When times are tough and things just aren’t going your way, there’s nothing like a hug. Someone putting an arm around you and telling you, “Hey, everything’s going to be all right. You’re okay.”

And there’s nobody better at that than your mom. Just ask Nick Anderson. The Orlando Magic guard missed four free throws in the waning seconds of his team’s NBA finals game against Houston and the team went on to lose a game it otherwise might have won. Later Houston guard Clyde Drexler blew past Anderson for a lay-up late in overtime. Nick Anderson had a very bad game.

Understandably, when he got home Anderson was down in the dumps. “My mom put her arm around me,” Anderson later said, “and told me, ‘You’ve got nothing to put your head down about. You’ve pulled your team through many other times.’”

Today in the Word, December 14, 1995, p. 21.