Sanity Amid The Madness Of March

"March Madness" has many meanings. Between the lamb and lion weather-- upward springing buds followed by a thin permafrost—and a workload that was oddly up and down (sadly up on weekends), the insanity for me has been less about the NCAA men’s basketball tournament. But since that’s what the term was meant to describe, last week I was thinking about what these kids must be thinking going into games.

See, sports is what I grew up on, basketball being paramount. I remember winning a green ribbon inscribed in gold with a title that said “Most Tenacious Guard” when I was 9 years old. If you weren’t a naturally gifted beast in height or girth, the thing you had to be was good at hustle, defense and shooting. Playing with heart was where it was at and when I played, Oregon girls’ b-ball was quite good. I never made it to a Final Four in college, not even close, but there are some things athletes always carry with them, especially competitive athletes, and lately I’ve been thinking about how it behooves people in life to carry around the good things you learn from athletic experience.

With all of the bad news lately surround athletes in all sports, I think it’s a good reminder that it may behoove everyone, even the cream of the crop to read this poem and think of the advice Kipling offers.  I wish we still lived in an era in which a girl growing up could tack up her walls with posters of stand-up NBA players like Larry Bird and her parents wouldn't have to worry that next week he will have to hold a press conference.  Nobody’s perfect, but there are some good life lessons here and in this season of spring where the proverbial leaf is turned, one or two may resonate with you too.

An Aside:  For basketball lovers, particularly those who enjoyed the very special 1980's NBA era, I highly recommend the new HBO movie Magic & Bird: A Courtship of Rivals.  It's an excellent film, interviewing both of them today but filled with clips and highlights and other influentials in their lives.  A pleasure to watch in these maddening times!

If
by Rudyard Kipling

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowances for their doubting too;

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master,
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim,
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;

If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fool,
Or watch the things you gave you life to, broken,
And stoop and build ‘em up with worn-out tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: “Hold on!”

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings - nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And - which is more - you’ll be a Man, my son!