Often life, and its hectic pace, requires us to slow down, and it is good.
Such was the case recently when teenage daughter’s weekend volleyball tournament had my butt parked at Eaglecrest High School in suburban Denver for the entire day. In between matches there was plenty of time to slow down a bit and read. Not surprisingly, it lead to being reminded of something important. The reminder came from a book, Getting over the Four Hurdles of Life and the remarkable story of a small-college basketball coach, Don Meyer.
The Nebraska native retired from coaching after the 2009-10 season and 38 years as head coach at Hamline, Lispcomb and Northern State (South Dakota) universities. He played college basketball at the University of Northern Colorado. The father of three retired with 923 wins, second only to Duke’s Mike Krzyzewski’s in career victories for a coach with at least one stint at an NCAA school. Meyer was a winner who liked to joke that his teams used the “f words” often. Lest anyone misunderstand, for Meyer, “f words” stood for “faith, family and friends.”
But like most, the man who won a NAIA national championship in 1986, has been forced to overcome adversity on the path to great achievement. For instance, on a September night in 2008, Meyer was driving back to Northern’s State University’s campus in Aberdeen, South Dakota when, drowsy, he dozed off. The van he was driving veered into the oncoming lane and collided head-on with an 18-wheel tractor trailer. Nobody was injured but Meyer. He suffered crushed ribs; blood flooded his chest cavity; spleen and diaphragm were destroyed and Meyer’s left leg was badly mangled.
It gets worse. During life-saving surgeries doctors discovered cancer is his liver and intestines. After one of the procedures, the Hall of Fame coach had a tube down his throat and couldn’t speak. He requested his daughter to hand him pen and paper and wrote: “When will I be able to coach again?”
Two weeks later doctors amputated the coach’s left leg below the knee. Finally, after 55 days in the hospital, Meyer returned to coaching having never missed a game despite the horrific injuries and battle with cancer. January 10, 2009, Northern State delivered its coach career win number 903, then a record.
Later that year, at the ESPY Awards, Meyer was honored for excellence and perseverance and told an adoring crowd of the great mentors he had been blessed to know over the years. One of them was former UCLA basketball coach John Wooden, considered by many the greatest coach, any sport, ever. Wooden told Meyer long ago, this about dealing with adversity: “Don’t whine, don’t complain and don’t make excuses.” Amen to that.
Meyer concluded his remarks with another gem: “I have learned from this odyssey that peace is not the absence of trouble, trial and torment, but calm in the midst of them.”
In a noisy gym, during a respite in the action, an opportunity to pause and read encouraged a simple dude from Missouri to remain calm despite what ails. I hope taking a few minutes to read this Pep Talk inspires you in a similar fashion. Troubles, trials and torments will appear, or persist, in our lives, let’s take the coach’s advice. Remain calm. It will help us play like a champion too.
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