Yesterday at church, we celebrated the graduation of our high school seniors. These students were sophomores when I left for the World Race and were one of the classes that I got the closest with. One of the reasons for that was Daniel. He’s a natural athlete and during my one year of coaching football at American Christian Academy, he became my project. I saw a ton in him that went so much farther than any field he played on. It wasn’t long after I started coaching these guys that Daniel and a few of the boys started coming to our youth group. I have to admit, it was pretty tough to play both roles of varsity football coach and student pastor. Daniel helped me through it though.
At the end of Daniel’s sophomore year, I was able to go watch him help lead the varsity baseball team to a state championship. Since then, I’ve kept up with ACA athletics, but one of the first players whose stats I looked for was Daniel’s. Also since then, Daniel has had to experience a ton of change. In three seasons, he’s had three football coaches. He’s also gone through a group of youth and small group leaders as well. There aren’t many people that have to face that much change throughout high school, but I can totally sympathize with him. Despite keeping up with his athletics, Sunday was the first day I was able to see Daniel in a pretty long time.
One of the first questions I had to ask him was what it felt like to win another baseball state championship a couple of weeks earlier. When I say win, I know it was a team effort, but Daniel had to make one of the hardest (or dumbest depending on the outcome) calls any athlete could think to make. In the bottom of the last inning, down by one run, Daniel stood on second as the tying run. Oh yeah, and there were two outs. As the tying run, Daniel doesn’t see anything less than scoring as an option, so he decides to steal third. When he was called safe, it was a brilliant move, but any other outcome would’ve been on his shoulders. A few minutes later, Daniel scored, and ACA took the lead for good.
Daniel knew he was going to be safe (but who ever thinks they’ll be out?), so stealing third was as much as a guarantee as him scoring. When it gets down to it, Daniel took a huge risk and was ready for the outcome. As big of an athlete as I am, I still probably would’ve stayed on second. It has nothing to do with fear, it just has to do with practical knowledge. Nine times out of ten, that doesn’t work. But I guess the old saying was true here: big players make big plays. At times you have to be willing to risk big failures to see the big rewards.
So now, the days of high school athletics are over for Daniel, and it’s on to the next stage. He wants to play college athletics, and he probably will. The one thing he’ll have to learn that I learned the hard way is that athletics can’t define you. Daniel is a great athlete, but he’s more than that. Despite looking at all the change throughout high school, this next season of his life will bring about more change as he further defines who he is. My hope and prayer is that he will see the potential he has and continue to take those big risks even in the face of failure.
