We’ve all heard the story of Michael Jordan not making his 9th grade JV basketball team, correct? It fueled him. Let’s re-write the story and say he made it. Perhaps he would not have worked so hard to prove everyone wrong about their assessment. Maybe he wouldn’t be the GOAT. Maybe, NOT making that team was the best thing that ever happened to him.
Maybe if Drew Henson hadn’t challenged Tom Brady his senior year at Michigan, he wouldn’t be the GOAT. Tom Brady’s life coach says that Drew Henson is the best thing that ever happened to Tom. Aren’t as familiar with that story, haven’t watched the Brady Six on ESPN? You need to stay more current my friends! This is not just a thirsty excuse to publish a cute photo of a 21 year old Tom Brady. How dare some of you think this?
Anyway, is it a coincidence that both football’s and basketball’s GOATS faced major obstacles and had to prove themselves? I don’t think so. Prove me wrong. Talk amongst yourselves.
As for me, I wanted to start a blog in 2016 but since I started really blogging in 2024, I have so much more confidence in my writing and I have so much more to talk about since running a non-profit, re-engaging with my national women’s fraternity, having a more balanced and less workaholic life that I think I’m a more interesting blogger to read. I think procrastinating served me well.
In 1982, I rushed at Hope College. They had (still have?) deferred spring rush with local sororities. I wanted to be in one house more than breathing. I think if hynotized, I could still sing this chapter’s song set to a Grease melody. Well I did the unthinkable and ‘suicided’ this house, which is where you only put one sorority on your final bid slip. I rejected 4 other perfectly lovely chapters and then this house rejected me. In hindsight, it serves me right. However, reliving that day, wow, did that no bid hurt. Yes, your very own Sorority Susie, Maggie DeCan started her college life as a No Bid, but boy did I learn fast, fail forward and bounce back! (Warning, I’m going to write an entire blog called Confessions of a No Bid for Young Women Rushing in the coming weeks.)
What did I do next? Well, of course, first I went and performed the ultimate act of rebellion for 1982, I got my ears double pierced. That will show Hope College who they are dealing with! Ha!
Then I called my mom to tell her that I was taking a Gap Year and going to work on Mackinac. She told me that I wasn’t which actually surprised me. So next I got in my car drove to the admissions office at The University of Michigan and told them my sad story, dead bio mom, dad died on Christmas eve of my senior year in H.S., accidentally ended up at Christian Reformed Hope College following football playing highschool sweetheart after traumatic year, please let me in!
They immediately offered to review my application. Oh yeah, that…..I haven’t actually applied, is that a deal breaker? So they handed me an application and a pen. Four hours later, THE University of Michigan had granted me provisional admission for the fall of 1982. I rushed again this time keeping my heart open to all 18 chapters and, if you’ve read previous blogs, you know that I found my home among my sisters at 1525 Washtenaw at the Chi Omega house where I ended up as chapter president and then Panhellenic President for the entire sorority system and help bring two more chapters to campus preventing hundreds of other young women from becoming “No Bids”. I learned so many vital leadership skills, interpersonal skills, conflict resolution skills that set me up for a great first job out of college with the “Harvard of Retailing” Macy’s and an amazing career about which I am now writing a book that will publish in early October if I can stop blogging and finish editing my manuscript.
Looking back, if I had gotten in to what I thought was my dream chapter and stayed at Hope, I think I would have eventually transferred because I really wasn’t cut out for small college life, but by then I would have been a junior and would have likely missed the Chi Omega experience that literally formed me so positively. I would have had a lot more college debt. I wouldn’t be having 10+ amazing Wolverine Women to my lake house in a month for lake time in the north Georgia Mountains. Even my husband might not have transferred. It’s like playing your college days through Jimmy Stewart’s It’s a Wonderful Life. I prefer the way it turned out!
Sometimes, rejections and delays are the best things that can happen to us, but it’s only obvious in the rearview mirror. And I don’t think they are accidents. In fact, I think God’s timing is perfect.
These and other fun stories will be found in my book Humbled on Purpose – Discovering Strength Through Vulnerability, Humor and Grace Publishing with Ripples Media in October 2024 available on Amazon.
