Make Your Free Pitches!

My grandfather was a teacher and a coach. Among other sports, he coached basketball...and if I heard him say it once I heard him say it a thousand times. "You have to make your free pitches. If you make your free pitches, good things happen." It would go all over him to watch anything from a junior high game up to an NBA game and see how pitiful most of the players would be at shooting their free throws. If you don't know, a free throw is when a player is fouled and gets to shoot a couple of undefended shots from 15 feet straight in front of the goal.

If a player can average 70% on their free throws, they are said to be above average. 80% makes you a good shooter. But players spend more time trying to dunk in practice than they do practicing free throws. The result is you see lots of spectacular dunks and also lots of missed free throws when the pressure is on at the end of a game (or anywhere in a game for that matter).

We do the same thing sometimes in our lives, don't we? We spend time chasing after the spectacular instead of dealing with the fundamentals of life, and we end up like those high-flying athletes...hitting some of those spectacular dunks while regularly missing the free pitches!

The OKC Thunder have 14 wins so far this young basketball season. As a team they are averaging over 85% on their free throws. They've won at least half of those games simply by making the easy shots...the undefended free throws. You and I need to wake up every day and realize that the only way to make the spectacular count for anything is to take care of the fundamentals...the dirty work. My grandpa had it right. If you take care of your free pitches, good things will happen.

I leave you today with part of The Serenity Prayer. My prayer is that you will commit it to memory and that you will practice those free throws.

God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change;
the courage to change the things I can;
and the wisdom to know the difference.

Amen.