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Sermon Illustrations > Commitment > Basketball Coach

Basketball Coach


Our Daily Bread, Sept.-Nov. 1997, page for October 17.

The magazine article summarized the life of a former winning NCAA basketball coach and network sports announcer. Throughout his colorful coaching career he had been obsessed with the game and with winning. But years later, stricken with cancer, he came to realize the triviality of the goods and values to which he had been passionately devoted. "You get sick and you say to yourself, &ls;Sports means nothing,' and that feels terrible."

Because he had spent little time with his wife and children, he confessed, "I figured I'd have 20 years in the big time, who knows, maybe win three national titles, then pack it in at 53 or 54 … I was going to make it all up to them, all the time I'd been away. … It sounds so silly now … But it went on and on, that insatiable desire to conquer the world." - VCG