Root for Your Home Team!

I am a University of Kansas men's basketball fan. I can chant "rock chalk" with the best of them. This is one of my favorite times of year...March Madness, baby!

It helps that I love basketball and that at one time...when my body was in an entirely different form and much, much younger...actually played a fair amount of hoops myself. Oh...and it really helps that I'm a Kansan. And that I have a son attending the institution. Very few of you care about any of this, so I'll quickly transition. But, first let me say, if you are a Kansan and you have ever been to Allen Fieldhouse for a game...you would have to agree that there is at least one moment (most often during the chant) when you look at those around you who don't hail from the Wheat State...and feel great pity.

Everybody has something they root for. It doesn't even have to be a traditional team or sport. It can be for your favorite TV show to return to the fall lineup, it can be for your child to make the honor roll, it can be for your company to surpass projected sales. It can even be for your friends to gain weight. Oh, come on! Some of you root for that - and you and I know it!

One thing we did from the time our boys were very small was the Weaver Chant. Seriously. This first took place when our oldest was two and our middle was an infant. My husband would belt out, "Give me a 'W'!...give me an 'E'!..." - you get the picture. The two-year-old would shout back the letters at the top of his little lungs. It was one of the most exciting times of his day and we dared not miss this evening ritual. I remember when we brought our youngest home form the hospital and the two older boys were four and two. The oldest said, "You know what I'm 'cited 'bout, Mommy? I'm so 'cited the baby gets to do the Weaver Chant!"

You see, we really tried to instill in our boys from a very young age that we were a family with a name we could be proud of...and therefore one we needed to strive to represent well. Are we perfect? No way. But, that pride the boys could grasp onto was balanced by the reminder that they (and their parents)needed to "represent." I'm a Weaver...it will only be something to be proud of as long as I live a life that strives to give those around me something to be proud of. Especially God.

We will never achieve perfection. We will fail. Miserably. We can never live lives completely worthy of what our ancestors sacrificed for us and worked so hard for us to have what we have today. We can't ever live lives anywhere near worthy of what God has done for us. But, could we at least try to live our lives as if we could? Just as a way of saying, "Thanks!"?

So, cheer loud, be proud, live well!! Come on! Give me a...(insert your family name here...)

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