After Florida State recently whooped the (still) National Champion Virginia Cavaliers men’s basketball team, Virginia Coach Tony Bennett had some surprising words to share about adversity. During a post-game interview, Bennett said,
“You’ve got to be thankful for what adversity teaches you and are you thankful enough and wise enough to apply it.”
Tony Bennett, UVA Men’s Basketball Coach
Thankful for adversity? This is a concept I haven’t heard much in the past 12 months of difficulty we have faced during COVID. It’s a refreshing sentiment in a culture saturated with conflict and concern. Now, I understand losing a basketball game is a far cry from losing a loved one, a job, peace of mind, food, medicine, and water. I also appreciate it might be hard to take the advice of a man who makes four million a year coaching basketball when so many now are unemployed or underemployed and worried about things more significant than a season record.
However, many of us share a fond regard for sports and the values they teach. I coach cross country, not just because I love running and get excited about teaching kids the training benefits of a tempo run, but also because athletics challenge us to grow, physically, and more importantly, mentally and emotionally. I care less if my athletes claim a title and more about how they develop as young men and women to thrive in a world that is often unfair, exhausting, and difficult. One of my favorite quotes I share with my team is:
So let’s take a look at what Bennett says about adversity and use it for inspiration as we enter the 13th month of this pandemic. Bennett’s coaching rests on five pillars: humility, passion, unity, servant hood, and thankfulness. My, what a different country we could be if we all spent more time focusing on these ideals and less time on all the other junk flying around today. Yes, we are living through difficult times, but we can learn from these challenges and become better people, if only we set our mind in the right place.
Bennett has said, “If you learn to use it right, the adversity, it will buy you a ticket to a place you could not have gone any other way.” I assume here Bennett is referring to the humiliating loss to 16 seed UMBC in the first round of the 2018 NCAA Basketball tournament. The loss brought harsh criticism and even death threats to the #1 seeded Virginia team. Bennett has often referred to that loss as a “painful gift” that forced the team to grow and propelled them to their 2019 National Championship victory.
For us, off the court, can we think of this pandemic as a “painful gift”, one that is forcing us to reevaluate how we live, what we prioritize, and how we treat each other? Can we embrace the idea that the adversity of the past several months is moving us, individually and collectively, to a place of understanding we could not have found otherwise? Life has definitely handed us adversity in COVID-19. Now, will we be thankful enough and wise enough to apply what adversity is teaching us? I certainly hope so.
What inspires you 13 months into this pandemic? Please share!
Thanks for getting inspired with me!
There is only one reason I’d like to be in Texas at the moment and it is this…
https://thebloggess.com/2021/02/22/you-deserve-a-damn-break/
Otherwise, I’m much happier in Melbourne, Australia.
Yes, words matter. They surround themselves with the power we give them and then move out to live in the Spaces and Places we build for them.
Florida State has built a large Space for racism, and to even mention their name brings them more power. Yes, words matter.
I’m sorry my words offended you.
Thanks for this. It reminds me of “Man’s Search for Meaning” by Viktor Frankl, an Austrian neurologist and psychiatrist who survived the Holocaust, who explained that meaning-making allows us to move from suffering to growth: “In some way, suffering ceases to be suffering at the moment it finds a meaning.” And: “Those who have a ‘why’ to live, can bear with almost any ‘how’.”
Wow, these are beautiful Amy. Thank you! <3