Tenacity: The Deep Well Within Us

Are you aware of anything that you are really, really bad at?  I am asking you to think back over your life to a challenge, project, relationship or job that just was not your thing.

For me, it was high school football.

In 1970, my family lived in Lawton, Oklahoma.  My Dad had just returned from Vietnam and was stationed at Fort Sill.  As a 6’4” 245 lbs. freshman, everyone wanted me to play football.  I had just started at MacArthur High School (which was brand new) and so I joined the team. 

Having spent the last three years in Germany playing soccer (Football to them) I was not very familiar with the rules of American Football, so my first month of two-a-day summer practices was a constant reminder of my own ignorance.   In spite of the never-ending stream of verbal abuse that rained down on me every day – I persisted until I finally understood what was going on.

My next challenge was to try and decipher what all of the X’s and O’s meant in the playbooks.  Since I had no experience with the game, it took another month to figure out just exactly where my position (right tackle) appeared on the diagrams.  This journey of exploration invited further comments focused on my lack of intelligence and a continuing barrage of insults questioning my linage.

By the time the first season rolled around, it became clear that even though I now understood the rules and plays, I was simply slow. But this did not stop my coach from trying to encourage me.  He was fond of saying, “Ford, you run faster than any fat kid I have ever seen”.  Talk about a backhanded compliment!

As the season came and went, I found myself spending two hours every afternoon at practice holding the tackling dummy while the starting players devised new and creative ways to miss it and hit me.  I played a total of three quarters that year, always at the end of games when we were at least forty points ahead and the other team had given up all hope.

Seasons two and three were carbon copies of the first.  But through every single game, in spite of cold and miserable weather, my Dad came to every game (even though he knew I would not play).  It was his encouragement that kept me from giving up.

At the end of our third season, the team had won all of its games and we were scheduled to play in the Class 1A state championship game in Davis, Oklahoma.  But there was a problem.  Being a new school with no booster club – we had no money to pay for the bus to get us there. The coaches got together and organized a “Chili Supper” to raise money. 

What happened next taught me my first real lesson about the power of tenacity.

The head coach gathered up the 8 of us players that were either third or fourth string guys.  He set us down in the locker room and said; “Boys, we are going to have a chili supper to raise money for the bus to Davis.  The tickets are $2.00 each.  Whichever one of you sells the most tickets – I will make him a Letterman this year”

I could not believe my own ears.  Here I was with a total of three quarters played this year (it took a minimum of 12 to letter) and I was being given a shot at my own letter jacket.  At that moment I committed myself to the task of selling more tickets than anyone else.  

For the next week, I spent every spare minute I had going door-to-door peddling my tickets.  We were in the middle of a cold spell and on two of the days the temperature was in the mid-teens with sleet coming down.  When folks opened their doors, I guess I looked so pitiful that they just could not help but buy some tickets (in the hope that I would not die right there on their doorstep).

Sure enough, when the time came to tally up the ticket sales, I had sold over $800 worth, while my nearest competitor had only sold $200.  I had finally earned my letter jacket!  

I share this story with you to make a point.  

Often, we discover our true gifts and abilities in the midst of our greatest challenges and disappointments.  Tenacity is the fuel that allows us to keep moving through life when it seems we will never find the right fit. 

Tenacity is sometimes all we have when there are no new ideas or answers to move us forward.  It is unexplainably supported by those around us who love us for who we are not simply for what we do.  For me, that person was my Dad.

Tenacity is a deep well within each of us. If we take the time to fill it with good health practices, rich relationships and challenging dreams for the future – it will always be there to sustain us as we move out of our failures into our successes.

Never give up.  I say again, never, never, never give up!

Growing forward:

Take some time this week to think about the things in life that are really challenging you.  It may be a health issue, competitive pressures, finances, etc.  Choose one of these situations and really sink your teeth into it.  Determine to work through it until it is resolved.  Then use the satisfaction you get from that victory to move on to the next, less pressing issue.

Treasure this:

“Not that I have already obtained all this (Christ-likeness), or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me.  Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it.  But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.” - Philippians Chapter 3:12-14

“By perseverance, the snail reached the ark.”

Charles Haddon Spurgeon

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