Latest / From Chad / Capitalizing #1192

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Capitalizing #1192 · From Chad

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  20 years ago this year, a kid finally got off the bench and
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  he's been on the floor ever since.
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  There's a story behind that. This is your daily message from
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  Chad #1192 to upgrade your mental game today by telling
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  yourself a better story. Because the most important story
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  you hear is the story you tell yourself.
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  This message is dedicated to Jason McElwain.
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  Here's the upgrade. You think your best moment is
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  the whole story, but upgraded thinking knows your best moment
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  is just the first line of a much longer one.
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  Here's the story. On February 15th, 2006, it was
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  Senior Night for the Greece Athena Trojans, a high school
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  team in Greece, NY, a suburb of Rochester.
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  Jason McElwain had been the team student manager for three
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  seasons. See, he was diagnosed as
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  autistic at 2 and didn't talk until he was eight.
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  At 5 foot six, he had never played a single second of
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  varsity basketball. His job was water bottles,
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  towels and the scorebook. His coach, Jim Johnson, dressed
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  him for the final home game as a senior night gesture.
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  Nobody expected him to play. Athena was blowing out
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  Spencerport, a team that would finish the night with 43 points
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  total. With three minutes and 19
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  seconds left on the clock, coach Johnson put Jason J Mack
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  McElwain in. His first shot was an air ball.
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  His second one got blocked. Then something changed.
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  He caught the ball 1/3 time, squared up and buried it.
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  Then another 3. Then another.
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  By the final horn, he'd made 63 pointers and A2 point basket, 20
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  points in 3 minutes and 19 seconds.
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  The crowd stormed the court and carried him off on their
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  shoulders. That year, he won an ESPY award
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  for the best sports moment. That part of the story most
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  people already know. Here's the part most people
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  don't. Jason didn't take the moment and
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  recede back into the stands. He became a volunteer assistant
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  coach at Greece Athena, working the same bench under the same
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  coach who'd put him in. In a February 2026 interview
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  marking 20 years since that night, he'd said he said, I've
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  coached for 19 years now. He coached AAU ball.
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  He's coached for the YMC since 2008.
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  He's a girls basketball referee official now and an employee of
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  the Greece School District in upstate New York.
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  He also runs a a show spotlighting other athletes
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  still trying to get there 4 minutes and is a speaker with
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  the All American Speakers Bureau.
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  He didn't get famous for one night and disappear.
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  He got famous for one night and built a career on the floor.
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  The better story to tell yourself is my special moment
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  isn't a mountain top, but my opportunity to keep climbing.
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  Tell me a story about the moment that started something for you
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  to from chadsmith@gmail.com. Send someone a text and ask them
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  what did you build after your best moment ended?
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  You can get a free copy of my book, The Most Powerful Story in
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  the World by going to from chad.gumroad.com.
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  The transcript of this message and hundreds of others are
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  always available at www.fromchad.com.