The Green Bay Packers are on one of the most improbable playoff runs in NFL history -- and to think I had given up all hope.

Anyone who saw the Arizona Cardinals-Minnesota Vikings game knows what a miracle it was that the Packers are in the playoffs.

Arizona, the worst offense in the league, scored two touchdowns in the final four minutes of the game, one on fourth-and-goal, one on the last play of the game that was made possible by an onside kick.

Green Bay took its good fortune and ended Seattle's season last week in the first round of the playoffs and now the Packers take aim at the NFC's No. 1 seed, Philadelphia.

The Packers will admit they have been lucky, but they are also quick to point out that they did what they needed to do -- they put themselves in a position to win. The Packers have their own definition of luck -- when preparation meets opportunity.

In sports and in life, our job is to put ourselves in a position to succeed. We have to put ourselves in a position to be lucky. Former UVSC softball coach Todd Fairbourne said he never set a goal to win a national championship, even though he won a national championship in 2000. His goal was to always be in the top five.

Why?

"Because," Fairbourne says, "you have to have some breaks to win it."

In essence that's what most coaches will tell you. Their job is to get their team in a position to be successful. The rest is not always up to them.

Think about what would have happened if some people had taken the easy way out and quit when success didn't come immediately.

Lone Peak junior Jackson Emery was nearly cut as a sophomore. He was one of those players on the bubble. Fortunately for the Knights, he made the team. Now he is second on the team in scoring.

Former Mountain View coach Rob Cuff once said that Travis Hansen could be as good as he wanted to be. Coming out of high school, Hansen played at UVSC (a junior college at the time), because no Division I school wanted him.

On Jan. 17, he'll be with the Atlanta Hawks when they visit the Delta Center to play the Jazz.

Hansen and Emery know that luck rarely goes door-to-door. It doesn't call with the regularity of a telemarketer.

Had some others given up too soon, the view in high school sports and the world would look much different. Provo coach Craig Drury would be working construction, Timpview coach Perry Wildeboer and Wasatch coach Lonnie Magnusson would still be assistant coaches.

Henry Ford would have continued working in a machine shop, Wilbur and Orville Wright would have been selling bicycles instead of making historic flights, and John Grisham may still be a lawyer.

These "other things" happened because they dreamed of something bigger and they put themselves in a position to succeed.

I realize this is easy for me to say and I know that so often those who have already put themselves in position to succeed are still waiting for success, wondering if it will ever come. To them it may seem like the fog will never lift, that the inversion will never leave.

But I believe sometimes even as we ask the question, "How long until we get there?," we are being cleared to land.

Sports are good at pointing out that the line between winning and losing, between success and failure, is so narrow it often cannot be seen with the human eye. It's often a photo finish. Yet, as a runner-up we feel like we were beaten by eight lengths.

The cold truth is that we will not all reach our goals. We will not all end up where we want to be.

That thought is enough to make it easier to give up, to turn the car around and drive back to complacency.

But there's another thought that keeps those who refuse to lose going.

When the blindfold comes off, they don't want to see just how close their swing came to breaking the Pi & ntilde;ata open.
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