Hey! Read This!

When we started this blog, the idea was for me to write something short and “just say what’s on my mind.” Luckily, I think most of the things on my mind were put there by others, people who are in the business of noticing and celebrating this world. In a way, then, perhaps this blog could be titled, “Hey! Read This!”

Here’s another entry into that canon.

I think most people know that I love sports—watching them, participating in them, thinking about them, reading about them. I love competition and I love seeing people accomplish things physically that they (and we) didn’t think possible. At a time when so much seems out of our control, and downright scary, sports are reassuring in multiple ways. They have rules and they regularly achieve transcendence. They remind us of the extraordinary power of the human spirit, they prove that teamwork is essential, and they allow us to experience a huge range of emotions. 

Much of my regular sports news comes from “The Athletic Pulse” (a daily New York Timesnewsletter), whose writers keep track of everything from physical feats to business deals. I love seeing the reports of games they highlight. So it was a special surprise to me to read about Joe Ingles, the Australian small forward for the Minnesota Timberwolves, who is coming to the end of a very successful basketball career but has not started an NBA game in over three years and has played very little for the Timberwolves in his time with them. Two weeks ago, however, coach Chris Finch decided to start him, even though, as writer John Krawczynski notes, “the Wolves had lost two straight games and were 1 1/2 games behind the Warriors for the coveted No. 6 seed…and the Wolves had some mojo to rediscover.” 

The decision was based entirely on making it possible for Ingles’ autistic son to see his father play in person. Ingles’ son had, just the previous night and for first time, sat through an entire live basketball game, but his father had not played at all. This night would be the family’s last chance for a long time to see Joe play in person, and Finch decided not only to play him, but to start him, with all the fanfare that accompanies such a decision. 

It wasn’t a brilliant performance, but that didn’t matter. Ingles played more minutes than he ever had with the Timberwolves, got an assist and—most importantly—played for his son. On top of that, the entire team was united in the commitment to this decision, regardless of what the statistics said about Joe as a player or the team’s need to win this one.

So, here’s the “Hey! Read this!” moment. I see wonderful, inspiring moments every day at Winsor, times when students or faculty and staff do delightful, surprising, or just ordinarily wonderful things. It is the special privilege of being in a school that we are witness to human greatness every single day. But rarely do we see the machinery of something as large and business-oriented as the NBA simply stop, to make a difference in one small person’s life, regardless of what else might be happening at the moment.  

The Wolves won that game 134–93, an ending that might inspire us to interpret Coach Finch’s decision as being “right” because it brought the team together and closer to their playoff goals. But it was “right” without that ending, and precisely because his decision couldn’t possibly have been expected to lead to such an outcome. It was simply a wonderful choice, to prioritize an extraordinary human moment over the big, complex, and expensive world of professional basketball. 

I try always to make the best decisions I can, for individuals and for the larger school. It is not at all easy, as we all know in our lives, to determine what is truly “right.” I think, as you read this article, you will see why and how starting Joe Ingles was “right” and I hope you, like me, can keep it in your heart as a guide for holding our values central to our actions, and above all for taking care of others.

P.S. In addition to my recommendation to read something, I’d like to add a “Hey! Listen to this!” to today’s blog installment: The Winsor Wire. Launched today, it’s Winsor’s official student-led podcast, founded by Winsor’s Podcast Club. With a focus on bringing members of the Winsor community together through storytelling, it’s yet another thing worth noticing and celebrating.