Where is the Trophy Room?

An article by Matt    1 Comment

The Summer Olympics typically generate a special kind of buzz for those of us who are from Baltimore. Since 1984 the North Baltimore Aquatic Club has been producing Olympic swimmers, and Olympic champions on a regular basis. This year’s contingent included Michael Phelps and Allison Schmitt, who combined for a total of ten medals.

This afternoon I read a story from Scott Wykoff about the NBAC that left me speechless. It spoke of a BBC team visiting the club’s main facility, the Meadowbrook Aquatic Center, to do a story on the legendary club. They had hoped to film the trophy room as part of story, understandable considering they have had 36 Olympic medalists and countless other champions. The BBC crew was in for quite a surprise:

“We don’t have a trophy room,” says Cadigan. No trophy room? Just ask the folks from the BBC who showed-up at the pool here in Mount Washington last week to do a feature on the NBAC.

“They wanted to see the trophy room. We don’t have a trophy room. We don’t keep those things, says Cadigan. “We actually have them up on the EZ storage place on Old Court Road.”

I bet the folks at Storage Wars would love to get their hands on that storage unit.

“That stuff is behind us,” Cadigan shared with the crew from the BBC. “We’re always looking forward. We’re always moving forward. We’re always looking to improve on what we have done before.”

He says sure they celebrate briefly, like they’ve done over the last two weeks with Michael and Allison’s exploits in the pool in London, but then he says “The Meadowbrook Way” is to then re-set their goals and keep moving forward.

Yeah, go ahead and read that again.

The danger of being successful is that there can be a tendency to fixate on that success. In Jim Collin’s book How The Mighty Fall he calls this hubris born of success: the mindset that says “look at what I have done, I am amazing, why change?” Fortunately for swimmers like Schmitt and Phelps, “The Meadowbrook Way” insists on movement, insists on building on momentum, and insists on the humility that says “I can be better.”

There is great value in celebrating your wins as a church, but there is even greater value in re-setting our goals and moving forward as we continue to advance the Kingdom.

What is the way of YOUR church?

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