This week we ran our first basketball camp of the summer. When we broke for lunch everyday we would go outside and eat. After lunch was over we’d come back in and get back to work. One of my coaches decided one day to do an experiment. As the kids came back in from lunch he held the door. Out of about forty two kids three of them said thank you. After we came back inside I shared our information with the kids. Most of them were in disbelief. There were some in denial, and some others that tried to say they did say thank you.
Now let me make this clear, the kids we had this week are awesome. Very respectful, hard working, and usually have great manners. But on this day maybe because the gesture was a small one they forgot to say two words that aren’t heard enough these days, thank you.
Think about the time when you let a car cut in front of you, or when you were leaving the store and you held the door for someone, did they say thank you? A better question is do you say thank you? How does it make you feel when someone doesn’t? I can honestly say one of my biggest pet peeves is someone without manners. I feel you should always acknowledge someone that does something for you.
In all aspects of life this kind gesture is taken for granted. Watch a basketball game. A player will come down and make a great pass to a teammate cutting to the basket for a dunk. The crowd is going crazy and the player that dunked the ball is waving is hands in the air and celebrating. What about the player that passed him the ball? As a coach I always want my players to acknowledge when someone gives them a good pass, or sets a good screen. In my mind the pass was just as important as the dunk, maybe even a little more, because without it the dunk would of never happened.
I was raised on thank you. If someone did something for me I was brought up to let that person know I appreciate the gesture. This could be my siblings, teachers, mom etc. It didn’t matter who it was. I don’t think people understand that saying thank you makes the person doing the gesture feel good about themselves. I read a story about a man who went to a diner and after his meal asked the waitress if he could talk to the chef. The waitress said no I’m sorry he’s busy and then asked if there’s anything she could do to help. Te man took a couple of dollars out of his pocket and said to the waitress, “could you please tell the chef this was the best meal I’ve ever had and I wanted to give him this tip to let him know that.” As the man started walking out the diner the chef came running out and told him that in all the years he’s been cooking no one has ever done that before, the chef had tears in his eyes and told the man that he made not just his day but his year. The man and chef hugged and exchanged contact information and still talk to this day.
Could you ever imagine that a couple of dollars and a thank you could affect someone’s life so deeply? The man tipping the chef had no idea what would happen he just felt in his heart he needed to do that. When I read that story it makes me feel that there’s definitely some good in humanity, it’s not all what you see or hear on the news.
This year I coached a 5th grade girls travel team. I don’t know what made me do it besides the fact that I knew a couple of the parents. Trying to get them focused every day was a job in itself, during the first couple of weeks they did more push ups than the navy seals for not paying attention but at the end of the season they were awesome to coach and worked theirs butts off every practice and every game.
At the end of the season the girls said thank you, the parents gave me and my wife some wine and I told the girls what I wanted them to work on during the summer. One of the smallest girls on my team is a girl named Grace. She is about four foot something and can’t weight that much more than eighty pounds. Grace although small in stature is an absolute warrior and not only works every day to get better, she would take on a girl twice her size if I asked her to. Throw in the fact that she’s one of the cutest kids I’ve ever seen and you would know why we love her so much.
Well Grace decided to make me a card. That alone would of been enough but the card was actually a project she did for school. It was titled “true champion”. She talked about what it meant to be a champion and said that I was her champion and hero. Now I’m not a super emotional guy but a had a knot in my throat the whole time I read her card. I was so honored by the fact she not only thought about me that way but to make a card, use it as a school project, and then give it to me meant the world to me. (she got an A+)
When I saw Grace this week I gave her a big hug and told her that her card was the best one I’ve ever gotten and I’m going to hang it up in my room. She smiled to big her little freckles looked like
M and M’s. I said thank you so much “Gracie Grace” (her nickname) and she went skipping back to her mom.
Grace made my day with one card, I might of made hers by saying how much I loved it, whose are you going to make today?
