Win the Game

  • Published
  • By Col. Dana James
  • 60th Medical Operations Squadron
60th Medical Operations Squadron Commander --  During the recent March madness college basketball tournament, a 20-year old young man severely injured himself with a compound fracture of his lower leg. Just moments after the injury, a comrade turned, realized what happened to his friend and immediately collapsed to the floor. Another friend reacted the same way and started crying.

His coach, Rick Pitino, wiped tears in silence while other teammates wept openly in front of 34,000 shocked fans and a worldwide audience in attendance. How did the injured young man, one year removed from his teenage years, react? Kevin Ware responded in a way that should stand as a model for all of us in the profession of arms.

With 6 minutes and 33 second left in the first half, Ware tried to defend a 3-point shot by the opposing team and his leg buckled as he landed, breaking almost at a right angle.
You are probably aware of Ware's injury by now -- social networks buzzed in the aftermath and #KevinWare shot to the top of trending topics on Twitter. YouTube posts replayed the injury and Google Images shows the horrible leg injury, twisted and unnaturally dangling.

At this point, you might just expect a 20-year to lay in shock, maybe join his teammates and coaches in tears. Who would blame him for folding to the pain or even falling into despair after realizing that his dream of winning a national championship was over this year?

Perhaps the average person would have sulked in self-pity about the loss of a potential career in the National Basketball Association, millions of dollars forfeited and childhood dreams never fulfilled. However, that's not what Ware did. Instead, he had the presence of mind to call his teammates to him before he was carried off on a stretcher. As Pitin described, "The bone's 6 inches out of his leg and all he's yelling is, 'Win the game, win the game.'"

In the wake of excruciating pain, a horrific injury and childhood dreams potentially gone, a college sophomore focuses on his team and not on himself in that moment. "He said 'Don't worry about me. I'm good. I'll have my surgery tonight. Go win it for me.'" What would we do in his shoes? Ware did not enlist or commission into an Air Force that boasts a core value of "service before self," yet his actions exemplify the embodiment of this core value.

We can all learn from his example. We are the professionals whom our nation trusts to act honorably and in the best interests of the team. In these fiscally restrained times, our citizens still pay and trust us with the expectation that we are not selfish and that we will always think of team-interest and not self-interest.

If a 20-year old college student thinks about his teammates while he's still bleeding on the floor, how can we falter or fail in our endeavor to do the same? Ware's actions humble me as I think about my own struggles. His actions call for me to re-evaluate if I'm a good enough "coach" to inspire my "players" to think in terms of "performance and mission and duty" versus "what's in it for me?"

Ware's individual attitude made his team great. Louisville, ultimately went on to win the national championship with him watching from the sideline. Ware's and his teammates' team concept may have made the difference between winning and losing a championship. As Airmen, our team concept makes the difference between life and death, freedom and tyranny.

I truly respect Ware's actions during this year's March Madness -- as a medical professional, it's our goal to contain inflections, but here's to hoping Ware's madness is contagious and infects us all.