"Put Me in Coach"

Following on the heels of my recent post on participation trophies comes this news from some of the fine folks at the Kanawha County Board of Education: it is considering a policy that would mandate playing time for middle school athletes.

Presumably suggested with the best of intentions by Board member Becky Jordon, the as-yet (and hopefully to remain) unspecific policy would apparently require all middle school athletes to receive at least some playing time in every game.

After receiving initial, and almost completely unanimous, opposition to the idea, Ms. Jordon attempted to explain the "thought" process behind the proposed policy but just dug herself a deeper hole. The explanation is so inexplicable that it deserves ample re-quoting.

"Jordon says the sixth- through eighth-grade is a fragile time for students, and some coaches are too hard on young athletes. That can be detrimental to their future success, she said.

'I think this has been misunderstood. Yes, there are a lot of young athletes that work really hard, and they deserve the right to play more. I just feel like it needs to be fair. I'm not saying take the superstars out of the game, but you know what? Give everyone a chance,' she said. 'We have some coaches that don't always treat everyone fair, . . . and often times there are hurt feelings.

I can promise that, if a kid sits on that bench all through middle school, they will not attempt to be engaged in high school. We know the kids that are most involved are the most successful,' she said. 'It's not just about bullying. It's an awkward age. There isn't a person that can say middle school was a great time. If we can make a minimal step to make kids feel better about themselves, we should.'"

While, at least as it was initially reported, it appeared the proposal would require equal playing time for athletes, Ms. Jordon either never made that part of her proposal or abandoned it. But the idea that a Board of Education (particularly one faced with budgetary difficulties following the recent resounding defeat of an excess levy) should be looking over the shoulder of every middle school coach in the county to "give everyone a chance" is almost as absurd.

Heaven forbid that 12, 13, and 14 year-olds learn that everything isn't "fair" or that everyone doesn't get "a chance." We should make them feel "better about themselves" even if it is at the expense of more talented, or, even worse, more dedicated teammates. 

Not to mention the aside that "I'm not saying take the superstars out of the game" raises two serious questions: (1) why not? If participation, not excellence, is the mandated goal of Kanawha County now, why should the gifted get special treatment?; and (2) who exactly is going to determine which players are the "superstars"? Surely not the coaches, Ms. Jordon doesn't trust them enough to make decisions about playing time. 

Perhaps the Board should spend its time, energy, and precious little funding to set up a blue ribbon panel to decide, on a school-by-school and team-by-team basis, exactly who the superstars are that are entitled to Board-sanctioned special treatment. And while they're at it, I guess they need to set up a second panel to determine which of the athletes has "worked really hard" enough to warrant playing time.

It also says something about Ms. Jordon's view of athletics and the school system when she asserts that "if a kid sits on that bench all through middle school, they will not attempt to be engaged in high school." Maybe they shouldn't be "engaged" in sports in the first place. Or, how 'bout they decide to be engaged in something they have an aptitude for, say debate, or chorus, or robotics, or a mathematics competition, or theater, or wood shop or metal shop (I'm probably showing my age here -- do they have wood shop or metal shop in middle school these days?), or even a job after school? 

Of course, Ms. Jordon's proposal also completely disregards the value of Team and being a member of a team (even if you don't play much or aren't particularly good) about which I have written before. As I always told my players, there are six or seven McDonald's all-Americans sitting on the Duke basketball bench every year, but they practice every day and they're as much a part of the team as anyone.

CCHS team at the State Finals in 2008. Many of the players
shown had worked for three months to get there,  froze their butts
off for two hours, and never got in the game. Ask them if they
think their State Championship plaques were worth it. 

But there is no capital "T" in team if everyone gets to play and only the "superstars" play more than the rest. Just show up and play, lest your feelings get hurt and you come to realize at 14, rather than at 18 or 19, that we are not all the same and that life doesn't hand out either participation trophies or playing time. 

"Put me in coach, I'm ready to play." 

Takes on a whole new meaning when followed with "no, I mean you have to put me in. It's my turn. Ms. Jordon says so."

It's only fair, right?

Ascendancy It Is

I kept telling myself "it was only a friendly. It was only a friendly."

On two occasions this summer, after the U.S. Men's soccer team's big win over Germany and its shocking come-from-behind triumph over Bosnia-Herzegovina, I reminded myself of just that. After all, in the midst of UEFA qualifying, those countries may have treated the games as warm-ups, an opportunity to allow their reserve squad players a taste of international action.

But the mere fact that the Americans won both matches, in which they likely would have collapsed two years ago, or even earlier this year (remember the game against Belgium a week before the one against Germany?) made me think that something big was brewing with the national team.

Back in January, I wrote about how this was a cross-roads year for both the U.S. Men's and Women's National teams, as well as women's professional soccer in the U.S. Feast or famine; make or break. A year of ascendancy or disaster? is the way I put it.

