I am so pleased that a “good guy”… a “team player”… a godly, Christian man who loves his wife and daughter was selected as the MVP of the NBA this season!!! When I heard the words in Curry’s recent interview that, “the Holy Spirit is moving through our locker room” I was thrilled. He is an extraordinary young man. And to think that my Hokies didn’t even think he warranted a B-ball scholarship! He wanted to play there like his dad but… wellllllll, a stupid decision on their part.
I saw an ad in SI last night from a sports apparel company congratulationg Stephen for his award. The statement in the ad grabbed my attention. It encapsulates a thought— a concept— that I’ve wanted to state to my players any number of times. It just never crystallized in my head like I wanted it to. When I read what was written in the ad, it was an epiphany for me. It doesn’t say that these are Stephen’s words (a quote from him) but that doesn’t matter. If you know the road he’s traveled to get to the pinnacle he’s on now, you know this is Stephen Curry’s philosophy.
“When nothing seems to help. I go and look at a stonecutter hammering away at his rock perhaps a hundred times without so much as a crack showing in it. Yet at the hundred and first blow it will split in two, and I know it was not that blow that did it, but all that had gone before.” WOW!!!
Every rep in the weight room. Every sprint on the practice field. Every hit and drive of that 7 man sled. Every block; every tackle; every snap of the ball during a game… they all build to that “tipping point”— where the rock breaks in two.
If the stonecutter had walked away in frustration on the 100th hit of the hammer, think of how close he was to achieving his goal!!! Just one more… just one more!!! I’ve ssaid it before and it’s soooooo true: Philippeans 3:13 exhorts us to, “press on toward the goal to win the prize.” Press on…. just one more try! Never give up; never give in.
