It was on this day in 1982 that the NCAA Tournament championship game was being played. Georgetown vs. North Carolina. North Carolina came into the tournament with a 32-2 record while Georgetown was 30-7. Georgetown was led by 6’3” senior, Sleepy Floyd, and the 7’ future NBA star freshman, Patrick Ewing. While North Carolina had two players who averaged one to two points more than a third player, it is that third player who made history as a freshman during the tournament and would go on to NBA stardom.
“On March 29, 1982, [the] 19-year-old North Carolina freshman … made a 16-foot jump shot with 15 seconds left to give the Tar Heels a 63-62 win over Georgetown for the NCAA Tournament championship. “To tell the truth,” [the freshmen] tells reporters in New Orleans afterward, “I didn’t see it go in. I didn’t want to look.”
“Even though only a freshman, [he] showed the confidence that would be a trademark of his career. “I was thinking the game might come down to a last-second shot,” he said. “I saw myself taking it and hitting it.”1
Not bad for a kid who was cut from his high school varsity team.
The kid’s coach at Emsley A. Laney High School in Wilmington, North Carolina was Clifton “Pop” Herring. About 50 boys came out for try-outs. Herring had two things against this young man: he wasn’t very good and he was too short, standing at 5’10”. Even the kid himself, when interviewed years later admitted that he couldn’t chew gum and make a layup at the same time.
When the lists of who made the team were posted in the locker, his name wasn’t there and the young man ran home and cried in his bedroom. It wasn’t just that his name wasn’t on the list. His best friend and fellow sophomore, Leroy Smith, was 6’7” and he made the list.
Once the boy stopped crying, he developed a plan. “He picked himself up and turned the cut into motivation. “Whenever I was working out and got tired and figured I ought to stop, I’d close my eyes and see that list in the locker room without my name on it. That usually got me going again.”
“… using that sizable chip on his shoulder to his advantage, [he] spent his sophomore year as the star of the junior varsity team. He put up multiple 40-point games and attracted crowds that were unprecedented for a JV affair.
“The summer leading into his junior year, [he] began to morph. In 1979 he grew 4 inches and worked out constantly. That year he made the varsity squad and instantly became Laney High’s best player, averaging more than 20 points a game. Despite having secured his spot on the team, his work ethic didn’t drop off. His senior year he averaged a triple-double and led Laney High to a 19-4 record. He capped off his high school career in style, being named a McDonald’s All-
American.”2
By now, you’ve probably figured this out. The basketball player is none other than five-time MVP, Michael Jordan, who led the Chicago Bulls to six NBA titles. In my opinion, the GOAT.
Now, let’s talk about us for a moment. How do we handle defeats in life? Maybe we feel defeated in situations where we’ve done our very best and given our all for the Lord and it still didn’t work out. The defeat could be from falling once again to our besetting sin. It could be that we just woke up feeling defeated. Nothing happened negatively but nothing seems to be happening positively, either and we are tired of being stagnant. We feel like the basketball team who is down 30 points with a minute to go on the clock. It’s really hard to play as if you stand a chance of a comeback!
May I suggest that we face the defeats like David faced Goliath? 1 Samuel 17:45-47 says, “Then said David to the Philistine, Thou comest to me with a sword, and with a spear, and with a shield: but I come to thee in the name of the LORD of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom thou hast defied. (46) This day will the LORD deliver thee into mine hand; and I will smite thee, and take thine head from thee; and I will give the carcases of the host of the Philistines this day unto the fowls of the air, and to the wild beasts of the earth; that all the earth may know that there is a God in Israel. (47) And all this assembly shall know that the LORD saveth not with sword and spear: for the battle is the LORD’S, and he will give you into our hands.”
Giant lies, giant sins, and giant discouragements can all come tumbling down when we attack them in the name of the LORD of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel. Read those verses again and hear David’s faith pouring into the situation. We need that kind of faith as well.
It’s easier to do what Jordan did at first: sit in our room and cry about it. And, maybe this is necessary for a moment. Those tears can be cathartic if expressed the right way. But we can’t stay in that room. We have to allow the defeats to motivate us to rise above them in the strength and name of the Lord. We have to fight against those things that have caused the defeat, refusing to give in to it again.
Let’s put into practice James 4:7. “Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.”
1https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/march-29/michael-jordan-winning-shots-ncaa-tournament-north-carolina
2https://www.newsweek.com/missing-cut-382954
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