Lisa Schroeder - The Bridge from You to Me

After dinner, I grab the laptop and go to my room.

I’ve got emails from the teams trying to recruit me, but I delete them, unread.

Coach has sent me a link, with a note:

I know I’ve told you boys to stay away from news articles and the like. That it doesn’t do you any good to be reading about what others think about you, because the most important thing is what you think of yourself. I truly believe that worrying about what other people think will only mess with your head in the worst possible way. But I’m making an exception this one time. This article is one you should read. Great game last night, Pynes. Keep it up!

Coach Sperry

I click on the link. And then I start reading.

The name of the article is THE POWER OF BELIEVING.

When I woke up yesterday morning and saw the weather report, my first thought was, “It’ll be a good night for some high school football.” But it was my second thought that surprised me: “You should go watch the Willow High Eagles play.” Why did it surprise me? Because it’s a two-hour drive from where I live, and I have my pick of at least a dozen games here in the Greater Portland area on any given Friday night during football season.

But I’d read about the accident that almost killed their guard Benjamin Lewis. And I’d read about how the team keeps fighting, week after week, to keep their playoff dreams alive. And I’d read specifically about Lewis’s best friend, Colby Pynes, and his struggle on and off the field to keep going without his friend by his side.

Something pulled me to Willow last night, and while the thought initially surprised me, I’ve learned to follow those callings. They usually happen for a reason, and I’m often rewarded in ways I don’t expect. And so it was as I found myself sitting in the bleachers at the Willow Eagles football field.

The story here is not the game, which was good, but not spectacular. The Eagles beat the Panthers, 24–17. The Eagles clearly have talent. They also have drive and ambition, and anyone watching them knows they work hard.

But it was the two words they said before they took the field that caught my attention. “I believe,” they yelled.

I turned to the person sitting next to me and asked what it was all about. The older gentleman smiled and said, “It’s the team’s motto. They carry around cards that say I BELIEVE. It’s on a sign in their locker room. And they say it before every game.”

“Are you related to one of the players?” I asked him.

He told me he was. He was Colby Pynes’s grandfather. We talked about the accident involving his best friend and how Pynes has spent every spare minute at the hospital in the weeks that have followed. “But he never let his team down,” Mr. Pynes told me. “He didn’t let anyone down.”

As I sat there, I tried to imagine what that must be like. To have your best friend and teammate suddenly ripped away from you, in the blink of an eye. I wondered where you find the strength to keep going, at the ripe young age of seventeen.

I had one more question for Mr Pynes. “Do you think those two words have helped him through this? I mean, does he truly believe?”

When Mr. Pynes looked at me this time, he had tears in his eyes. He said, “Yes. I think Colby’s learned that the most important thing is to keep the faith. To believe the impossible can become possible. Every time the Eagles win a game this season, it’s against all odds really. Hearts are broken, and anyone who has tried to play a sport, all in, with a broken heart, knows how hard it is. But that’s the thing. Every time this team wins a game, they’re reminded that anything is possible. And they realize it applies to their friend and teammate, Benny Lewis, as well. With each game, the belief grows even stronger.”

At that point, I told Mr. Pynes who I was and got his permission to quote him. On the two-hour drive home, I thought about what he’d said. And I thought about what I had witnessed on and off the field.

I’ve come to the conclusion that I saw a power last night that cannot really be described in words. The power of believing. But more than that, the power of love, for a teammate and a friend. When you combine the two, well, I’ll just say it — anything is possible. And I fully expect to see the Willow High Eagles playing in the state championship game.

I left that game last night a believer. One hundred percent.