Jake's Thought for the Week

Over the past few weeks some of Jake’s Class of 2010 players made their final decision of where they will be playing college basketball. Below is a list of recent commitments. You should recognize at least one of the names. :)

Zach McCabe: University of Iowa
Dau Jok: University of Penn
Trayvonn Wright: North Dakota State
Branden Stubbs: Cedarville University
Trevor Hook: Upper Iowa University
Donivine Stuart: Bradley University
Nana Yaw Sapon-Amoah: North Dakota State
Riley Stuve: Indian Hills JC
Drew Bentley: University of Wisconsin-Platteville
Austin Hennings: Mid-America Nazarene University
Chad Malloy: Grandview College

So, Yaw has officially decided on North Dakota State! We better start shopping for a winter coat NOW! :)

And, here is Jake’s Thought for the Week – an excerpt taken from Tony Dungy’s book Uncommon: Chapter 17

Only those who dare to fail greatly can ever achieve greatly.
-Robert F. Kennedy-

I REALLY WISH I HAD learned more about failure when I was young. I didn’t realize just how often it would rear its ugly head. I saw successful people – either in their jobs, in sports, or with their families – and didn’t have much of an appreciation for the hard work and the setbacks that go along with that success. I’m often introduced today as one of only three people to win a Super Bowl as a player and as a head coach. What they don’t always say is that there were twenty-seven straight seasons that ended in disappointment between those two Super Bowl wins.

The beauty of what I’ve learned through a life in sports, however, is that failure happens – regularly. And failure, as it turns out, is a constant in the human experience. I’ve also learned that if you’re afraid of failure, you won’t try to do very much. But if you’re going to chase meaningful dreams and do significant things, you have to be willing to come up short sometimes. I hope that you will fail less than I have, but even so, we all fail. Count on it. The more I learned about those people I admired for their successes, the more that I also began to admire them for the way they handled failures. Success is really a journey of persistence and perseverance in spite of failure.

In some way, failure feels like a dirty little secret because people rarely want to discuss their own failures. But in reality, we’re all wearing masks to cover our shortcomings, all thinking that the feelings of self-doubt and misgiving are ours alone. Nothing could be further from the truth; failure is part of being human.

The topic of failure belongs in the general category of facing adversity. The difference, I suppose, is that failure is viewed as a result, while adversity is seen as something you work your way through. To truly accomplish your goals, however, I think failure has to be viewed as part of the process. Thomas Edison said that he didn’t fail repeatedly; he merely found ten thousand ways not to make a lightbulb.

The journey through adversity is inevitable if we’re striving for improvement. If things are progressing smoothly, where’s the need for self-examination and growth? Why would we stop and evaluate how we could have done something better if we were always successful, always reaching the outcomes we have set our sights on? Our players lift weights constantly and have refined their bodies in the process. They have learned through adversity and failure of being beaten by someone stronger on the other side of the line that they need to improve to succeed. My Dad, the physiologist, explained to me that in weight lifting, the muscle fibers are broken down when they are stressed, which then leads to muscle growth. The same is true for other kinds of growth.

Through pressure, stress, and adversity, we are strengthened – in our character, in our faith, and in our ability to get out of bed again and give it one more try.

I was recently talking about hardships with James Brown, the studio host of the The NFL on CBS. He said that he has been called an “overnight success,” and then he shook his head and laughed. “Yeah. After the first twenty years of toiling, sure… then it was overnight.”

To me, this shows toughness. Our players so often talk about being “tough,” but I’m not sure they grasp what that truly means. Toughness is shown in how you respond to adversity. Can you respond without losing your footing and your direction? If so, that shows me that you’re tough. Life is messy. We don’t always get a happy ending, and sometimes the middle isn’t so happy either. You never really know how tough people are until they encounter the rough spots. We’re all tough when things are going our way. We’re all tough when we’re getting the breaks. That’s easy.

But the truly tough ones are the ones who stay grounded in their values and focused on their goals when things are challenging. When things in life don’t go according to plan, the tough man will exhibit a determination to reach their goals no matter the obstacles.

I try to give our players some latitude and allow them to fail so they learn to respond to problems and then grow. Toughness, even on the football field, is more appropriately thought of as mental, not physical, endurance.

People often ask the question, “Why does God allow bad things to happen to good people?” Obviously, there are no easy answers to that question. But I do know this: God is constantly working in us through it all, molding and shaping us into what He created us to be, and it’s in the valleys of our failures where He is working hardest, making us into something uncommon.

Have a Great Week!!
Jake