Have you ever been completely over your head?
When I was a high school basketball player, I closely followed the career of David Thompson. He was arguably the best college basketball player of his era. An inspiration to an elementary school kid named Michael Jordan. He was Michael Jordan before Jordan became Jordan. Thompson’s nickname was “Skywalker”. He ushered in the above the rim game. He popularized the myth of being able to take a quarter off the top of the backboard… and leave two dimes and a nickel in change. Of performing the “cradle the baby dunk”… holding a ball cradled in one arm and punching it thru the basket with the other. Winning the national championship for North Carolina State. Winning the 1973 World University Games Moscow… the year after the US was dethroned by the Soviet Union in the 1972 Olympics. It was at these games in Moscow, that David Thompson became legendary among Russians.
But in this story, there was a second David Thompson… the other David Thompson. He was a little white college student… also from North Carolina. David and a group of fellow college students were going to be studying in Moscow. This group of students played some intramural basketball for fun, but not college ball. David had an idea.. perhaps for a cultural experience, while they were in Moscow they might be able to play a friendly game against some other typical Russian students.
He wrote a polite letter to Moscow. They replied back in the affirmative, and a date was scheduled for when the students would be in the city. On the day of the friendly game, David and the other students were picked up, and driven to the gym… but it wasn’t a gym… it was an arena… a large one.
Inside waiting for them, was the Goliath Soviet team… and 12,000 fans. All to see some scrawny college kids walk in with their gym bags and sweats. A colossal case of mistaken identity. The Soviets had thought it was THE David Thompson and his teammates.
So what did the other David Thompson do? They played the game. The moral of the story being: Someday you will be in way over your head, completely out of your league… but… play the game.