We often hear patience is a virtue. Sports, however, taught me that patience is a necessity.
    Whether it was perfecting a skill, cracking the starting lineup, or finally winning a championship title, a patient and progressive persistence is required on the field, the court, and, ultimately, life.  In this culture that increasingly expects instant gratification and automatic results, it is more important than ever to remember that many things take time, and, as Joel Embiid would say, we need to "Trust the Process."
     Jacob waited 7 years for Rachel because he loved her, and she ~ like many women I know ~ was worth it.  And with the immediacy that we almost demand and feel entitled to these days, so many things truly still are worth the wait.  Practicing patience until those things are delivered can keep us from ever giving up so that we experience them at the right moment in time.
     Some of the most successful people found that moment late in life. Vera Wang didn't embark on her design career until she was 40. Rodney Dangerfield didn't earn respect as a comedian until he was 46. Betty White didn't become the beloved icon that she is until she joined the cast of Mary Tyler Moore when she was 51. Laura Ingalls Wilder didn't publish the classic Little House series until she was 62.
     All my dad ever wanted was to be a high school teacher and head football coach. Even though he left the priesthood pursuit as a teenager, one of his former players described his 50-plus year career as a "lifelong sermon to young men."  But I remember my father telling me that, when he was serving as an assistant coach year after year as a young man, he came to believe he would never be given a head coaching position.
    In 1968, at the age of 32, he came home to my mom holding a classified section of the newspaper with a tiny ad for the head coaching position at a small Catholic school in a place called Lansdale circled.  He called, interviewed, got the job, and truly lived his dream coaching the Rare Breed for 44 years.
    His career, because it was a lifelong message of Faith, Family, Football embodied in a journey of excellence, was an immeasurable success even without a title or trophy ~ though his team had many.  But year after year, season after season, little by little, the moment every high school football coach imagines came to be.  And, after 37 years of wins, losses, ties, comebacks, heartbreaks, and championships, the Rare Breed won the Pennsylvania State Crown.
     Without a respect for patience, persistence, and "the process", it is likely this moment would have gone unknown. But at the right moment, at the right time, it happened. He was 68. And it was well worth the wait.
     
​Photo Credit: Rob Eberle
     

I was a kindergarten student when I questioned my dad...
Why is our family doing this week after week? 
His answer: "So young men get better everyday."
When I interview my father, a truly awesome coach and gamechanger to so many young men, there are many great names who flash across the 2,000 - strong Rare Breed memory: The O'Haras, Ritinis, Chip, The Collins, Wagners, Walshes, Definises...Roddys, Trotters, Algeos, Benders, Greers...Kraynaks, Lagaromisnos... more than I know. I cannot possibly list them all.
While I seek them out, these are so many men my father encourages me to interview. He loves the greats & truly talented that established the Rare Breed Tradition.
But they did not exist without the unsung, hardworking bulldogs. He gives me so many names that did not make the headlines. The ones that also clanged the weights through the coldest months of winter to be better and stronger come the hot and humid dog days of August camp.
And that is the beauty of the Rare Breed. It wasn't just built for the athletic finest.
It was built for the best of men.
Men who established goals and got after it. 
And after Football, now they have Family...and hopefully Faith.
May they continue to "Get After It!"










​

In his 36th season of coaching, my dad and his Rare Breed team had a Saturday afternoon game that, by all appearances, seemed like any regular season game.  At the old Souderton field in Pennsylvania, the young clan came up with a win that brought on a highly usual amount of spirited applause at the whistle.
Knowing we had lost several games that fall and could not have possibly made play-offs, I turned to my family and asked, "What's all the commotion?"
I was then told how the win put their record at 6-5, giving the team that had five straight losses early on a winning season.
What happened in a year's time from that moment was almost impossible ~ except that it actually happened.
Just over three months following that contest, my parents attended the funeral of one of the very first and finest Rare Breed, gone to soon from heart failure and only in his forties. Afterwards, they went directly to their family doctor, there for the annual physical. The check-up had ended but for one final question from the doctor: "Is there anything you are experiencing that you want to tell me about?"
On any other day, my dad acknowledged that he would have left that office without saying a word.
Instead, something moved him to speak just one life-saving sentence: "Well, I have been having a strange taste in my mouth."
​Within the hour, the doctor sent him to the hospital for testing and, days, later, he underwent surgery to remove five blockages to his heart.
First, he turned, as always, to God. Then, he uncharacteristically took the rest of the year off from teaching, spent it doing every single thing the doctor ordered, and recovered in time to dodge what many thought would be inevitable retirement.  That July, he was inducted into the Pennsylvania Coaches Hall of Fame in Hershey.
But the story hardly ended there.
Remember that 6-5 team that excessively celebrated its final win the season before?
Well, they and their 68 year-old coach all went back to Hershey the next season and celebrated a whole lot more.
They won the State Title.

I wasn't an All-American, did not set any records, and never earned an athletic scholarship to a college or university. But my experience in high school and college sports quite possibly, more than any other period in my life, equipped me with lessons that I carry with me to this day. From my daily work and relationships, through unexpected challenges and severe adversities, what I learned on the court and in the moments preparing for the court forever etched a belief system built to field, endure, and withstand every curve ball life throws.
  
Playing basketball, lacrosse, field hockey, and other sports was such a fun way to spend so much of my youth. Learning how to master skills, work as a team, improve weaknesses, and create memories that I will always cherish are just some of the reasons I am so fond of this time of my life.

At the time, however, I did not know that I was learning more than how to shoot a basketball or cradle a ball in my lacrosse stick.  

​Lesson number one: Always have hope.

On more than one occasion, championship games I had the pleasure of being a part of were not just intense battles for the title. They were, in fact, highly improbable comebacks ~ and these particular games are the ones that remind me to keep at it, keep going, stay strong no matter what the circumstance. Have hope.

My favorite memory took place at West Chester Stadium on May 21, 1989 ~ though I would rather forget the first half.  Our lacrosse team was playing Trenton State for the NCAA Division III National Lacrosse Championship. By halftime, our squad was down 5 to 2 to a super offensive opponent with a long history of titles.  To a team that good and on a roll, being down by 3 goals with one half to go might as well been by fifty.

The second half looked entirely different from the first for one reason alone: we didn't lose hope. We believed we could dig our way out of the situation, and, little by little, goal by goal, we did. We didn't turn on each other or hang our heads. Instead, we put our lackluster first half behind us and set our eyes on the prize we hoped for ~ and achieved it, winning 8 to 6.  I wasn't just part of a great moment for me, my sister, my team, our coaches. I was learning how to approach life ... something sports had been teaching me all along.

In my almost 50 years, I have encountered so many people who have hopeless attitudes or insist that something cannot be done. I always pray for them to find hope. Whether it is overcoming tragedy, saving a marriage, going after a dream, or sometimes just getting through the day, there is no chance unless there first is hope.  And every time we endure and prevail over any trial, big or small, we build our own character ~ and that character produces hope for every obstacle thereafter.

Back in the day, as a teen, it may have been full-field sprints at the end of practice when it felt like my legs give way. Or it may have been what looked like an inevitable loss to a powerhouse opponent. Later in life, it became six fruitless months of looking for a job, or, at one point, having only seven dollars to last three weeks somehow.

They all ended well because of one thing I learned a long time ago.

Hope.