Maybe Ronald Reagan Got it Right

Tonight, I went out to Lexington to have a little break after what has been a pretty exhaustive January thus far. One of the places that I went to was a bookstore heavily visited by seminary students where I proceeded to walk to the political science section.

There I saw a copy of the Ronald Reagan Diaries, a bound collection of President Reagan’s thoughts during his eight years in office, and I decided to open it up. Determining that $35 was a little out of my price range right now for a new book, I opted to just do a little “free reading” and specifically skim to any entry on or around the date of when he was shot in 1981. I was amazed to find at the end of the entry, which had to be written days after he was shot, this line.

Whatever happens now, I owe my life to God and I will do my best to serve him.

It was the last line for that entry and perhaps the most powerful. There in those 18 words, Reagan gets it and he gets it right on the money.  (Before I proceed, I will allow my readers who are friends of the Democrats to gather their thoughts.)

The Perfect Season - Coaching as an Act of Ministry

For the past few months, I’ve served as a youth basketball coach for the local YMCA here in Kentucky. Coaching is something that I’ve always wanted to do as something to divert attention from school and work and this was really the first opportunity I had to do so.

Now, before I get into discussing the season, I should mention a fact, as I believe I have before. That is I knew nothing about how to coach basketball before the start of the season. I never played the game, on an organized team, growing up so all I knew of the sport is what I covered as a sports writer and watching it on television.  But, I enjoy it, especially on this level where at 7 and 8 the kids are starting to get that fire for competition in their belly and they are still coachable.

My team this season was the Rockets - a group of six very talented girls and boys who were a pleasure to coach. They really were. We finished the season, if scoring was kept, at 5-0-1. Today, we played a great defensive game to “win” in the fourth quarter.

I was really proud of the team and what we accomplished in growing together as the season progressed. We went from a group of players that didn’t want to play together to a team that played well as a cohesive unit - as much as one as you can at 7 and 8-years old. I told my family, when I called after the game, that I was more proud of being a coach right now with this team than I would be if WVU won a national championship in football.

I’ll let that sink in a moment.