Measuring The Immeasurable

If there's one thing we in Northeast Ohio can relate to and identify with, it's the role of the underdog.

We seemingly are perennial underdogs, if only in our own minds. Sometimes to our detriment. In fact, the underdog role is an inherently American one. After all, a rag-tag, not well provisioned militia defeated the British Empire to forge our nation some 230 years ago. Even though our nation has prospered beyond Adams, Jefferson, and Hancock's wildest dreams, we still hold underdogs instinctively dear.

That's why what has happened in this years NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament has captured our complete attention, if you're a fan or not. Butler University and Virginia Commonwealth University have made it all the way to the Final Four, and are in position to win a championship for every underdog that has ever dared to beg and bark. And the great thing is, all of this has virtually nothing to do with basketball.

What has captured our hearts....are their hearts. Small schools looking up at a long line of Goliath's for two weeks, in three different cities. And one-by-one BU, and VCU have picked off major program one after the other and moved on. Game after game of facing superior athletes, more heavily recruited,with better everything. Daring to stare them down, and sending them home. It's the story we as Americans and Northeast Ohioans always want to see, but never really does happen. And for them, Goliath is still ahead.

What I think we have been witnessing are not battles on the courts, but rather battles of the hearts. There is no accurate measure of the will of the heart. What we have seen is the desire to be the better than you ever dreamed you can be. To give all of yourself to a common cause shared with others of like mind. To remember that basketball and life are both teams sports. The willingness to hear you don't belong, and the savvy not to listen. And from the start, not to follow the path not set by others, but the one set out in your heart.

In honesty... teams, clubs, and individuals set out with these exact goals in all avenues of life every single day. And generally when we are out manned, out gunned and over matched by those, or by circumstances that are insurmountable, we applaud the effort and are grateful for the chance. Most of the time this is inspiring enough for others to follow and eventually try for themselves or to try again. The chance is what makes life more interesting than if there was no chance of the miraculous. OK, that was a bit spiritual, but so is the underdog. As we generally "bless him" or "bless his heart" at journeys end.

What Butler and VCU have done in a simple sporting event, should be inspiring to a whole line of underdogs, or those facing odds far larger, and more important than basketball. But the incredible journey these two teams and young men have taken is heart warming. Watching great things, happen to good kids who are achieving the miraculous.....all while going about it the right way. The only way the underdog by definition can. By reaching down and finding something deeper....than others are willing.

For when it comes to the size of the heart, you can not measure the immeasurable.