PENSACOLA, Fla. (WKRG) — I must admit. I’m not the biggest basketball fan around, but I love March Madness! All the Cinderella stories and bracket-busters. It’s exciting! But it can also be disappointing and a little heartbreaking for the players and the fans. One misstep or last-second half-court shot from the other team, and everything changes just like that!

I got to thinking, life is not unlike March Madness. We head out to life’s court with our game plan, we’ve worked really hard, we take the shots. But sometimes, we miss the shots, and sometimes we find ourselves completely out of the game.

How do you respond when that happens to you? It’s human nature to be sad or even a little mad. But what if we took another approach?

One of the most exciting March Madness endings happened 41 years ago when a college freshman, you might know the name… Michael Jordan… took one of those last-second shots and won the tournament for the North Carolina Tar Heels. Ironically, just a few years earlier, Jordan had tried out for his high school varsity basketball team, and he didn’t make it! Instead of giving up, Jordan says he worked hard on the JV team, grew a few inches which didn’t hurt, and he went on to become a basketball legend.

In various interviews, Jordan said that he always pictured himself as a winner and that he never gave up hope. Interesting. Proverbs 10:28 ties “hope” to “gladness.”

Maybe this March and beyond, when we are overlooked for something we really want, when we take the shot but miss, or when we are completely thrown out of the game, instead of responding with sadness, we can respond with gladness. What if we alter our game plan, work hard, look for ways to grow, and cultivate a winning spirit? What if we make “March Gladness” a way of life? I think if we do, it might just open up a whole new season and I can’t wait to see where it leads. And that’s your Minute with Drexel.