Athletes - Push For Change

Over the past couple of months, I have been tasked with doing research on hopefulness and formulating a stance on the argument that Americans undergo an moral reconciliation or spiritual reassessment due to an inherent need for hope. I started by looking at what exactly was hope and how do you, if even possible, measure hope? From there I looked at various examples of individuals who were at some point in time at a low but through reconciliation or reassessment, rose up from that low. Through this research I learned a few things about moral reconciliation and spiritual reassessment and I felt were important takeaways:

1.      Hope, whether you believe in the future outcome or not, is good to have:

By maintaining hope in a low point in your life, and just telling yourself that you’re capable of seizing or reaching that desirable outcome, actually seeing that through becomes a lot easier. I was able to learn this lesson through an article I found while doing research regarding hopefulness. The article was about a NCAA Men’s Basketball player on Duke University’s team. The player’s name is Grayson Allen, and over the last couple of years he has developed a track record for poor conduct on the court. Game after game, Allen would trip other players and take cheap shots, and people took notice. The wrong people. Sports Analysts began to question whether Allen could handle playing at the next level in the NBA. Grayson Allen realized this, and in the summer going into his senior campaign, he underwent some moral reconciliation. In an interview from, The Fayetteville Observer, Grayson stated, “I’ve been here (at Duke) every summer going back to my sophomore year. It was relaxing to get off campus, spend time with my family, explore Chicago with Brennan and get completely away from basketball. It re-energized me.” Allen also mentioned how he was not expecting to have a comeback during his senior season but he just wanted to be a winner. Allen’s moral reconciliation that he went through during the off-season and the hope that he retained going into his senior season allowed him to have a pretty solid season and help his team, of mostly freshman, make it to the Elite 8 in this year’s March Madness tournament.

2.      Hope is not something that you have to wear on your sleeve:

In life, there is going to be people who will prey on others’ weaknesses and shortcomings. They may even try to prey on the hope of others to make it out of a situation that they are currently in. In other words, there are haters out there. Regardless of these “haters” that doesn’t mean that somebody shouldn’t have hope because they fear these people that may prey on them. The solution to this when you just can not find the resilience to ignore the “haters” is to keep hope in your heart, not on your sleeve. In a collection of essays that I read from activist, W.E.B. Du Bois, titled The Souls of Black Folk, I witnessed a prime example of what it really means to have to keep your hope in you heart and not keep it on your sleeve. Du Bois describes the event where when he was invited to dinner by the commissioner, who was white, after he had proposed the idea o of starting a school. When it came time to eat, Du Bois had to eat alone and not in the presence of the commissioner and the other white man who was present. The two were unable to see Du Bois as an equal even though he was just trying to start a school like the white man. It can be reasonably inferred that in this instance and in many more, Du Bois went through various moral reconciliations and spiritual reassessments, thinking that if he changed who he was, then maybe he would one day be seen as an equal of white people. Regardless, one thing is for certain, and it is that Du Bois definitely had an inherent need for hope that things would get better even though there would be no overnight change. Obviously, Du Bois didn’t just walk around with his hope for change on his sleeve, so that the opposition of the civil rights movement could take it from him. He kept it in his heart. Also, it is clear that Du Bois’s place for his hope ended up working out as he would go on to continue to fight for the equal rights of blacks and eventually founding the Niagara Movement, a civil rights organization.

3.      You can’t really put a numerical value on hope:

Khalida Popal defied the Taliban and risked her life to play soccer

Khalida Popal was at the top of her game in Afghanistan. She became the captain of Afghanistan’s women’s national team and was competing on the international field.

Popal was the public face of her team, which did not go over well with ultra-conservative people of her country. She faced criticism, including from people who labeled women soccer players as prostitutes. But that only made Popal more determined to play the sport. So she and some friends practiced on a NATO base, and eventually played matches against neighboring country’s in Kabul’s Ghazi Stadium.

But the hate over Popal’s love for soccer, which she calls football, in keeping with international standards, turned even more violent and included death threats against Popal’s family. She fled the country, eventually making her way to Denmark where she received asylum. Popal spoke with Marco Werman of The World about her experience and her journey.