Every Officer and Sailor who sets foot on a U.S. Navy warship as part of her crew is required to get qualified. First, to stand watches in support of the ship’s operation, and then additional qualification as a warfare specialist. Surface sailors, Submariners, and Navy Airmen each have their own specialist qualification, and they all require months of work to complete, work that is over and above their normal watch standing and maintenance responsibilities. Men and women too young to buy alcohol can explain the operation of every damage control system on the ship; describe their ship’s armaments, defensive capabilities, and tactical employment; and become experts in basic seamanship. It is a tremendous education that can—and has—meant the difference between life and death. This prayer, besides being a cool story (and an argument against commercial stadium naming rights) was my attempt to offer some encouragement in pursuit of their quals.
Determined and Systematic
His father was a Lebanese immigrant who managed a restaurant, and his mother was a baker raised by immigrants from Ireland. Together the couple raised five children, of whom Joe was the second, in the little town of Sisseton, South Dakota, near the border of Minnesota. Joe was a bright young man—he was writing the sports page for the local paper when he was only 14 years old—but when the Great Depression hit, he was forced to drop out of high school to support his family as a lumberjack in the Black Hills.
Joe had gone back to finish his high school education and was attending college at the University of South Dakota when the Japanese bombed pearl harbor. He enlisted into the Navy on the very next day and served in combat in the Pacific theater, earning the Bronze Star. After the War, he used the G.I. Bill to go back to college and then law school. When his education was completed, he worked in local politics for a while until he moved his family to Minneapolis and opened his own law firm. He then got involved with the politics there, but it wasn’t politics that would be his passion, it was something else altogether in Minneapolis that would redirect the course of his life. He became a football fan.
Joe was already a Vikings season ticket holder when one of his schoolmates asked Joe to investigate the possibility of becoming a team owner in the brand-new American Football League, of which his friend had just become commissioner. Joe jumped at the chance, but he had no money.
What he did have was connections. Fellow Lebanese American Danny Thomas, a popular comedian and television personality, contributed most of the funding required for Joe’s successful purchase of the AFL’s expansion franchise in Miami, Florida. He eventually bought up all of the other shares to become the sole owner of the Miami Dolphins, but he wasn’t finished. Not happy about the city of Miami constantly increasing the cost of his lease with the Orange Bowl, Joe decided to build his own stadium. He didn’t have the money for that either.
Pioneering the use of luxury boxes and private club seat leases to guarantee income, and using his own personal property—including the team itself—as collateral, Joe secured the loans necessary to build the first multi-purpose stadium ever built entirely with private funding. Named for its builder and the first owner of the Miami Dolphins, its first and primary occupant, Joe Robbie Stadium opened its doors on this date in 1987. Now 36 years later, though renamed and renovated, it remains the home of the first major professional sports team to take up residence in Florida, brought there by Joe Robbie. In a twist of delicious irony, the Orange Bowl is now played in Joe Robbie’s stadium—presumably for a fair rent.
Robbie wasn’t born into money, he wasn’t famous, he wasn’t an entrepreneurial tycoon. He was a working-class son of immigrants who decided he wanted to own a football team. A gargantuan task, but one that proved possible with a determined and systematic approach.
I was privileged to witness two more Sailors be awarded their Enlisted Surface Warfare Specialist (ESWS) pins today, and it struck me that Navy qualifications are also gargantuan tasks that seem overwhelming when first laid upon you. There is so much to do and to learn that it seems impossible to finish, but with a determined and systematic approach can be readily handled—even if the process is filled with frustrations, disappointments, and trial and error. Just like much of life, frankly.
Ultimately, any Navy mission can be like that—especially deployments. We have a ways to go yet, but we’ve already travelled pretty far, and with a determined and systematic approach we can make it the rest of the way handily, with an accomplishment that we can all be proud of together.
LET US PRAY
O, Lord of the Oceans, we sail on a restless sea. Guide the helm and steer us safely. Let not our faith be wrecked amid storms and shoals. The voyage is long, the waves high, the storm pitiless, but our helm is held steady, Your Word secures safe passage, Your grace carries us onward, and our haven is guaranteed. This day will bring us nearer to home. Grant us consistency in every transaction, brighten our path with gentleness and love, smooth every harsh temper. May the world this day be happier and better because we are in it. Help us, protect us in the moving sea until we reach the shore of unceasing praise.
AMEN
An Orthodox Priest Abroad 