LIVE YOUR STORY ANY WAY YOU CAN!

If you love the NCAA tournament like I do, you probably have a myriad of reasons for this deep love. I always pull for my beloved Tarheels and love watching my favorite team. I also love finding out about the most obscure players from the smallest conferences who also overcame tremendous odds to get to this point in their life. Lately, I’ve fallen more in love with something even greater.

Ever since I started really focusing on other people’s stories, I have learned to look for the “little things.” I use this term loosely to describe anything someone does with their life to make a positive influence or create an opportunity to show care, support, love, or encouragement. The NCAA tournament certainly provides these opportunities, but it’s not just for the players on the floor.

If you watched the Abiline Christian Wildcats take down the mighty Texas Longhorns, you probably saw a lot of great plays, a high level of skill display, tons of intensity, and many “little things” that allowed this almost unknown University win a most improbable game. I wonder if you noticed anything that happened off the court of play?

Early on, I noticed the Abiline Christian bench players staying very focused and intense and cheering on their team with great passion. As the game progressed and became even more intense, I noticed one or two of these players keep up the intensity on the side lines. One player in particular, caught my eye.

Meet Paul Hiepler, number 33, a senior player who spends most of the time on the bench. In fact, his career stats look like many players pretty good game. He averaged two points as a Junior and averaged 1.7 minutes a game as a Sophomore. As a Senior, he totaled 64 minutes of game-time over 23 games, averaging less than three minutes per game. So why in the world would anyone notice Paul?

Paul never set down. From all the highlights I can watch and all the times they scanned the Wildcats bench, there was Paul, standing tall. He was coaching, cheering, jumping, screaming, boxing out with the best of them (even though he wasn’t in the game), raising his hands, moving, shaking, gasping, and always standing.

Maybe Paul’s story could or even should be overlooked. One could argue he had absolutely no effect on the game. Sure Joe Pleasant, the weakest FT shooter on the floor at the time, knocked down 2 clutch free throws with 1.2 seconds left and then stole the ball to win the game. The guards hung tough and made some great drives before this moment. The defense was absolutely incredible. The rebounding was solid, and the team made shots when they needed them most. Paul didn’t physically do any of these things. He never entered the game and will not appear on the official scorecard to show up in the history books.

Paul did live his story. He didn’t let this fact, that he is a senior benchwarmer, hold him back from living his story boldly. He embraced the opportunity to give every ounce of support he had to the team. And sure enough, when the final pass was stolen and the ball thrown high in the air, who was the first person to run and congratulate Joe? I’m pretty sure you already know the answer.

Everyone wants to be like Mike. Everyone wants to be the best basketball player on the planet, hit the game winning shot, have your name in the history books, and have your best game at the most important time. However, we can’t all have this opportunity. In the game of life, you will often get overlooked, undervalued, pushed aside, or turned away. There will be times you will find yourself sitting on the bench. It’s your choice what to do with your story at this point. You can either sit there, frustrated or angry, confused or in denial, or you can stand up. You can make a difference. You can support others, cheer for others, celebrate with others, and refuse to give up. I pray we all get to be like Mike one day in our stories, but I also pray we all get to be like Paul too. Your life impacts others in more ways than you can ever imagine. Someone needs you to be their supporter or cheerleader. Someone needs you on their team. I am confident Paul made a bigger impact on his team this year than most of us will ever realize. At the end of the day, look who got to hold the trophy with his team, smiling like he just hit the game winner after all.