Keeping Our Eyes on the Prize

Hit the basketball court again on Sunday afternoon, as I have been doing for the past 43 years, and I got my shots going OK early, and was mainly working on the left hand shots, due to some recent arthritis in one of my right fingers…

I enjoy shooting basketball, and the theory goes, “The only way to learn and get better at something is keep on doing it”, and that has been the drill now for over four decades…

The basketball I use is a pure pedigree outdoor basketball only, and as I was putting up the shots today, the ball came off of the rim, hit the corner of the concrete basketball court, and the ball headed toward the woods, where there is a creek down below…

When you see the ball rolling away, and it appears there is a very good chance that the basketball might be on the move, and headed toward that incline that leads to the creek, you must spring into action, and make an effort to stop the ball, before it begins its downward ascension…

That is where I made my big mistake…I did not judge the velocity of the rolling basketball properly, and it was moving much faster than I anticipated..At the last minute, I made a move to stop the rolling ball, but it really seemed that I made my move way too late…

For a moment, I had taken my Eyes off of the Prize, and as a result of that ill-fated decision, my basketball was gone, and for all I knew, it had gone all the way through the thick foliage, and rolled on down the hill and hit the creek…

I reacted too slowly, and for that bad decision, by taking my Eyes off of the Prize, for just a brief instance, I now had a missing basketball, and when you shoot and study basketball as a lifetime venture, you need your best friend, to get your shots in, and now my ball was gone….

For my next move, it was time to start climbing down the steep hill, thorough all of those bushes, trees, and briars and see if I could spot my basketball down in the creekbed…I got stuck by one of those ugly black briars, and I’m sure that cut will be a nice reminder of my journey, as I tried to find my missing basketball…

So, I sort of climbed and slipped on down the steep embankment, and did my best not to fall the 10 feet or so, down into the creek…As I looked around and searched for my basketball, there was no sight of my friend…I remembered seeing another unaccounted for basketball on a bench the other day, and I began to make mental plans to pursue the possible new ownership of that wayward basketball….I was going to have to do something, because for all I could tell, this search was going nowhere, and I was getting ever so closer to the realization, that my ball was gone…

It began to become clearer and clearer that my basketball was not just missing, that sucker was LONG GONE….I found a different entry through the woods after I climbed back up that steep hill, grabbing tree limbs, and pulling myself back up the hill…As I hit that new entry through the woods, I was able to climb down the creekbed, and follow the creek to a point near where my basketball would have rolled down the hill, and into that creek….

There was no sign of the missing basketball in the creek, but I did see a soccer ball that looked like it had spent a few days/weeks/years in the creek….

So no basketball, and you have to keep telling yourself that this ball just can’t be gone, it is only lost…We have a lost ball on our hands, but the problem is, we can’t get our hands on it…

Had to make the decision to either call off the search, or give it maybe one more look-see….I went back up near the Forest Valley Basketball court, and retraced my earlier steps, and one more time, I made a move down that steep hill toward the creekbed….I studied the underbrush, and tried to spy my orange basketball, but as hard as I looked and surveyed the situation, no basketball to be seen….

My thoughts went back to the ball I had seen on that bench in my neighborhood the other day, and I started to make mental notes on putting together a game plan, where I would go by and get that ball off of that bench, on Monday…And it better be there, and there was also the matter of getting that ball pumped up to the proper air levels, and since the Omega Sports Store is shutting down/closing, I will not have my good air pump people to pump up my basketballs and footballs, in the future…

But, I also still had some optimistic blood flowing through my veins, with the exception of the blood that I had lost when the briar got me, and I truthfully knew that Al Michaels had once asked all of us, that ever-so-important question, “Do You Believe in Miracles?”…

Yes, I still do Believe in Miracles Al, and even though I did not have the services of the Wiggins Family, including Aaron Wiggins, who plays for the Oklahoma Thunder of the NBA, and there was no Josh Wiggins available, and he plays college basketball for the Fayetteville State University Broncos, and Josh is the best Creek Runner/Basketball in the Woods Finder I have ever seen, and I didn’t even have the youngest Wiggins brother, Zacch, with Zacch being the best high school basketball player currently in Guilford County, and Zacch plays for the Grimsley Whirlies, and their dad Larry Wiggins was nowhere to be seen either…They live right next door to the basketball court where I had been shooting before I lost my ball, but they were in their house, and probably watching the Heat-Celtics game…

With the outside hope of a Miracle, or maybe a Divine Intervention showing up on this Ascension Sunday, I decided to look for my basketball in the tall bushy weeds right at the edge of the woods…My first impression had always been that my ball had rolled a distance, and that it gone all the way down that hill, and into the creek…

One last look, just one more glance, and I knew it was just a chance, but maybe the ball was still to be found, and this could save the day…

Guess what???? You may not even need to guess…We should always Keep Our Eyes on the Prize…Sometimes the Prize is right before our very eyes…I made that one big last look, and as I peered into those bushy green weeds, I saw some orange…A basketball is orange, and there it was…Right before my very eyes was the Prize…

Not more than ten feet away from the edge of the concrete basketball court was my Basketball…It had not traveled several feet down the hill, and into the creek…There it was, The Prize was right before my very Eyes….The ball had only rolled around 10 feet away from the basketball court, and it had become stuck in the weeds/bushes….

So, I am telling you today, and every day, don’t give up hope…Just Keep Your Eyes on the Prize…Sometimes the Prize might be right in front of your face…

With the recovery of my basketball, I was able to get my shots in again today, and from now on, I need to continue to follow my own advice, and “Keep My Eyes on the Prize”…..

In conclusion, my basketball was not lost today, it was just missing…At times in life, we are not lost, we are just missing the key points, with one of those keynote points being, “Keep Your Eyes on the Prize”….