Back in October our teams came together with promise, with all our hopes and dreams for a winning season and with the goal of league championships shining like a beacon of light guiding a ship into port. Now, 10 weeks later none of us are where we ultimately want to be. In fact, only two of the Brown teams are in first place, and I know that is not what we expect of ourselves. So we come to this halfway point of the season having worked hard but knowing we have much hard work to do.
In a sense, we have come to this midpoint to cash a check we all wrote to ourselves over the summer and early autumn as we spent hours on the court getting our bodies and our minds ready for the rigors of what was to come. Back then we told ourselves that sweat would pay off with victory after victory and, ultimately, with a championship. However, instead of honoring that obligation we made to ourselves that check has come back marked “insufficient funds”. But I know the people on these teams. I know that we refuse to believe the bank of victory is bankrupt. We refuse to believe there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity on the squash courts of Rhode Island and Southeastern Massachusetts.
So we come to this halfway point of our season to remind ourselves of the fierce urgency of Now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of our seasons to the sunlit path of victory. Now is the time to lift Brown from the quicksand of mediocrity to the solid rock atop RISRA.
But let’s remember this as we stand on the threshold which leads to the palace of victory, in the process of gaining our rightful place we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not satisfy our thirst for wins by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred. We must never conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must make sure to ask for lets only when appropriate and to clear properly to give our opponents a clean look at the front wall.
And so my friends, as we sit here today let us not wallow in the valley of despair. For even though we face difficulties today and tomorrow I still have a dream.
- I have a dream that all Brown teams will win their matches this week.
- I have a dream that when we travel to the sterile courts at the U Club we will all come out victorious.
- I have a dream that John Oliver will finally hang the ladders on the wall at the Swim Center.
- I have a dream that RICC never again wins 75% of the RISRA championships in the same year.
- I have a dream that Brian Patch will stop talking for 5 seconds.
- I have a dream that one day everyone in the world will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the length and tightness of their rails.
- And most of all I have a dream that my 2 little children will one day live in a world where Brown reigns supreme over RISRA.
If America is to be a great nation, all these things must be true.
And so let Brown ring from the Smith Center courts atop College Hill.
Let Brown Ring from the cradle of American squash in Newport.
Let Brown ring from the narrow courts at the Fall River YMCA and from the annoying single court at Riverbend.
And when this happens, when Brown rings over all the towns and villages of RISRA, all the people in all the lands will join hands and sing:
“Brown is number one at last. Thank God almighty they are number one at last.”
(With apologies to the incomparable Martin Luther King. To read and hear the full version and of his “I Have a Dream” speech, click here)
