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The Wonderful Journey of the U.S. Men’s Basketball Team
No comments · Posted by drjerm in Lessons Learned, Overcoming Challenges, Stories
The olympics have recently finished and I’ve been following the United States men’s basketball team for the last few years. The team won the gold medal in the Olympics this year (2008) by beating Spain. The team has done pretty well with a couple challenges in the past. Being a basketball fan, there is much interest for me in this team – they are a team of all NBA basketball players. I would like to share some things about this team that I believe are of note and may possibly be of benefit to those reading.
A Little History
Back in 1992, the Olympics began to allow NBA players to play. This led to the U.S. easily capturing the gold medal that year. In 1996 the same thing happened. In 2000, the U.S. did pretty well, but had some close calls. They only beat Lithuania by 2 points, but won the gold medal again beating France. In 2002, the U.S. began losing basketball games in international competition. In 2004, the U.S. won the bronze medal in the Olympics after losing to Argentina in the semi-finals (final four teams). The U.S. team faced much scrutiny with losing in international competition and some would say that the loosely throwing a team together of ‘NBA stars’ was no longer working.
2006 – 2008
One thing I really like is that the coach of Duke University, Mike Krzyzewski, was put in place to lead the U.S. team. If you do not know who this man is, please read about him here. He is an amazing man and a terrific basketball coach. Not only that, a team was put together with some NBA stars, and other players who filled specific roles like shooting specialists. I believe in 2006, that a team chemistry began that started to propel the U.S. forward. Even though the U.S. lost to Greece in the 2006 world championships (their only loss), I could tell that things were turning around.
Hard Work, Dedication, and Lessons Learned
You can find a series of videos entitled, ‘Road to Redemption’ about the U.S. basketball team here. I recommend watching all of them, they are very interesting. The things that stand out to me are the immense amount of time that the team is spending preparing for the Olympics. And the Oympics were just a month long or so. The players on the team all make millions of dollars and have more money than most of us could ever dream of. It would be very easy for them to not want to participate in the Olympics. Just by watching the videos, you can see the tremendous effort that the team, coaches, and other managers are putting in. How many of us, if we had millions of dollars, would still be working this hard?
I believe the U.S. learned some valuable lessons from losing in international competition for basketball. They realized that being complacent and not giving maximum effort will not yield the best results. They are realizing that hard work and dedication pays off. These are lessons that we can all learn from. Are you frustrated that things are not happening in your life? Start by getting dedicated and putting in hard work. See if things don’t start turning around eventually.
This journey of the U.S. basketball team has influenced my life. I truly am amazed by their hard work and dedication, and it is an example to me for what I should be doing in my life. Though I may never meet any of the players on the U.S. team, they have inspired me and are an example that helps me in my life.
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