Day 117

I realized this happened yesterday but I forgot to write about it and it was pretty much an epic moment so it is the worth reference, even a day late.

If you don’t know, I am a cheerleader. Yesterday at a home basketball game there was a group of young kids, I would guess ages 8 to 13, sitting in the stands in matching outfits. By matching outfits I mean red OKWU t-shirts.

I noticed them at the beginning of the game and how precious they looked in their matching outfits and huge smiles. But the real story happened after the game.

When the game ended, the small children came running on to the court to greet the victorious basketball players. The little boys handed the players a sharpie and asked them to sign their shirts.

I don’t know what it is, but grown guys hanging out with little kids and obviously making their day, is maybe the most precious thing I have ever seen in my whole life! Okay, that was extremely sarcastic but it was wonderful to see.

The little boys smiled from ear to ear and I am pretty sure the little girls, who I think were in middle school, will probably never forget that moment or ever wash their t-shirts.

The kids are from the Boys and Girls Club in Bartlesville, I found out later. A friend of mine, who was in charge of the group, said that if just one of those basketball boys would come down and volunteer at the club it would probably make those kids lives, this time no exaggeration.

But the best part, for me, was the little girl with a ponytail that came up to me, handed me that sharpie, and asked me to sign her shirt. I am fairly certain that I haven’t been that excited very many times in my life. Feeling like a celebrity, I signed her shirt, glad that I had spent my entire 6^th grade year practicing my signature, though, back then; the last name varied.

I spent the next 20 minutes signing shirts and smiling all the while. It reminded me of being young and watching those people you look up to with no hindrance. You don’t know who they, where they’ve been, or where they came from, all you know is for an hour a week, at a basketball game, they make you proud to have known them at all.

It reminded me that there is more to basketball, and for me, more to cheerleading, than just the sport, and yes I know, most people don’t think cheerleading is really a sport. Often times, we as humans are just too self-centered. We think the games we play and the things we do are just about us. But that isn’t true. They can also be about that little kid in the stands, who one day will make it to the NBA because he watched you play basketball.

So don’t forget, in whatever you do, it’s not always about you, actually, it rarely should be.

“Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others.”

Philippians 2:3-4