Confidence vs. Arrogance

I have thoroughly enjoyed my first season coaching at The Delmarva Christian High School. We had a few races where we fielded a complete team with 5 runners, but we’ll end the season at the State Meet with 3 runners (due to injury and sickness), all freshmen: Aaron, Jeremy and Jordan. Hopefully they learned as much from me as I learned from them.

I’d like to think I was a good runner in both high school and in college. But coaching these young men made me go back to basics, and I’d like to think it made me appreciate the sport even more. It made me realize that every athlete has to start their training at some time. When starting, Jeremy couldn’t even run 2 miles without stopping, and now he races 3 miles, has run 5 miles and even finished first on the team at one race this year. Aaron is athletic and even with asthma finished every race and also finished first on the team in a race or two. Jordan is also a beginner to running and he’ll be playing lacrosse in the spring, but he had the fastest times on the team and will most likely finish as the teams #1 runner. My congratulations and appreciation to each of them. Even though they were beginners, on many workouts I didn’t pull any punches and pushed them hard.

Besides coaching taking a lot of my time, my wife Lisa and I have been busy getting ready for the birth of our 2nd daughter, Charlotte, which could be here soon, I am figuring on the 15th (one day after the state meet if I’m able to attend the race). Excited – yes, fearful – yes but happy beyond any words – also YES.

Football is in full stride now and the playoff picture is beginning to take shape. I still stand by my earlier prediction of Colts over the Saints. Though injuries are mounting for the Colts. Keep you eyes on Pittsburgh and Cincinnati. And My Redskins… ugh… anyone seen the combine schedule yet?

Even though busy, we did have time to watch the World Series. While not the biggest of baseball fans, I did enjoy the Phillies this year, but I will tell you (and ask anyone that knows me), I did call the Yankees to win in 6. But even then, I have to admire Cliff Lee.

I can’t remember the exact quote, and I don’t have enough time to research it, but I can tell you what really hit me during an interview after the masterpiece he pitched in Game 1. When asked if he was nervous, he stated “No, I wasn’t nervous. I’ve been preparing for this my whole life, so I just went out and let my talent and my skills take care of everything else.” WOW…. What a statement. Read into it what you will and some reported it as cocky and arrogant while some reported it as strong and confident. Me? I’d be one to refer to it as strong confidence. Because yes, he has prepared for it his whole life and yes, he does have both talent and skill (as evidenced by his Cy Young award while pitching for the Cleveland Indians). So how did he top that? He went out and pitched another gem in Game 5.

But, the Phillies did spoil us this year. Last year, 2008, was exciting almost from Opening Day and even back into Spring Training when you could tell that The Phillies were a special team. So then they go into the post season and win the World Series and the newspapers carried the stories until December and the television replayed the season’s highlights at least that long. Then going into 2009, Phillies fans were geared up all through winter into Spring Training again right up to the first pitch on Opening Day. And then 7 months of Phillies baseball. But now it’s November 2009 and they’ve just lost the World Series to The Evil Empire….. now what? For the better part of 19 months, we’ve heard Phillies Phillies Phillies…. What now. Now that the ride is over and they didn’t win it all will we still see them on the first page of every sports section around here? Who knows.

One of my favorite books in The Bible is Galatians and Pastor Tim of my church, Milton Wesleyan, touched on this a week ago. Galatians 5:7-9 tell us “You were running a good race. Who cut in on you and kept you from obeying the truth? That kind of persuasion does not come from the one who calls you. “A little yeast works through the whole batch of dough”. Further, verses 25-26 tells us: Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit. Let us not become conceited, provoking and envying each other.

As a Christian, I feel it my duty to share with others my faith rather than to condemn others for their lack of faith. I’d like to think that Jesus knew me even when I didn’t know Him and whether I knew it or not, He didn’t give up on me, not once. Was Jesus confident on the cross? Absolutely. Jesus had confidence and strength in God, Our Heavenly Father, just as Jesus has confidence in you and in me.

So, when I share my faith with you, you can call me arrogant or you can call me confident – either way, I’m okay with that.

Preparation with His Playbook

Preparation

In order to be completely successfully, one must prepare. I think running and racing is just like any other sport in that you have to prepare yourself for what you can do and you also have to prepare yourself for what your competitor might do.

There are many things you can’t control as an athlete. Outdoors you can’t control the weather, it might rain or be windy or brutal cold. Like I tell the runners I coach, there is nothing you can do about that, just deal with it. The weather affects you the same as it does a competitor. Let the competitor worry about the weather, you worry about yourself and your race.

Ezekiel 38:7-9 tell us, “Get ready, be prepared, you and all the hordes gathered about you, and take command of them. After many days you will be called to arms. In future years you will invade a land that has recovered from war, whose people were gathered from many nations to the mountains of Israel, which had long been desolate. They had been brought out from the nations and now all of them live in safety. You and all your troops and the many nations with you will go up, advancing like a storm; you will be like a cloud covering the land.

While a high school football game is not at all to be compared to a Biblical battle, one can also see that in life, as in a football game, one must prepare.

