- Head of School
A major conflict with Iran. A deeply divided nation struggling with inflation and reasons to hope for a better future. An underdog United States hockey team attempting to claim Olympic gold.
Sound familiar? Perhaps, but as McCallie head of school Lee Burns delivered his annual Easter address to the entire student body Wednesday morning in a Chapel overflowing with sixth graders through seniors, he was recalling the winter of 1980, not the spring of 2026.
“The late 1970s was an especially difficult time for the United States,” Burns said. “Many might call it depressing or dispirited or desolate…a time of limited or low confidence. The American economy struggled with high unemployment and high prices. Millions of Americans struggled to find a job or afford groceries or were unable to buy a house. Inflation and interest rates reached about 15%. Overseas, a group of Iranians overthrew their government, overran the American Embassy in Tehran, and took 66 Americans as hostages. Fifty-two of those Americans were held hostage for 444 days.”
“Our Cold War enemy, the Soviet Union, invaded Afghanistan. Both domestically and internationally, we were struggling, losing, and didn’t seem to have the confidence or capability to change it, let alone win.”
But in the winter of 1980, Lake Placid, New York, hosted the Winter Olympics, which included our U.S. men’s hockey team, made up almost entirely of callow college kids, and the Soviet Union team, generally regarded as the strongest team in the world, even better than those professional teams in the National Hockey League.
As Burns explained the eventual semifinal game between the U.S. team and the Soviets, this was, at least in the eyes of the United States, a matchup of good versus evil, democracy versus communism, right versus wrong.
And there was no mistaking the Americans as the overwhelming underdogs. Burns recalled U.S. coach Herb Brooks’ pregame message to his team.
“If we play ‘em ten times, they might win nine,” he told them, knowing they had already suffered a 10-3 exhibition loss to the Soviets a few days before the Olympics began. “But not this game. Not tonight. Tonight, we are the greatest hockey team in the world. You were born to be hockey players—every one of you. And you were meant to be here tonight. This is your time.”
Was it ever. Somehow, some way, the Americans prevailed 4-3. The matchless broadcaster Al Michaels screamed “Do you believe in miracles?” The Miracle on Ice was instantly on the lips and the minds of Americans the nation over. Two days later, that same hockey team capped off perhaps the most cherished and memorable U.S. Olympic moment ever, beating Finland 4-2 for the goal.
Said Burns of the euphoria that swept the entire country 46 years ago, “That team, that moment, that miracle, that gold medal they won, not only brought smiles and tears and joy to millions of Americans, but it brought unity and pride to a struggling country."
Yet this being an Easter message, the Miracle on Ice was not the miracle Burns most wanted to discuss, but rather the “Miracle in the Tomb,” of the giant stone being miraculously moved to free Jesus in his resurrection to heaven.
“As much as I enjoyed the Miracle on Ice in Lake Placid,” Burns told his Chapel audience, “the Miracle in the Tomb is infinitely more powerful and important. For that miracle transforms us…now and forever.”
He asked that we look at our lives without the saving grace and eternal life that Jesus promises all those who believe in him.
“We ourselves and our institutions and our leaders cannot ultimately give us what we most deeply need,” Burns said. “We can’t do it ourselves. Ultimate joy and fulfillment elude us. The happiness from a victorious game gives way to a future loss. Gold medals tarnish. The momentary unity of a nation fractures. Governments are flawed, and they too fracture. The same goes for personal relationships. We fail. We fall. Things break. We break. We are disillusioned. We get sick. We get old. We die. Life is an overwhelming opponent with a depressing narrative.”
But, he added, bringing his talk back to a 46-year-old hockey game, “Do you believe in miracles? I encourage you to contemplate the miracle from that first Easter morning and the love and grace that God gifts to us, especially through His Son, Jesus Christ, who can work miracles in each of us.”
- Chapel Talks