We Designed T-Shirts Before Kickoff
Brian Kelly
My unflagging optimism can be puzzling, or even annoying, to my friends and coworkers. But in the 2019 season opener, I knew my Georgia State Panthers were going to upset Tennessee. That’s why, two months before the game, I suggested we make T-shirts celebrating our inevitable win. The few people who knew about the idea surely thought I had lost my mind. But you can guess who was smiling when we topped Tennessee 38-30 in their stadium as our T-shirts were printed less than 45 minutes after the game ended.
My sunny disposition might prompt some teasing, but it has also helped me get through some of my life’s most difficult seasons. Through my wife Laurie’s battle back to health after an aneurysm in her brain ruptured, I’ve had one opportunity after another to display that optimism against even more daunting odds than an improbable win over an SEC team. I like to say that I am married to a miracle. Our journey has proved again and again that optimism is powerful fuel for a life marked by miracles. Laurie is still recovering on her long journey to regaining autonomy and doesn’t quite grasp the height of the mountain she has already climbed, but every step she takes is a gift.
Our path over the past few years makes me think of those pie charts that ESPN and other sports shows will display, depicting an underdog’s odds against a favored opponent. In fact, someone undoubtedly showed one of those graphics before GSU, where I work as the senior associate athletics director for external affairs, played Tennessee last fall. Of course, GSU beat those odds, and the ones Laurie has defeated are even steeper.
On that fated July 4 two years ago when I called an ambulance, frantic, because she was unresponsive, the doctor told me that there was a 50-50 chance of the aneurysm killing her before ever making it to the hospital. She ended up spending eight weeks in Wellstar Kennestone,. During that time, if the surgeon had not been able to successfully “coil” the aneurysm (an incredibly delicate procedure with a high fail rate) she would not have survived.
Time and again, through each hospital (Laurie spent nearly five months of 2018 in hospitals) and the intensive therapy that she still undergoes each day, my wife still defies the probabilities on a regular basis. It’s a perfect story to tell for an optimist like me, and I try to continue to encourage the doctors, respiratory therapists and other heroes who gave her a chance at life.
The victories we have experienced are a constant source of encouragement for us, but defying the odds can be exhausting. I would be lying if I didn’t say I’m not completely overwhelmed at times. There was a day in November 2018 when Laurie came home and I was the sole caregiver for her and our two young kids, without the round-the-clock assistance we had become accustomed to at the rehabilitation hospital. In the early days every outing was an absolute ordeal, and this optimist has neared the end of his rope many times.
But when it all seems like too much, I return to one of the scariest days. When Laurie was in surgery as the doctor tried to coil the aneurysm, I found myself in the hospital chapel. And in those quiet moments I understood profoundly what people mean when they talk about surrendering to God. Through my career in college athletics, as a father and a husband, I had always been a doer, but that day I realized that I had done all I could. I had to put our whole situation into God’s hands.
Recently Laurie and I watched the movie “Gold,” in which Matthew McConaughey plays a prospector determined to keep mining for riches even when no one around him believed the ground was hiding the motherlode. When he struck gold, he gave a speech about the value of being a prospector, and as I watched I realized that each of us is called to be a prospector within our own circumstances. We have to believe that God’s best is there under the surface, even when we can’t see it—because of physical limitations, because of a pandemic, because of uncertainty in what the future holds.
“What is a prospector?” McConaughey’s character said. “It’s someone who believes that it’s out there.” When I asked for the design of a T-shirt proclaiming a win that seemed unlikely to most, when I keep expecting my wife to beat steep medical odds in her recovery, I’m believing in something that I can’t see. And I’m tackling each day with the belief that the thing we are hoping for is “out there.”