As many readers know, we are San Antonio Spurs fans, and just a few days ago, an historic event happened. For the first time in 23 years,

the Spurs failed to make the NBA playoffs. (For comparison, the longest active streak for any team now is eight years.)

In this issue, we reflect on this legacy of greatness.

It’s been a long time.

The last time the Spurs failed to make the NBA playoffs, as one local sportswriter put it, “Frank Sinatra and Mother Teresa were still alive.” Recent college graduates have never before experienced a year in which the Spurs failed to make the playoffs. At least two members of the Spurs current roster were not yet born the last time the Spurs missed the playoffs.

It was 1997. We were all just beginning to worry about Y2K. (Little did we know that 2020, not 2000, was the year we all should have been dreading!)

In 1997, I was living in Windham, Maine, where I would stay another 5 years. I then moved to Rutherford, New Jersey, for two years, before moving to San Antonio 16 years ago this month. By the time I arrived, the Spurs had already won two of their five NBA championships.

Becoming a Spurs fan is all-but-required for anyone wishing to live in San Antonio. For anyone wishing to marry Jan Davis, it was a must! It was also easy to become a Spurs fan, given their consistent excellence. (Over the course of their 22 straight years of making the playoffs, the Spurs won 211 more games than the next-best team in the league.) But it was not just the excellence of the play that made becoming a fan easy, it was also the quality of the players. David Robinson, Tim Duncan, Manu Ginobili, Patty Mills: they are not just star athletes; they are also admirable human beings.

In a recent interview, the Spurs’ general manager was asked about scouting new players. “Of course, we’re looking for skill,” he said. “But first of all, we’re looking for character.”

Yes, it’s been a long time since the Spurs missed the playoffs. Character may be a major reason for that consistent success.

It is hard to imagine what life is like without David Robinson, Tim Duncan, Tony Parker, or Patty Mills. One or the other have been with us continuously for 33 years. Even though the Spurs bubble has burst and they don’t go to the NBA Playoffs for the first time in 22 years, we can look back and applaud our players for their sportsmanship, integrity, and – including these four who played their NBA career with the Spurs – for their stability. Players like Dennis Rodman don’t last long with this team.

Each coach has a unique talent, skill, and approach to leading a team to the playoffs. Yes, there was once a California coach nicknamed “Zen Master” (yeah, sure) and while I hesitate to ‘spiritualize’ our Spurs, there is one quality we should notice, and that is stability: one of the three promises a Benedictine makes along with fidelity and obedience.

As Benedictine Oblates, since Bill and I daily read from the Rule of Benedict, I can’t help but observe some similar benefits of stability and solidarity of Spurs players. I see stability as a commitment to “stay put” thus developing a generativity growing from team or community rootedness. Just like any religious, secular, or corporate community, Abbot Michael Casey writes: “An effective community needs every single member to be operating at the peak of their present potential—at least most of the time.”*(125) Casey also notes that “Even roughest of diamonds cannot avoid acquiring some degree of polish if they last long in a monastery.”*(131)

We are in a mobile world and many are moving from place to place, job to job, religion to religion, partner to partner, or trend to trend. In this time of social and political upheaval, it is a good time to take a lesson from the Spurs. Stay put. Grow from your rootedness. If the pandemic forces a significant change in residence, profession, or lifestyle, we can still take with us those personal qualities that have shown to provide stability: endurance, constancy, and focus.

In pregame interviews, Spurs players will almost always say “Stay focused” in response to the question, “What is your game plan?” Benedictine stabilitas – stability - can, and should, inform our desire to stay focused, to live in the moment, to be satisfied with who we are and where we are, and to resist the cultural temptation for constant change and distraction.

--Jan

*Michael Casey, Strangers to the City. Brewster: Paraclete, 2005.

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