The date was August 15, 2004.
I was sitting in a restaurant in Upstate New York, staring intently at an Olympic basketball game on the big screen TV.
The game — USA vs. Puerto Rico — was taking place halfway across the world in Greece. It was supposed to be a cakewalk for the Americans, but it turned out to be anything but.
The Puerto Ricans showed up to play. Meanwhile, the US squad looked disengaged and disjointed. Players seemed to prefer going it alone to playing as a team.
The results of this selfishness were evident. Ill-advised drives to the hoop. Hurried three-pointers. And a general lack of passing or defense.
By the time the final horn sounded, Puerto Rico had shellacked the US squad by 19 points — the team’s worst-ever Olympic loss.
It was an utter embarrassment. One that foreshadowed the team’s eventual Bronze Medal finish.
Third place would be considered an accomplishment by many nations. But in America, it rang hollow with disappointment.
So, when the Olympics returned four years later, the United States pulled out all the stops. Our nation’s top basketball players and coaches headed to China for the games, and they leveraged advanced scouting and practice techniques.
Those moves certainly helped put the team in a better position to compete. But so did the moniker the team adopted.
The Redeem Team.
A spin on the Dream Team nickname used by the 1992 USA basketball squad, the Redeem Team label made clear what the players were there for. The foibles of the 2004 squad would not be repeated. A gold medal was the only acceptable outcome.
And so, some of the greatest players of the 2000s put it all on the line. They checked their egos at the door and committed to playing as a unit. And they did all of this with a chip on their shoulder.
Other nations had drastically improved at basketball since 2004, and the Olympic competition was steep. But those other squads no match for the United States.
The Redeem Team stormed through the tournament and reclaimed the gold. And they haven’t relinquished it since.
I’ve long been fascinated by the story of the Redeem Team. For it’s one of the most tangible examples of what redemption looks like.
We all too often misunderstand redemption, confusing it with resilience. While both concepts can lead us to rise from the ashes like a phoenix, the comparisons end there.
Resilience demonstrates how we respond to adversity. It looks at how we react to the curveballs life invariably throws at us, regardless of our objectives.
Redemption speaks to how we rebound from a mess we’ve created. It looks at how we react to botched plans, lackluster efforts, and other hallmarks of poor performance.
The Redeem Team sought to pick up the pieces left by that 2004 USA basketball squad.
Most members of the Redeem Team weren’t directly responsible for that disaster, as they weren’t on the squad in Greece. Still, as stewards for the reputation of USA Basketball, the Redeem Team was saddled with the burden of righting the wrongs of others.
They owned that unwelcome responsibility, and they rose to the occasion.
It’s an example we can all learn from.
Roughly two months before the USA Basketball team got embarrassed by Puerto Rico, I was in California on a family vacation.
We started our trek in Los Angeles and Orange County — the first time I’d ever been to Southern California. Then, we trekked south to San Diego.
I was excited as we made our way down The 5, ocean vistas on one side of the freeway and mountains on the other. I’d heard great things about San Diego. My grandparents had even considered moving there, way back when.
But once we got to town, our trip unraveled.
My family went to a San Diego Padres baseball game — only to find our view of the action blocked by a Sherpa with a tall hat, who was sitting right in front of us. My sister caught a virus and vomited all over the rental car as we drove down the Silver Strand. And my mother and I visited Tijuana, Mexico — only to realize upon our return to the US that we’d brought my father and sister’s passports, instead of our own.
By the time we left town, I was about done with San Diego. The sunshine was nice, and the city was beautiful, but I only had bad associations with it.
More than a decade later, my cousin moved to San Diego and invited me to visit. I agreed and booked a plane ticket. But as the trip approached, I started to get cold feet.
This was unusual. I’d always been eager to travel. But the memories of that 2004 trip seemed to override that eagerness.
So, I reframed the conversation. I decided I would treat this trip to San Diego as The Redemption Tour and take a mulligan on many of the activities that had gone so wrong previously.
This rebranding worked wonders. I had an amazing weekend visiting my cousin — replete with another Padres game, a drive along the Silver Strand, a walk along the coastline in La Jolla, and much more.
The curse was broken. Redemption was mine.
There’s a lot of regret in the air these days. A collective dwelling on missed opportunities.
This is only natural. With so much uncertainty baked into this era, squandered chances have an air of finality to them.
Still, it’s important for us to shift our thinking. We must go from fatalistic to opportunistic.
For second chances will come. They might not be exactly what we expect, but they will be there.
If we approach them with a mindset of redemption, we could see improved results.
So, let’s lean in. Let’s embrace our second chances, with a focus on redemption.
We just might wash the bad taste of our prior missteps out of our mouths. And we just might find the satisfaction we’re yearning for.