Central Station in New York. "You'll recognize me," she wrote, "by the red rose I'll be wearing on my lapel." So at 7:00 he was in the station looking for a girl whose heart he loved, but whose face he'd never seen. I'll let Mr. Blanchard tell you what happened: A young woman was coming toward me, her figure long and slim. Her blonde hair lay back in curls from her delicate ears; her eyes were blue as flowers. Her
lips and chin had a gentle firmness, and in her pale green suit she was like springtime come alive. I started toward her, entirely forgetting to notice that she was not wearing a rose. As I moved, a
small provocative smile curved her lips. "Going my way, sailor?" she murmured. Almost uncontrollably I made one step closer to her, and then I saw Hollis Maynell. She was standing almost directly behind the girl. A woman well past 40, she had graying hair tucked under a worn
hat. She was more than plump, her thick-ankled feet thrust into low-heeled shoes. The girl in the green suit was walking quickly away.

I felt as though I was split in two, so keen was my desire to follow her, and yet so deep was my longing for the woman whose spirit had truly companioned me and upheld my own. And there she stood. Her pale, plump face was gentle and sensible, her gray eyes had a warm and
kindly twinkle. I did not hesitate. My fingers gripped the small worn blue leather copy of the book that was to identify me to her. This would not be love, but it would be something precious, something perhaps even better than love, a friendship for which I had been and must ever be grateful. I squared my shoulders and saluted and held out the book to the woman, even though while I spoke I felt choked by the bitterness of my disappointment. "I'm Lieutenant John Blanchard, and you must be Miss Maynell. I am so glad you could meet me. May I take you to dinner?" The woman's face broadened into a tolerant smile. "I don't know what this is about, son," she answered, "but the young lady in the green suit who just went by, she begged me to wear this rose on
my coat. And she said if you were to ask me out to dinner, I should go and tell you that she is waiting for you in the big restaurant across the street. She said it was some kind of test!" It's not difficult to understand and admire Miss Maynell's wisdom.

The true nature of a heart is seen in its response to the unattractive. "Tell me whom you love," Houssaye wrote, "And I will tell you who you are."

Your Best Foot Forward
By H. W. Prentis, Jr. (1884-1959)

Which sounds longer to you, 569,400 hours or 65 years? They are exactly the same in length of time.

The average man spends his first eighteen years – 157,000 hours – getting an education. That leaves him 412,000 hours from age 18 to 65.

Eight hours of every day are spent in sleeping; eight hours in eating and recreation. So there is left eight hours to work each day.

One third of 412,000 hours is 134,000 hours – the number of hours a man has in which to work between the age of 18 and 65. Expressed in hours it doesn't seem a very long time, does it?

Now I am not recommending that you tick off the hours that you worked, 134,000, 133,999,133,998, etc., but I do suggest that whatever you do, you do it with all that you have in you.

If you are sleeping, sleep well.
If you are playing, play well.
If you are working, give the best that is in you, remembering that in the last analysis the real satisfaction in life come not from money and things, but from the realization of a job well done.

Therein lies the difference between the journeyman worker and a real craftsman.

QUOTES for YOUR MONTH:
"The man who views the world at 50 the same as he did at 20 has wasted 30 years of his life."
- Muhammad Ali

“Don't say you don't have enough time. You have exactly the same number of hours per day that were given to Helen Keller, Pasteur, Michaelangelo, Mother Teresa, Leonardo da Vinci,
Thomas Jefferson, and Albert Einstein.” - H. Jackson Brown

"Once you have mastered time, you will understand how true it is that most people overestimate what they can accomplish in a year -- and underestimate what they can achieve in a decade!"
- Anthony Robbins

"Every morning you are handed 24 golden hours. They are one of the few things in this world that you get free of charge. If you had all the money in the world, you couldn't buy an extra hour.
What will you do with this priceless treasure?" - Author Unknown

"Lost, yesterday, somewhere between sunrise and sunset, two golden hours, each set with sixty diamond minutes. No reward is offered for they are gone forever." - Horace Mann

"I wish I could stand on a busy corner, hat in hand, and beg people to throw me all their wasted hours." - Bernard Berenson

"Lost wealth may be replaced by industry, lost knowledge by study, lost health by temperance or medicine, but lost time is gone forever." - Samuel Smiles

"Don't be fooled by the calendar. There are only as many days in the year as you make use of.
One man gets only a week's value out of a year while another man gets a full year's value out of a week." - Charles Richards

"If you spend time getting ready to be perfect and do not start out to accomplish your dreams,
you will find out later that you could have accomplished your dream if you had just acted."
- David DeNotaris

Be The Best of Whatever You Are
By Douglas Malloch

If you can't be a pine on the top of the hill,
Be a scrub in the valley-but be
The best little scrub by the side of the rill;
Be a bush if you can't be a tree.

If you can't be a bush be a bit of the grass,
And some highway happier make;
If you can't be a muskie then just be a bass-
But the liveliest bass in the lake!

We can't all be captains, we've got to be crew,
There's something for all of us here,
There's big work to do, and there's lesser to do,
And the task you must do is the near.

If you can't be a highway then just be a trail,
If you can't be the sun be a star;
It isn't by size that you win or you fail-
Be the best of whatever you are!

Watch Your ...
By Frank Outlaw

Watch your thoughts,
for they become words.
Watch your words,
for they become actions.
Watch your actions,
for they become habits.
Watch your habits,
for they become character.
Watch your character,
for it becomes your destiny.