Risk and Gain

I have been watching the NCAA Baseball playoffs and thinking about baseball a lot. Interestingly, I don’t watch much Major League Baseball. I am just not a big pro athletics fan. Those guys get paid obscene amounts of money to perform for audiences that either pay to watch them in person or sit through endless advertisements to watch their team on television.

I love college sports, and I actively follow Mississippi State and Ole Miss. As I write this both of my teams are playing in the NCAA baseball super regionals.

Baseball was a passion during my childhood. My dad was my first coach as a nine-year old on a minor league team in the Little League program. After a year in the minors I moved up. He stayed with the minor league teams for a few more years and then moved up to Little League after I was playing in the Pony League (for 13 and 14 year-olds).

My dad was a passionate, but caring coach. He coached youth league baseball for many years, and he endeared himself to many boys. When he passed away, many of his former baseball players (now in their 60s and 70s) were at the visitation at the funeral home. I stepped into one of their small groupings, and they were talking about how much they loved my dad, Pete, and how much he had influenced their lives. What a powerful legacy Pete left behind with his baseball boys!

Since we are caring for my mother in her home during this season, I have run into some of his baseball boys in businesses around my hometown. Two of them own the farmers market and nursery in town, and I stopped to visit with one of them recently. We were sharing the story of Pete having a dilemma. Two of his pitchers lived in a nearby town, and neither had transportation to come to practice twice a week. Pete ran a route for Wonder Bread at that time, and he worked it out so that his last stop was in that small town where the two pitchers lived. He would pick them up in his bread truck at that last stop and take them to practice, and one of the parents of other players would take the boys home.

I found out years later that if the company had known that Pete was picking up those boys, or any passenger for that matter, he would have been fired. Pete took a big risk to get those boys to practice. Pete admitted to me that those boys were key to him having a successful season, so he needed them. He also told me that they needed him. Both boys came from unstable homes with challenging conditions and relationships. The highlight of the week for those two boys and my dad was the baseball practices.

I asked Pete about the risk of losing his job by picking up these boys. He responded to me, “What I gained and what those boys gained was worth the risk.”

Throughout my career I have not intentionally been careless, but I also have not shied away from risks. The one area where I have not been successful is in financial risks. I have flopped with several investments and a business venture, but I have found that some of the greatest rewards have come from taking a chance on someone or some idea or some wild strategic plan. The biggest risk is not taking any risks.

I love the anonymous proverb: “The person who does nothing does nothing.”

I like working with people who are not afraid of failure. As an old man now, people still call me for counsel, consultation and advice. Why? Definitely not because I am intelligent, but because I have made so many mistakes in my life that I have had more than a lifetime of opportunities to correct those mistakes thereby gaining experience and expertise.

How many failures have you experienced in the last year? If you are not experiencing failures of some sort, then you are probably not taking enough risks in your life.

God took the ultimate risk in sending Jesus to live on the earth. My faith in God cannot and will not exist without a little bit of risk. Go ahead. Take a risk on something or someone.