Not In The Boxscore
RED HOT LIFE LESSON: “A person’s character is remembered long after the boxscore is forgotten.”
In my Red Hot novel series Randy Bowman, the redheaded, red-hot-shooting basketball player, finds himself receiving more and more media attention as his high school team keeps winning its games. Despite the stories that the press like to spin, his character and integrity do not change. He treats people with respect the same way he always has; he hangs around with his neighbor, Ethan Thomas, just as he always has even though Ethan is two years younger and has no athletic skills at all; and he is just as nervous as he ever was when his girlfriend, Jenny Molson, holds his hand.
Some would say that such a fictional character is just that: fiction. Excellence and outstanding performance, they might say, change a person. When the boxscore stats seem to hint at the extraordinary talent of a person he/she gets, as my papaw would say, “a little too big for their britches!” Press clippings have a way of transforming Jimmy into “the Slam Jam Jim” and Bernice into “Ice”. Boxscore stats become more important than camaraderie.
I had a player on one of the teams I coached who would check the scorebook after each basketball team. If he hadn’t scored many points he’d mope and pout, no matter whether the team won or lost. If he scored enough points (in his opinion) he would be ecstatic…regardless of the outcome of the game. Unfortunately, the way he treated his teammates was as unpredictable as his performances. Years from now, if his teammates remember him at all, how he will be viewed will have nothing to do with his game stats.
What is remembered by those closest to the person in the boxscore is how they treat people and whether they are still interested in the going-ons of their friends like they have always been. As a good friend of mine says, “there are some players who they think their poop doesn’t stink!”
A person’s character is remembered long after the scorebook has been played in the trash can. Our culture is enamored with how many yards the quarterback passed for, or how many hits the centerfielder got. Fantasy sports participants care nothing about loyalty, truthfulness, and high morals. They simply want results. Friends, however, need people they can depend on and teammates who will listen to them when they’re having rough days.
That’s what is of utmost importance in my mind as a former player and a current coach.
Explore posts in the same categories: Novels, RED HOT Life LessonsTags: basketball fiction books, RED HOT novel series, Red Hot Series
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Words from WW Blog 
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