The Georgia Bulldogs went on a rampage last night winning the national championships 65-7. I think coach Smart wanted to prove a point to the national media that they had earned the right to be there, but not by that much of a winning margin which set a record as being the largest since the playoffs began. I know coach Smart wanted to win convincingly as he was sick and tired of the media saying the Dawgs weren’t that good, but I am convinced that his intent was not to run the score up that high. This I know because I’ve seen him hold the team back a number of times in their 15 win with no loss season and he is very good friends with the TCU coach.
Even though they used their second and third string team much of the fourth quarter TCU had already lost their will to keep fighting and could not even manage to even restrain the second-string running game which was designed as a grind out the clock strategy . I felt bad for their team to get beaten so badly after working so hard against incredible odds to win the right to play in this game. I hope they will hold their heads high as they accomplished an incredible feat with their season.
As I pondered this today, I can only imagine what the TCU players might be thinking. I hope they come to realize that all of life is a series of highs and lows. They got their share of glory, especially after convincingly beating Michigan like a drum. They were on the peak before they slid into the valley. Such is life for all of us.
In my youth I was a redneck and used to have fistfights on a routine basis. Some I handily won and some I lost. One thing that was said of me was that even if I didn’t win you would know I had been there. I fought fiercely and did not give up even when it was obviously a losing battle. Later when I became a Christian, I kept that never give up attitude throughout my career and life.
I once had approximately $1 million dollars in current assets stolen from my company by my accountant and 13 employees. My company had just been reduced in size from 69 employees to 19 in three days and our offices and warehouses were virtually empty compared to their former glory. My “friends” and business acquaintances had gone with the wind, (and money), and I felt alone and betrayed. Things looked dim to say the least. The thieves had cleaned out our bank account and stolen most of our inventory. After the dust had settled, I was $289K “overdrawn” at the bank, my inventory was decimated, and I owed nearly one million dollars. I did not see how I could recover. I was getting calls from sunup to sundown every day of people threatening to sue me. My banker, attorney, and CPA all told me to just take bankruptcy and get it over with. I refused.
We had so many serious problems that it was a daily struggle just to survive and I had to be at the top of my game every single day. It took seven long years to recover from it, but recover we did and in fact grew the business into something far better than it had been.
In my memorabilia I found this melancholy poem that I had written during this time as I somberly thought of what my course of action should be:
Ode to the Entrepreneur
The clatter of an empty warehouse rings its doomful sound;
Dark and damp, baleful now with closed doors and broken windows.
Everywhere I look I see dreams unfulfilled!
Hard work is over; and so it is.
Where are the well-wishers, the friends, the admirers now?
Where did they all get off to?
Failure, the American dream will haunt you. Heartbreaking is the
crux of failure’s sting.
One must recover from such stings and fight back to the top.
I found the last line interesting as it showed that even against incredible odds, I was determined not to quit; something I have held near and dear to my heart my entire career and Christian life. Miraculously we did recover from this and avoided bankruptcy and not a single vendor ever sued us. We repaid every dime we owed and built-up cash reserves. In fact, I learned more about running a business during that period of time than at any other and I thank God to this day for this very difficult lesson.
As I looked through my folder of papers from that era, I came across a little poem that I had posted in my office that was my mantra for those seven long years of recovery. I cannot tell you how many times I must have looked at this little sign and received encouragement from it. (BTW If you have seen this poem before somewhere and notice my version is different. It was anonymous anyway and I took the liberty back then to add a verse of my own that better fit my situation.)
Don’t Quit
When things go wrong as they sometimes will,
When the road you are trudging seems all uphill,
When the funds are low and the debts are high,
And you want to smile, but you have to sigh,
When care is pressing you down a bit —
Rest if you must, but don’t you quit.
When you are worried and full of doubt,
Just remember that
Success is failure turned inside out —
So stick to the fight when you are hardest hit —
It’s when things seem worst that you
Mustn’t quit.
My hope is that the TCU players and others who feel defeated and are down will adopt this philosophy and somehow benefit from this post. It helped me enormously. Keep your head up there is always hope with Jesus Christ.
Proverbs 18:14
The spirit of a man will sustain
him in sickness,
But who can bear a
broken spirit.