The great Randy Travis said it best…..
I’ve found only two things that last to the end
One is your heroes and the other your friends
Last night was something I can’t begin to put into words. I could fill this post with stories of how we got there. I could tell you the story and I have a feeling many won’t believe it. I can say that I have lived a blessed life, an unbelievable story and unscripted but I am not sure it can be captured.
So let me start here.
Many years ago I was a late bloomer. As a junior in High School, I never paid attention to basketball my entire life. I attended a drug awareness weekend for selected students one weekend and decided I liked basketball. We were on a break in the seminar so I picked up a basketball at the rec center and started shooting. I got home and told my mom “I think I want to start playing basketball.”
She said, “watch TV and learn the game.”
I became a sponge.
In November of 1985, I read an article in Sports Illustrated about this player at Georgia Tech. He was really good, he sang with his family in church, and he was a Christian. I was in the choir in high school. I was a Christian. I wanted to be good at basketball. I became an instant fan.
Fast forward to the 1986 NBA draft. My hometown Cavaliers traded for that guy I read about in Sports Illustrated. I still knew NOTHING about the game of basketball. I just knew that a guy I read about like me was now on the team that I was following from my hometown. When I listened to my AM radio and watched channel 43, I really paid attention to number 25. I read the Plain Dealer every day for updates and to see how 25 did the next day.
That guy was Mark Price.
An unbelievably long story short, last night I sat below the retired jersey in the rafters at the Cavaliers arena next to Mark Price.
Read that sentence again because, honestly, I just can’t believe it myself.
Without “fanboying” this post and taking a lot of your time, let me just tell you it was surreal. It was maybe one of the most memorable moments of my life.
Let me put this as simply as I can.
On that day when a kid in Bedford walked over to a basketball and picked it up, God knew the entire and bigger picture.
When that kid picked up a Sports Illustrated and read about this guy from Enid, Oklahoma, God knew the entire and bigger picture.
When that kid tweeted at Mark Price one day about coming on his silly Unscripted podcast, God knew the entire and bigger picture.
When Mark Price trusted that kid to launch his podcast, God knew the entire and bigger picture.
Your heroes will help you find good in yourself
Randy Travis
Your friends won’t forsake you for somebody else
They’ll both stand beside you thru thick and thru thin
And that’s how it goes with heroes and friends
God knew that hero would also one day be my friend.
Never sell God short on the bigger plan for your life.
Whatever you’re going through, walking through, and dealing with.
Trust God in the unscripted.
