Basketball was a marginal sport in Germany, but a popular school sport in the seventies of the last century. The sports teachers who had studied in Heidelberg, Giessen or Tübingen brought basketball to schools. I liked the game, was fast, dribbling strong and the basket layer was my specialty. But in the end not tall enough to develop a basketball track after school.
Now to Dirk Nowitzki. My sporting core competence lies in soccer, but I had actually followed Dirk’s path in detail. I’ve been to Dallas regularly since 1998, practically at the same time as Dirk’s move to the NBA in Dallas.
And I had also seen him live. In 2005, when I was at a global manufacturing meeting in Dallas with all the other Celanese plant managers worldwide, I was lucky enough to get a ticket for the evening game that our boss couldn’t use for that evening. I am still grateful to him for that. With my rental car and with the help of a Garmin navigation system, then a new technology, I drove in the evening past countless billboards and in the distance the skyline of downtown to the American Airline Center – an experience in itself.
The Mavs won the game against Miami Heat, an NBA classic, 105-101 in overtime. My seat was behind the basket, so I was really close to Dirk and the game.
And also on Whit Sunday in 2011 I was once again on a business trip in Dallas and this time at exactly the right time to experience the boundless enthusiasm in the city when the Dallas Mavericks (Mavs) won the title. Finally, Dirk Nowitzki was a champion. In the sixth game, he and his team had won 105:96 in Miami. A victory of justice against Dirk, I think.
Look for moments of synchronicity in your encounters, Julia Cameron describes in one of her books, and we will find that “we are increasingly in the right place at the right time.” I was in the right place at the right time. What a coincidence!
Have you also experienced such examples of moments of synchronicity?
