A few years back our son, so excited to be on his high school varsity basketball team in his senior year, finally explained to me what the team cheered over and over.

I’d heard it from their huddle a million times, but it was an indistinguishable, testosterone filled teenage male battle cry that came out sounding like eee–yah, yahhhh, eeeeee YAHHH!

After a two whole seasons of it I finally asked him what they were uttering so gutturally.

HARD WORK.  HARD WORK.

That was it. So loud and strong and so compelling it got lost across the court every time. But it was in their minds and hearts.

And hard work they did.  They had an undefeated season, which brought them into the state finals.  That game was hard work to watch — like a roller-coaster.  It seemed that they were afraid of the other team, or just didn’t give it their all.  Except in the last quarter, they worked and worked and got to the place where they were just one point ahead.  In the final few seconds, victory seemed theirs.  Then the other team scored a basket in literally the last two seconds and won.

After the game, with tears in their eyes, I asked the young men what happened.  My son said, “we thought the other team would be pushovers, so we didn’t try hard enough.  We didn’t work hard enough, and we lost it.”

I’ve remembered that lesson so many times, since.  Anything takes HARD WORK.  As Winston Churchill once said, “never, never, never give up.”  Keep up the HARD WORK.  Victory will be yours.