What is it YOU want to be? Who were you CREATED to be?

It's "bowl week" in my house - especially with the kids over with their mom across town this week, although my youngest boy would gladly be watching football with me. And amidst the "meaningless" bowl games this week, there have been some pretty interesting games. (Moment of braggadocio - I'm up in the top one percent in ESPN's 'Bowl Mania' competition picking winners. THAT is completely pointless.)

After their win in the Pinstripe Bowl yesterday (excuse me: the "New Era Pinstripe Bowl"!), Northwestern coach Pat Fitzgerald - one of the really interesting people in CFB, by the way - made a huge point of saying that the reason his team "turned things around" mid-season was that they "remembered who they are", and then he implored OTHER college football staffs to define WHO THEY ARE, meaning what their core principles are as football coaches, and stick to them. And that seems to be a refrain I've heard several times this season: be who you are and love who you be. (Um. So to speak.)

It's an interesting thought that extends beyond coaching philosophies. 

Here's an article by ESPN's Brett McMurphy about a movement within the "have-nots" of the FBS, the so called "Group of Five" conferences who are NOT part of the College Football Playoff bowl coalition, the conferences who are so unlikely to be participants in the playoff that they are thrown the bone of being guaranteed a spot in the twelve possible teams names to the "New Year's Six" for the best of their teams. It seems that some of the schools are thinking about calling a spade a spade and holding their OWN playoff for the "JV" title, as some of the dissenters are calling it. The argument boils down to those who look at the nomenclature and say that they should have just as much chance to be national champs as anyone else, versus those who look at the reality of the set-up and want to deal with that reality instead. As I said on Wednesday, the problem stems from the cross-pollenation of the Group of Five and the "Power Five", and the fact that every once in a while, the underdogs win. That's true of the FCS teams, too, but you don't see North Dakota State clamoring to play against Western Michigan for the right to go to the Cotton Bowl.

In an issue that's not nearly as unrelated as you may think, Florida State coach Jimbo Fisher makes the point that the CFP is in danger of diminishing the importance of the other bowl games to the point of their death. Ryan McGee makes some great examples of how much it matters to the New Mexicos, the Idahos, the Old Dominions, the Eastern Michigans of the world, for whom THIS is the highest level to which they can aspire. Living in Idaho, I can testify to the importance of that bowl victory for the Idaho Vandals, who hadn't even qualified for a bowl in many years. Aspire to YOUR levels of greatness. 

(And even when you're in a lower bowl than you "aspired" to, like Florida State? Well, read that article and see how meaningless it is to them.)

How does this apply to US?

I'm working on my next book today, having just finished editing "Day 0001: the Singularity and the Six-Day War" yesterday. Will it be a best seller? No. It may not even get published by anyone other than my own self-publishing set-up. But I'm proud of it, and I'm hopeful that folks like you will read it and enjoy it for a while, and just maybe it will have a small effect in your thinking. Am I a failure for not having written a brand new "Left Behind"? Lord, I hope not!

What were YOU created to be? Are you a "Power Five" team? Do you wheel and deal with the "big boys"? Good for you! Make the best possible use of your circumstances that you can. Otherwise, you've WASTED the gifts you were given. Are you a "Division III" team - no scholarships, twelve fans in the stands, never heard from outside your own community? There is NOTHING wrong with that! Make the best possible use of your circumstances that you can. Otherwise, you've WASTED your gifts as surely as the Power Five case.

There are MANY more of us "nobodys" than there are "somebodys". And there's power in those numbers. We need to each live up to our potential and our skill set. 

Imagine what Christians could accomplish if we ALL lived up to our potential! It doesn't matter what that potential IS. God gave us ENOUGH to accomplish EVERYTHING He wanted us to achieve. We only have to do what we can.