86,400

Friday was the first official day that coaches could hold practices with the girls. I was looking forward to it, so I worked out my schedule so I could be there, too. It was fun, throughout the day, to see the girls posting via Facebook and Twitter how excited they were to get back to the game they love.

During water breaks, the coaches would talk to the girls about what is expected and mindsets they should have going into this season. Coach Laux came forward with a sheet of paper that had “86,400” on it. He asked the girls what they thought it meant. One of the freshman almost immediately called out the answer.

86,400 is the number of seconds in one day. Coach wanted to be sure that the girls realized that every second is a chance to do something…a chance to work toward a goal. He reminded the girls that you can’t save those seconds. Once they are gone, they are gone.

I thought about all this while he was relating his life experience to the girls in order to encourage them to keep moving forward. Yes, he was encouraging them to work hard in soccer and do their best. But he was also, without going into a lot of detail, was encouraging them in their lives. There are people all around us…friends, family, classmates, co-workers, etc…that are impacted by  what we do. We don’t know how many sets of 86,400 we will get.

Case in point: one of my best friends had updated his Facebook tonight with something that told me he had something on his mind. I got on the phone with him to find out that while he was driving home from a day trip he took, he witnessed a horrendous accident. The thing is: he had just changed lanes on the highway when another vehicle slammed into the vehicle that took the spot he had just left. Had he stayed there, he could have been on the receiving end of that accident.

Each day we are given is a gift. We need to make a positive impact. We need to love.

And if you are member of the Lady Colts soccer team, we need to leave it all out on the field. No limits. 🙂

Thanks for reading,
Jon Cole