"Impossible is Nothing"

Definitions of impossible on the Web:

not capable of occurring or being accomplished or dealt with; "an impossible dream"; "an impossible situation"

totally unlikely

something that cannot be done; "his assignment verged on the impossible"

"Impossible Is Nothing"

As a fan and a player I've been apart of some amazing sporting events that most people would have told you were "impossible" growing up playing AAU basketball we were fairly competitive and won a lot of tournaments around Whatcom county and occasionally down in Seattle and across the mountains in Eastern Washington. Being part of a team where something "impossible" is achieved is one of the best feelings you can imagine. Every once in a while a signature win would come along and define our season, for example when we were in seventh grade we played a team called the Ice Men in the Western Washington University tournament. The Ice Men were a select team that picked kids from all over Seattle, pretty daunting task for a bunch of po-dunk kids from the small town of Ferndale. I don't know if I ever received a pep-talk that resonated more to me than this one but the only thing one of our coaches said (Scottie Locker) was, "hey boys, they're big, they're fast and they're strong... but they put their pants on one leg at a time like us, lets go out there and play our game and see what happens!" Not too lengthy of a speech but we went out and these (considerably more talented) kids got whooped but a team that purely wanted it more. This win defined our season and gave alot of us an outlook that anything can happen on any given day. We ended up beating another Seattle team the next year (The Seattle Pirates) in the championship of the same tournament to defend our title.

As a fan I've witnessed some truly remarkable upsets as well, Ferndale High Schools "impossible" run to the state championship game my senior year, does anyone realize they were picked to lose every single game in the playoffs that year? They were two or three inches from beating a top ten ranked team in the nation. I got to see UW beat third ranked USC at home (I rushed the field) and UW beating Nebraska in the Holiday bowl. All of these games were a David vs. Goliath situation and I am truly lucky to have witnessed them all.

As a coach I've been apart of a few buzzer beater victories (and losses) but I am yet to be apart of that "impossible" victory where it defines a season and for some kids shapes a lifetime. I guess my message to them would be that in order for this to happen you need to believe that you can truly do it before you can because as another great coach (my dad) once told me "if you believe you can't do something, you're right."

Moral of the Story

“It's kind of fun to do the impossible.” - Walt Disney