The heaven-sent say, “Child, you are hell-bent” / But hell is not where we’re going, hell’s where we’ve been – Rise Against, “Lanterns”
If you read the Old Testament of the Bible, it’s not totally clear that the conception of God that the authors had is the same that modern Christianity generally accepts. The God of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy is, at times, jealous and vengeful and spiteful.
The modern conception of a “perfect God” wasn’t even considered until Greek philosophers posited the idea in the fourth and third centuries BCE. First Plato and then Aristotle made, roughly, the argument that God is the highest and most perfect being and therefore must always be the greatest good.
Greek philosophy influenced Christian thought heavily, especially regarding the qualities of God. Writers such as Anselm of Canterbury and Thomas Aquinas each helped define the Christian perception of God as, in Anselm’s words, “a being than which no greater can be conceived.”
Maybe the most controversial or problematic of these qualities is God’s omniscience. At its most simple, omniscience seems to run counter to the concept of free will. If God knows everything about everything, including the choices we as humans have made and will make and the consequences thereof, then do we actually have the ability to change outcomes in our own lives?
Which brings me to John Calvin. Born in France in 1509, Calvin became an advocate for reform in the Catholic Church. His writings eventually became the foundations of the Protestant sect known as Reformed Christianity, or Calvinism.
One of the main differences between Calvinist theology and other Christian denominations is Calvin’s model of predestination. Calvin dealt with the problem of omniscience by teaching that God has chosen some people to go to heaven, while others are already destined to go to hell. Because God knows everything, God already knows who will be saved and who will be damned.
Some Calvinist theologians argue that free will still does exist, in that we have free will to sin. But if we have no control over our fate — if someone cannot change the ultimate outcome — does that actually count as free will?
And if our destiny is preconceived, does that remove meaning from our actions?
The human brain is very good at identifying patterns and ascribing meaning to them. Those skills were learned through thousands of years of evolution, helping the species survive through prehistoric times. Humans still do this today, but it sometimes gets us into trouble, as we see patterns that aren’t there or ascribe a causality that doesn’t exist.
As with many phrases sportswriters enjoy utilizing, the legendary Grantland Rice coined “team of destiny.” Rice used the idiom in 1922 to refer to the Princeton football team following its win over the University of Chicago. The Tigers went on to go undefeated and (retroactively) win the 1922 national championship.
Since then, sports scribes have nominated a “team of destiny” approximately 338,000 times — at least insofar as how many times Google can find the phrase on the internet.
It’s one of those titles that gets thrown around about pretty much any upstart underdog. Maybe not your 16-seed upsetting a 1-seed in the NCAA tournament, but certainly your George Masons and VCUs and Butlers — the teams that get it rolling and seem to get every break along the way.
I never know how serious anyone is about this. Superstition is obviously rife in sports, and I have my own (just ask my sun-bleached Tribe script hat). But it must go back to how people view destiny or fate in the broader context.
I’ve rooted for some archetypal “teams of destiny” in my 27 years on this earth. I think of the 2018 Washington Capitals, who vanquished just about every demon of their past — not least the Pittsburgh Penguins — on the way to their first Stanley Cup. The 2019 Washington Nationals were 19-31 on May 24th before putting it all together and going on one of the greatest runs by a baseball team in quite some time. Even the 2024 Commanders fit the bill to some extent, with a Hail Mary win among several last-second victories.
When you’re on that run, it does feel like destiny. It feels preordained.
And those vibes matter. But human psychology, pattern-seeking as it is, can easily be swayed ex-post facto by a final result.
Here, let’s do a thought experiment: if you were to ask me before the game what percentage chance I would give the Commanders to beat the Eagles in the NFC Championship Game, I may have said something close to 40%. Now, if I were to handicap that game, I probably would say closer to 20%. Sure, there’s more information, but it’s also influenced by the result.
Or, what was the chance that the 2020 William & Mary Tribe men’s basketball team — ostensibly a “team of destiny” — would win its first conference tournament ever?
I’ve always envisioned it happening like this.
The Tribe puts together a slow, sustained build over a few years. Maybe there’s a player or two that gains national interest, and slowly people start to pay attention to the program. Or maybe the team has a surprisingly good year and people start to take notice. Then they layer another good season on top.
W&M dukes it out with Charleston and UNCW in the upper echelon of the league, building a bit of a rivalry and playing some good games, maybe proving themselves equal to their top-of-the-CAA foes.
Then the Tribe heads into the CAA tournament with the expectation that this team could be the one to finally do it.
Maybe it’s an easy win in the quarterfinal, then a dramatic victory in the semifinal. And now all eyes are on W&M in the championship game, and with a win, everyone will pay attention to the mid-major liberal arts university in the Virginia Tidewater that you love so dearly.
Sound familiar? Because that sounds familiar to me, even if I was yet to know I was going to attend said liberal arts university.
That’s pretty much what happened to the Tribe of the mid-2010s, from Marcus Thornton’s CAA Player of the Year status to Daniel Dixon’s dagger against Hofstra in the 2015 CAA tournament semifinal.
And if the Tribe teams of that era weren’t destined to finally break through to March Madness, I’m not sure a “team of destiny” exists.
You can have a great year, and you can run into a buzzsaw. Maybe this year, we’re the buzzsaw. – Stephen Strasburg, Oct. 15, 2019
The 2024-2025 William & Mary men’s basketball team has felt alternately predestined for glory and cursed with the history of the program’s 120 seasons.
Destined: new coach Brian Earl reinvigorating the program with an uptempo, exciting new system.
Cursed: that system sometimes turning close contests into blowout defeats because of shot selection and a blistering pace.
Destined: Keller Boothby’s buzzer-beater to beat North Carolina A&T.
Cursed: the two buzzer-beaters to beat the Tribe in non-conference play.
Destined: Earl bringing the best out of players who stuck around after the coaching change, including Gabe and Caleb Dorsey, Chase Lowe, Matteus Case and Noah Collier.
Cursed: arguably the most important of the group, Collier, suffering a season-ending injury on a freak, non-contact play.
Destined: W&M going on to gut out an incredible win against Charleston after Collier’s exit.
Cursed: the Tribe blowing three second-half leads against UNCW, Towson and Northeastern to end the regular season, obviously missing Collier.
But, as much as we like to play into it — just look at this website’s name and think about the 85 preceding men’s NCAA tournaments that did not include William & Mary, or how we visualize the future day of a March Madness berth — the destiny, good or bad, does not exist in any tangible way. The narratives we tell ourselves after the fact are satisfying, but the reason we love this sport is its unpredictability in the moment.
Sunday, at CareFirst Arena in Southeast D.C., William & Mary will likely play Campbell in the CAA quarterfinal. If the Tribe wins, it will likely play Towson. Another win, and it will likely play UNCW or Charleston for the conference tournament title.
For 86 consecutive years, the weighted coin flip has eventually hit tails. Maybe this year, we’ll hit on three straight heads.
It’s probable, if not overwhelmingly likely, that it won’t happen. If so, we’ll be back here next year singing the same song. But if it does hit, the narratives we tell about this team — to ourselves, to our future grandkids, to the world — will be glorious.