All-Church Basketball tournament — 1971
I have loved playing basketball all of my life and have spent many enjoyable hours participating in this sport. I was blessed to receive the A. Will Jones (my maternal grandfather) genes for height and athletic coordination, enabling me to be relatively adept at the sport.
One of the highlights of my basketball experiences came during the winter following my graduation from high school. Our LDS ward Explorer basketball team won the Stake championship, then the Division championship, and finally the Area crown, thus qualifying us to play in the annual All-Church Basketball Tournament held in Salt Lake City. We lost our opening game to an excellent team from California, but then played in four more games, going all the way to the Consolation Championship game. These were all wonderful experiences, but the specific experience I want to record occurred in a game we played against a team from Maplewood, Texas. We thrashed this team by the score of 63 to 36. Immediately following the game, as the members of our team were celebrating and congratulating each other, the mother of a player on the other team marched defiantly up to me and, with unmasked anger radiating from her countenance, said, “If the tables were turned and you had to travel to our city and play in our gyms and at our elevation, we would beat you just as badly as you beat us tonight, IF NOT WORSE!” I can’t remember if I responded to this woman or not, but I have reflected many times since on this experience. Some of the lessons learned from this encounter included: 1) it is so easy to turn a joyous occasion into one of unkindness and bitterness with just a few harsh or critical words 2) accepting defeat with graciousness and dignity is far more important (and difficult) than winning with exuberance 3) the challenge in life is to uplift, compliment, and build-up 4) it is easy to degrade, tear down, deflate, and criticize, yet true joy is found in congratulating and complimenting, especially when it is hard to do so.
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