Fifteen years ago this week, La Roche College basketball coach Scott Lang collapsed near midcourt during an afternoon practice. He had suffered a heart attack. Despite the team trainer’s efforts to revive him, Lang died at the age of 41.
The La Roche players mourned the unexpected loss of their beloved coach. Yet, inspired by his memory, they gathered themselves, came together, and went on to deliver a season they would never forget.
Winning 16 of their next 17 games, the Redhawks closed the regular season with a remarkable 23–2 record. They followed that run by claiming the conference championship and earning the school’s first-ever NCAA tournament bid. Their emotional journey captured the hearts of sports fans everywhere.
“I think we’re all living Scott’s dream,” Mary Ellen Dickson, Lang’s mother, told CBS sports after the conference championship game. “(Making the NCAA tournament) was always his dream…I’m just so excited that we were able to experience his dream.”
I coached in the same league as Lang that year. In fact, my team lost a hard-fought buzzer beater to La Roche a few days prior to his passing. After the game, Lang sent me an email, praising my young team’s effort. He closed it with the words: “Stay blessed.”
Lang often ended his interactions with those familiar words, which were later added to the wall above the entrance to the La Roche court that now bears his name.
I’ve thought a lot about the expression “stay blessed” over the years and how it connects to the art of being a good teammate. In many ways, good teammates are simply individuals who know how to stay blessed.
We’re all blessed in some way. Our blessings may look different—supportive people in our lives, opportunities we’ve been given, lessons learned through hardship, or simply the gift of another day—but they’re always present.
Blessed is a mindset—a learned way of thinking. Like any mindset, it can be reshaped, replaced, or even undone, for better or worse. In that sense, it is possible to become “unblessed.”
Team members become willfully “un-blessed” when they:
- Act entitled
- Behave selfishly
- Think narrow-mindedly
- Take people for granted
- React jealously
- Live in denial
- Refuse help
- Lose track of their priorities
Want to be better teammate? Avoid these pitfalls. In other words, stay blessed.
As always…Good teammates care. Good teammates share. Good teammates listen. Go be a good teammate.
