Underdog...

I'm sure there will be plenty of reaction over Duke's National Championship win available for your viewing pleasure in cyberspace and rightfully so. There will be those Duke haters out there (you can probably include me) that will whine and complain about the game. The truth is, this was supposed to happen. Duke is the big bad wolf of the college basketball world. And this year, they huffed and puffed and blew Butler's National Championship hopes down the drain.

Now I am not nearly the athlete I would like to be (or even the one I think I am in my head), but I do try to get out there from time to time to hoop it up among other things. Sometimes at the gym there are clearly former high school basketball players and guys that are just plain athletically superior to me: larger, faster, stronger, etc. Against a lot of players, I wouldn't be the favorite to win. (I will sometimes even voice that opinion to my teammates if I happen to know them.) But I never let that get in the way of trying my absolute hardest to compete anyway.

Playing the role of underdog is a tough thing. The whole world is against you. Sometimes You are fighting against yourself. You can do everything possible to win, and it may not be enough. And that is the worst feeling in the world one can have in my opinion. Scratching and clawing and fighting your way to the top only to be denied when you're within a few steps of the top. I wonder how all of those people that train months and months on end to scale Mount Everest feel if they make it to the last base camp and then can't go on and must choose between life (giving up) and death (when they may not even make it to the top). I would be completely devastated. Not sure if I could ever get over that...

The truth is if you don't try and quit before the game begins, the favorite, the Big Bad Wolf has already won the game. If you don't put on your climbing gear and try to climb Mount Everest, the mountain has already won. If I don't put on my shoes and get out on the court, the bigger, stronger, faster players have already won. While the majority of the pressure of the situation lies with the favorite, the underdog must accept his share of the pressure as well.

I absolutely detest losing with a fiery passion of 1000 inflamed arrows flying in the air, but what I can't stand even more is a lack of effort, a lack of trying, giving up before the battle begins. I want people to say that I gave my best effort, my everything, to whatever I do. I want to scratch and claw so much that my nail are worn down to the bone from all the effort I have given. That is going to take a lot of scratching, so I better get started...