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In the first overtime of the fifth game of the first round of the NBA playoffs, the Pacers trailed by seven points with less than 40 seconds to go in the game.
According to sports stats gurus on social media, in the two decades leading up to that game, NBA playoff teams were 0-1,176 when trailing by seven or more points with 40 seconds or less remaining.
And yet, somehow in that 40 seconds, the Pacers closed the gap and won the game by one point. It was a surreal comeback that sends them to the second round of the playoffs and sent our city into exaltation.
My husband and son were at that game. I was parked nearby waiting to pick them up, monitoring the score on my phone. With minutes still to go in the game, a stream of fans who’d just left the arena started walking back to their cars.
I couldn’t believe my eyes.
Why weren’t these people staying until the end of an incredibly close game where the Pacers already had come back from a huge deficit at the outset? Why didn’t they want to see it through? They’d already conceded a loss that actually turned into a victory.
Politics isn’t basketball. The races that are going to come down to the wire are known months, if not years, in advance. Lots of people run for office knowing they have very little chance of winning.
This column is for them.
It’s for every door they knock, every phone call they make, every dollar they raise from their personal networks because they probably won’t see much, if any, investment from their political party.
It’s for their families, who walk the campaign journey with them every step of the way.
It’s for everyone who ever said, “Yeah, I know the odds are long, but I believe our democracy works best when everyone participates, so sign me up.”
Because every once in a while—looking at you, former Indianapolis Mayor Greg Ballard—the last 40 seconds turns out unexpectedly, and history gets made.
Earlier this school year, my daughter had to memorize what’s commonly referred to as Theodore Roosevelt’s “man in the arena” speech, part of his broader “Citizenship in a Republic” speech in Paris on April 23, 1910.
I thought of her recitation sitting in my car outside the Pacers game reflecting on wins and losses and staying until the bitter end. I borrow this space to reprint Roosevelt’s famous words in hopes that they speak to someone out there who might be wondering what they can do as we all navigate these uncertain political times.
“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”•
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Chartier is a lifelong Indianapolis resident and owner of Mass Ave Public Relations. Send comments to [email protected].
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