Giving Chance a Chance
Before my freshman year of high school, I wrote on a small piece of notebook paper, “1. Go to State. 2. Be an All-Stater. 3. Get a full ride.” Then I ripped it from its spiral wiring and taped it--curly edges and all-- to the inside back of my royal blue locker. Those were what I wanted more than anything. So every day during my freshman year when I would go to my locker to gather my books and supplies for first hour, I’d read, “1. Go to State. 2. Be an All-Stater. 3.Get a Full Ride.” When the bell rang at the close of class, I’d return to my cubby and read, “1. Go to State. 2. Be an All-Stater. 3. Get a Full Ride.” Six times a day for the 181 days of our school year, my eyes told my brain and my body what to do.
When pick-your-locker day arrived for sophomore year, I transferred the “to- do list” to its new metal home in an adjacent hall where six times a day for nine more months, my decisions were governed by the homemade billboard: “1. Go to State. 2. Be an All-Stater. 3. Get a Full Ride.”
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That dilapidated piece of paper traveled on with me to my junior hallway, and then to its final destination senior year. It became the GPS for how I spent my high school days. For four years, when my friends went to the Dairy Queen for lunch, I stayed in the gym where I could consume a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and make 200 free throws before afternoon classes resumed. Saturday mornings were reserved for workouts, as was Sunday after church, evenings after track practice, and gaps in between homework and rehearsing for the school play. My evenings and weekends were scheduled end to end.
I had things to do.
In the summer of 1983, my teammates and I went out the back of the gymnasium and boarded a big yellow bus with blue and white streamers taped to the mirrors, chalky white shoe polish on the windows, and Lady Bulldog goodie bags in every seat. We pulled around to the front of the school where the entire student body was on the lawn. The band was playing the fight song as our classmates clapped in rhythm while cheerleaders pulsed enormous pompoms in the air. At the stop sign, we took a left toward Main Street where business owners and members of the community armed with cowbells and good-luck signs lined the street. “GO DOGS!” bounced back and forth in the rearview mirror escorting us out of town.
Anybody who would have wanted to could have stolen Healdton that day because “closed” signs were in the store windows and the streets were empty. Everybody within shouting distance had gone to the State Tournament in Oklahoma City to watch their girls play ball.
Two weeks later, I got up at five in the morning with no alarm clock needed for rousing, pulled a coat on over my pajamas, slipped into a pair of tennis shoes, and drove to Mom’s Minit Mart to buy a Daily Oklahoman newspaper. It was Sunday, the day the high school girls’ All-State team would be announced. Biting the inside of my bottom lip, I carefully unfolded the sections on the living room floor, pulling the cold crisp pages apart until I found the “SPORTS.”
And there it was. Small West Squad. My name. My picture.
Two down, one to go.
Three weeks later I signed a letter of intent to attend Oklahoma Christian College on a full basketball scholarship. A spring of validation for years of dreaming big.
I don’t know why I decided to write down my goals, much less put them in a place where I could read them every day. But that raggedy piece of paper in the back of my locker became my rudder. It pushed me toward where I wanted to go while steering me away from where I didn’t. So much of accomplishing anything is remembering what you want.
Looking back though, I’m amazed at all I never considered.
It never crossed my mind that so much of my being able to reach my goals would be outside of my control. I never thought about potential injuries—my own or my teammates’. I never thought about how random plays—both ours and our opponents’—could influence the outcome of games…how one made free-throw here or one missed lay-up there could have sent our season in an entirely different direction than it went. And I never considered how an entirely different direction would not only have impacted goal number one, but also the probability of numbers two and three. Without our team’s success, I never would have been named to the All-State squad. And without being named to the All-State squad, I probably would never have received a college scholarship. One had to happen so the other had a chance and randomness was everywhere.
I think I thought I was in charge of it all.
Ludicrous. I know.
That fringy piece of paper taped to the back of my locker was not responsible for what came to fruition. But neither was it a coincidental aside. Without it there’s no way what happened happens. The faded, tattered scrawl carried no promises, nor did it have the power to change the winds of fate, but what it did was birth a process that put me in the ready position to snag what was up for grabs.
Day after day after day of remembering what you want gives randomness a chance to matter. That in and of itself is fantastic news. But the even better news is that the side benefits far outlive whatever we might get for our toil.
I wish I’d held on to that janky piece of paper. If I had, I’d put it in a frame. Not as a badge representing what I chased down and was fortunate enough to catch but more as a reminder of the breezy winds of happenstance that sometimes do and sometimes don’t get in the way.