Cape Henlopen High School won its first game this past weekend, beating Poly Tech 20-13 and giving Coach Ott his first win as head coach. His first year as head coach is of course full of second guessing and arm-chair quarterbacking as many will attempt to do his job better than he.

I asked Coach Tom Ott what went into his preparation before the Poly Tech game. For a Friday night game, the staff started on Sunday night to review the other team’s game film and begin putting a plan together. Coach Ott had been able to see Poly Tech play against Delcastle a few weeks earlier, which gave him an indication as to team size and speed. After breaking down the film and getting a game plan, they have to give it to the kids, so they give the players dvd’s and papers on the opponent.

As to Poly Tech, Coach Ott found that he might be able to run the ball on them, which accounted for 2 of the 3 touchdowns scored. A successful run also might pull the linebackers, who are focusing on the run, and set up a few passes, one of which resulted in the third touchdown, a 22 yarder. While the run was effective, the option didn’t work as planned as the players either missed or didn’t execute a blocking assignment.

Defensively, Cape did give up some long drives, but did hold Poly Tech short on 3 goal-line stops, which was the deciding factor in the game.

Football isn’t just about which team has the better players. Remember the Superbowl of 2008 when the New York Giants beat the New England Patriots? The Patriots were still undefeated and looking forward to the perfect season. In my opinion, they took the Giants too lightly, they were just expecting to show up and have the Giants lay down. But the Giants were patient; they stuck with what worked and played them physical, which not many teams tried to do that year.

By planning ahead against Poly Tech, Coach Ott proved to his players that if you prepare and study and then stick with your plan, you can succeed. You can’t always plan on an opponent doing something, regardless of their tendencies, but you can plan for you can do and what you want to do.

Everyone’s walk is different. That’s the beauty of The Bible and about Jesus, he speaks to everyone differently and in their own way, all we have to do is listen. Plan for success, because certainly God has a plan for each of us. The Bible is a great playbook, in it you’ll find strategies, comfort and encouragement.

It’s not just the final score. (Introducing our new Local Sports Writer)

Retired from competitive racing, but still holding onto the hopes that my body might miraculous heal itself from all the injuries that running and racing for over 12 years put my body through, I think I have enjoyed coaching successful runners almost as much as racing myself.

1 CORINTHIANS 9:24-27 Do you know that in a race all runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize. Everyone that competes in the games goes into strict training. They do it to get a crown that will not last; but we do it to get a crown that will last forever. Therefore I do not run like a man running aimlessly; I do not feel like a man beating the air. No, I beat my body and make it my slave so that after I preach to others, I myself will not be disqualified for the prize.

It wasn’t until later in life that I found that scripture, but for my life, truer words could not have been written. Sometimes you read The Bible and you think, “Wow, how in the world did God know that?”, but then you pause and once again think, “Oh yeah… God knows everything….”.

When coaching I have had tremendous successes and a few failures. The successes at first glance are easy to identify: conference titles, state medals and the win-loss record. Failures are also easy to find: lost races we should have won, meets we should have won and runners failing to perform.

For the last four years, I’ve been coaching Track & Field at Cape Henlopen High School and we’ve had our share of ups and downs. From an undefeated season and conference champs in 2005 to a season last year where we took only 7 athletes to the state meet and only scored 2 points. But in the good years and the bad years, we’ve focused on the kids that we had and helped them get the best out of their abilities.

Most recently, I contacted the Athletic Director at The Delmarva Christian High School, Jeff Mohr (you might know him as “Moose”) about the idea of starting a cross country team at DCHS, and he has been nothing but supportive. We started out with 2 kids, then had 3. A few days later we got a 4th member of the team. While 4 was nice to have and made it easier to teach team-work with drills to go along with the work-outs, we still needed a 5th member to be able to compete as a team. Then – YEAH, a 5th member joined in late September to make the total number of runners 5 and allow us to compete as a team. So now the fun begins. So stay tuned to the wonderful and competitive world of Delaware High School Cross Country (I know, I know…. I had you at “Retired from…).

With 5 runners, we can compete as a team instead of just individuals running for a time. As a optimist I know my “team” can compete with other small schools that don’t have a talented or experienced team. But as a realist, I know we might not win any meets. But I have to make sure that I (and the kids) look beyond the win-loss record. While we might go 0-12 this year, we fielded a team and made it to the starting line at each scheduled race; that in itself is a major victory.

In the future, there will be many writings of football, baseball, basketball (college more than pro), NASCAR and loads of local stuff that you might not get from the normal sports pages. While you may disagree with me on what sports team you choose to follow and whether or not Donovan McNaab should be the quarterback on your fantasy football team, I do hope you’ll agree that there is far more to sports than a win-loss record. Many lives have been shaped and improved by their ability to use sports to develop into outstanding men and women. I still utilize today many of the skills that sports taught me: time management, goal setting, work ethic, patience, team-work, social interaction and yes, even math work to name but a few.

Jim Sumstine is a Sussex County Businessman who owns Copyright, Inc in Milton, DE.

Visit his website at http://www.copyrightinc.net/