Cherish the moments

Some time around 9:30 Thursday night a year of high school sports will come to an unofficial end.

The Crestview-Niceville spring football game is the last competition on the local schedule, and in reality the game is nothing more than a glorified scrimmage.

It seems fitting that the athletic year starts and ends with football as football has always been the big draw at most schools. As the old saying goes, “The two favorite sports in these parts are football and spring football.”

With spring football ending it will be time to take a deep breath and look back at the year that is drawing to an end.

If I have learned any thing at all in my 52 years of living it is time waits for no person. It doesn’t take long for the anticipated tomorrows for youth to quickly become yesterdays.

This year’s senior class members were sophomores when I accepted the job as the News Bulletin sports editor. What’s even more frightening to me is they were in the third grade with I started with Florida Freedom Newspapers at the Daily News back on Dec. 28, 2000.

I have literally watched boys and girls become young men and women before my very eyes.

Saturday marks the 34th anniversary of my high school graduation. And as is the case with most young men and women, I had great dreams of doing big things in the world.

I would write for a major newspaper and cover the Super Bowl, World Series and Southeastern Conference football and basketball. I thought maybe I would be the next great sportscaster covering those major events. I even dreamed of perhaps pastoring a large Baptist church and being a leader within the Southern Baptist Convention.

But life has a unique way of changing our dreams and perspective on things.

I have preached, and continue to do so on occasion, but only at smaller churches. I’ve worked in the sports information departments of Liberty University and the University of Tennessee, but the Daily News is the largest paper I’ve ever worked for. And recently I have had a chance to do a little radio work and it looks as if that opportunity will become more prevalent in the fall.

So as the Class of 2010 gets ready to leave the security of Baker, Crestview and Laurel Hill schools, I’d like to offer a few thoughts for students to chew on between final exams.

First of all I’d like to say success and failure are what we make of them. Many successful people become failures because of their inability to handle success. And many that would seem to be failures become successful because they refuse to accept failure as an option.

Only you can determine your own definition for success. Don’t let the world tell you that you have to make a certain amount of money or to earn a certain number of degrees to be happy.

Find what you love to do and count the cost. If you judge that cost not to be too great, follow your dream.

There are more important things in this world than having great financial wealth, but there is nothing wrong with being wealthy. In the end your greatest wealth can be measured in the people you touch.

I am blessed to write for the News Bulletin because I believe I can touch the lives of coaches, athletes and parents. I hope you know that the relationships I build every day are my greatest treasure.

It is my hope that in the days to come the Class of 2010 will be able to accumulate similar relationship treasures.