"I'm often asked, in fifty years of doing this, what programs work to turn around lives. In fifty years I've never seen a program turn around a life. I've seen relationships turn around lives, and I've seen love turn around lives." ~ Bill Milliken, Founder of Communities in Schools
After Senior Night last Tuesday, one player stood up in front of teammates, family members, and friends to talk about how this volleyball program has changed her life. But if asked, she'd probably agree that it's not the program, rather the people within the program who caused that change.
And those people go back a long time. I've only been here since 2008, but patterns have already started to emerge.
A freshman admires some characteristic in a senior, wanting to be just like her. The senior may not realize it, but she used to admire the same characteristic in a player before her. And that player admired it in someone before her. Players cycle through the program, but that elusive characteristic remains. What's the characteristic, and where did it come from?
My favorite book from 2016 is The Road to Character by David Brooks. A memorable quote from the book goes, "We don't become better because we acquire new information. We become better because we acquire better loves. We don't become what we know. Education is a process of love formation. When you go to school, it should offer you new things to love."
Students come to college with a lot of loves. They love their parents and the friends they left behind. They love the excitement of college life. They love the parties they can go to. Unfortunately, some students stick with only these loves for four years.
But some see their loves change. They begin to love hard work. They love seeing their teammates do well. They love learning, helping, and sacrificing. Their older loves take a back seat to these new, higher loves.
Brooks went on in The Road to Character: "The tender character-building strategy is based on the idea that we can't always resist our desires, but we can change and reorder our desires by focusing on our higher loves ... The lover wants to sacrifice, to live life as an offering."
The admirable characteristic being passed on is literally character, which has grown through our program over the last eight years. Coincidentally, it was eight years ago that we won SUNYAC's in Dods Hall. On Tuesday, November 1st at 6 p.m. we'll host another playoff game -- the quarterfinal round against Geneseo.
Thank you all for passing your character, and your love, through our program. It lives on.