When I was in 7th Grade I played on the Harrisburg Junior High basketball team. I was little--not very physically mature at all--and this was the time of life that many of the other 7th and 8th graders were much bigger, stronger, and faster than me. The way they had it set up was that the first few practices were tryouts and the top players were put on the 'A' team while the rest played on the 'B' team.

Like I said, I was little, and evidently not particularly effective amongst the bigger players, so I played mostly on the 'B' team, though I dressed for the 'A' team. Harrisburg is a 2A school, and the king of our junior high league was Junction City, a 3A school. Our coaches had dreams of beating them, of course, and I remember one game against them in particular.

I was completely intimidated by one of the 8th-graders, and pretty scared of playing in the 'A' game. In this game against Junction City, we quickly fell behind. All of the sudden, the assistant coach points at me and motions for me to go to the scorer's table.

He said, "If we're going to beat these guys, we're going to do it with quickness and speed."

He erroneously thought that since I was small, I must be quick and fast. I wasn't either, really, and besides that I was scared stiff. I got in there, and we ran our offense, which included a pass to me. I quickly passed back to the point guard and that was that. I was completely ineffective.

Why? I had ability, though I wasn't as big and fast as most of the other players. But that's happened before, where the little guy can be effective despite his size. What was wrong with me?

I was scared, man. Totally freaked out. I didn't want to make a mistake, I felt in way over my head, I just wanted to get in, not make a fool of myself, and get out. I really would rather have not played. This is an awful mindset, certainly not one that will render a person effective.

If there's a point to this, it's that you've got to get your head and heart right before you can do much of value.