By Rick Banas of senior living and assisted living provider BMA Management, Ltd.
Here is an interesting question. When you are facing adversity, what is more productive, asking “why is this happening to me” or “how am I going to deal with this?”
Father Terry Keehan (pictured top right) explored this question during the Day of Renewal on “Life, Law and Football” that I attended this past Saturday.
The program was designed for men of all faiths and hosted by the Knights of Columbus. Father Keehan, who is the Pastor of Holy Family Church in Inverness, Illinois, was one of the presenters. His ties to sports include attending the University of Nebraska Omaha on a basketball scholarship. The Mavericks qualified to play in the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament his freshmen, sophomore and junior years.
The program also featured Brandon New, head football coach for Saint Viator High School in Arlington Heights, Illinois and Bob Thomas (pictured bottom right), who was an Academic All-American at the University of Notre Dame and a placekicker for the Chicago Bears. Bob kicked the extra point that gave the 1973 Fighting Irish football team a 24-23 victory over the Alabama Crimson Tide in the Sugar Bowl and the AP National Championship. He now serves as a Supreme Court Justice in the Second District in Illinois.
All of us, Father Keehan noted, face setbacks, adversity and tragedy in our lives. They can challenge our character, damage our motivation, and force us to look at life in different ways.
The speakers illustrated the many ways that competition and playing sports provide experiences that help us in our lives and in overcoming adversity.
Among other things, sports teach us about the importance of performance, goal setting, practice, hard work, skill, passion, discipline, perseverance, concentration, mental attitude and desire.
Through sports, we learn about the importance of team work, team chemistry and everybody being on the same page. We also learn about the relationship between mental and physical toughness.
We discover what it takes to be the best and that often times you do not win on talent alone. The best teams on paper at the start of March Madness, for instance, did not compete Monday night for the NCAA Men’s Basketball Championship.
We learn that life is not fair or just, that being part of a team is not a sometimes thing and that quitting is not an option.
Personally, I never had the type of talent necessary to play high school or college sports. But boy, how I enjoyed all of the games of football, basketball and baseball I played with my brothers, cousins and friends. It didn’t matter whether we were playing in a parking lot, street, alley, driveway or field or how many of us there were. What we enjoyed was being outdoors and competing against each other.
Growing up in a family of four boys, sports also dominated our lives at the dinner table. My poor mother frequently asked if we might argue about something other than football, baseball, basketball or hockey.
As lifelong Chicago Cub fans, we certainly have experienced year upon year of setbacks. But as we learned from other diehards early on in our lives, there is always next year.
From my years of experience in working with older adults and their families and with what BMA does in our senior living and assisted living communities, there was one point made by the speakers that, in particular, caught my attention.
When it comes to overcoming adversity, they stressed the importance of camaraderie, of building relationships, of support from family and friends, of people being there to help us through times of trouble.
They also pointed out the impact of love, courage, mental attitude and spirituality.
Asking how am I going to deal with this is a much more practical question than why is this happening to me, Father Keehan pointed out. We likely will never get an answer to why.
All affordable assisted living communities managed by BMA Management, Ltd. are certified and surveyed by the Illinois Department of Healthcare and Family Services. All assisted living communities are licensed and surveyed by the Illinois Department of Public Health.
“BMA Management, Ltd. is the leading provider of assisted living in Illinois
and one of the 20 largest providers of assisted living in the United States.”
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