For Love of the Game

Wow - This is the longest that I've gone without blogging. Where have I been? Good Question. On the Wednesday after Annual Conference, Caleb and I headed to Omaha, Nebraska to watch great baseball, and to follow the University of South Carolina Gamecocks. This is my fifth trip since 2002. We usually do things on the less expensive side so we usually stay at Lake Manawa Stake Park in Council Bluffs, Iowa just across the Missouri River from Omaha. Well, God bless the people up and down the Missouri because the flooding this year has been the worst in decades. Lake Manawa and it's $11 a night fees was shut down because of it. We ended up staying at the West Omaha KOA for around $30 - still better than the $375 a night accommodations near TD Ameritrade Ballpark.

Just like last year when Caleb and I said that we would stay as long as the Gamecocks did, we ended up being there for 13 nights, went through horrific storms, tense close games and watched one extraordinary play after another to see South Carolina win back to back National Championships! Wow! Man, the 13-inning marathon against Virginia and getting out of bases-loaded jams was UNBELIEVABLE! We may not have had the best of anything except what won it for us - scrappiness! These guys have grit and they love the game. College baseball is the closest thing to a true sport in my opinion. Only a handful of players get any scholarship money. Most will never play for the Big Leagues. So why do they play? They play for love of the game.

Goodness, what if everybody did what they did for the love of the game - whatever the game, the calling, the job,  the hobby. Mediocre is not USC Baseball. Mediocre doesn't make you just one of 6 teams to win back to back championships, or set a record for CWS or NCAA wins. "Medi" means "middle." "Ocre" means "mountain." Therefore, "Mediocre" means "halfway up the mountain." My Daddy would have said it another way and, boy, was he a Gamecock fan! Nobody needs to settle for mediocre. Halfway doesn't cut it! The Gamecock Baseball Team proved that ordinary can be extraordinary if  one gives their all, for love of the game! Go Gamecocks!