It was March 16, 1974. I was 3 days from turning eight, and a man who could jump higher than I thought men could jump was playing in a basketball game in the NCAA tournament.
His name? David Thompson. You’ll never find footage of him dunking during his career at N.C. State because he played in an era when dunks were illegal. But what you can find is footage of the time that he jumped, cartwheeled in the air, and landed on his head.
One account of that day mentioned how attendants at the hospital where Thompson was taken by ambulance stayed on the line with Walter Cronkite, the veteran anchorman. He was preparing to go live to report that the greatest player in college basketball had died.
Instead, minutes into the second half, Thompson walked back into the arena with his head heavily bandaged. The home crowd went wild, his teammates embraced him, and then they rallied to win the game as he sat watching from the bench with 16 stitches.
What I remember was seeing him back with his team, bandaged and bloodied, and it was at that moment I became a Wolfpack fan for life.
Courage tends to do that. It draws others in. It inspires mere mortals to believe that they, too, can fly a little higher, or hold on a little longer.
When they saw the courage of Peter and John and realized that they were unschooled, ordinary men, they were astonished and they took note that these men had been with Jesus. (Acts 4:13, emphasis mine)
Courage causes people to take notice, and then take action. In the story from Acts, the people made the connection between ordinary men and Jesus. Courage was the connection.
In my story of how I became a fan of the Wolfpack, I made the connection between David Thompson’s actions and the team. Again, courage was the connection.
Be strong and courageous isn’t just advice repeated to Joshua before he led the people into the promised land (that’s in Joshua 1); it’s also the call to each of us who have been with Jesus, and are being sent to the places where courage can make the difference.