While the Woman's national team has done just fine under new coach Tom Sermanni, and the jury is still very much out with regard to the new women's league, the answer for the Men's team is clear: ascendancy it is.

The improvement shown against two of the best squads in Europe in the friendlies was borne out in the remaining matches of CONCACAF qualifying as the Americans, after a serious misstep in Costa Rica (which was clearly the second best team in this Hex), steamrolled Mexico and Jamaica and then stunned poor Panama, on the cusp of kicking Mexico to the qualifying curb, with two extra time goals in the final qualifying match.

Graham Zusi celebrates his game tying goal in Panama, the dagger
to the heart of its qualifying hopes. (photo from sbnation.com)

While some pundits wondered post-match about the wisdom of pursuing an in-game strategy that kept Mexican hopes alive in the World Cup (with their loss to Costa Rica in the final match and what seemed like a imminent win by Panama over the U.S. Panama would have traveled to New Zealand and back for a playoff and Mexico would have been sent home to lick its considerable psychological and monetary wounds), I'm glad that the team and Coach Jurgen Klinsmann saw fit to play hard and go for a win in their last competitive match before next summer's World Cup.

And least we forget, while Klinsmann is now being hailed as a savant and savior, it wasn't too long ago that his leadership and tactics were being seriously questioned. But first with those friendlies, then with the wins over Mexico and Panama, Klinsmann has show a deft touch with substitutions and the ability to get the most out of his players, especially those that he does not put in the starting 11.

Klinsmann's leadership strengths discredit the idea that the U.S. should have "thrown" the Panama game. That thought is completely contrary to the way that Klinsmann is going about the job of building a different soccer psyche in this country, and that is not the lesson that he would have wanted his players in Panama City to take away from that match.

Instead, the Americans flew back to the U.S. full of confidence, convinced that they can win any match, at any time, with any 11 players on the pitch.  Whether that will bear out depends a lot on what countries it draws into its group in the World Cup (and it might get ugly)(you could waste hours keeping track of all the possible permutations using the draw simulator here). Nonetheless, that confidence will be there when they step on the pitch, somewhere in Brazil against an unknown opponent in June 2014. I can't wait. And I don't think they can either.

 

Where Was Joe?

"Joe Paterno IS Penn State football!" said one of the rioters on that campus in the wake of the news that Paterno had been fired by Penn State's Board of Trustees.

To which one can only respond: you'd better hope not. 

The charges against Jerry Sandusky and the revelations of cover-up, inaction, lying and half-truths that followed force one to conclude that no school would want Paterno to lead one of its teams, let alone represent that team and that entire institution, given the vacuum of morality and leadership at the top of that program over the last 13 years.

Where was Joe when his Sandusky, his loyal assistant coach, was raping a 10 year-old boy in his team's facility?

Where was Joe and what did he do after that act was reported to him by a graduate assistant? Following the chain of command? When Sandusky was banned from the Penn State campus in 2002 what possible reason could there have been for it other than that the school knew, and Joe knew, that Sandusky had committed the precise act that was reported to Paterno. And yet those sordid details were apparently kept within the Penn State campus, enabling Sandusky to pursue his twisted habits everywhere else (including, potentially, one of the school's satellite campuses).

Where was Joe, when that loyal assistant retired, at the age of 55 and heir apparent to Joe's throne? What exactly did Joe know at that time about Sandusky? Why did Sandusky retire then, at the peak of his career, and what was his nebulous attachment to the Penn State football program after that?  Why was Sandusky still travelling with the team after his retirement, and apparently taking some of his victims (along with his wife) with him to bowl games?

Where was Joe when after Sandusky retired he founded The Second Mile, a charity ostensibly devoted to helping youths from troubled families, but in all likelihood to offer Sandusky a ready supply of young boys to prey upon? The Grand Jury states in its indictment of Sandusky that "[i]t was within The Second Mile program that Sandusky found his victims" which makes Penn State's and Paterno's lack of notice to anyone, including those within the foundation, of what they had to know, what they had to be worried about regarding Sandusky's predilections, all the more heinous. That is, if they were at all concerned about the welfare of children as opposed to, say, the reputation of the University and its lily white football program.

Where was Joe when that student quoted above and others were clashing with police and calling for his return? If he had really planned on devoting the rest of his life to the university after he magnanimously announced on his (and only his) terms when he would step down, shouldn't he have done something? Why not address the crowd and tell them that they were being completely wrong-headed and ill-motivated? Why not ask them where the protests were on behalf of those 7, 8, 9 or more (many, many more perhaps) boys who were abused and forever scarred by Joe's right-hand man when that news broke? Where was the Tweet, text, email, phone call, press release, telegraph, carrier pigeon message telling the students that they were merely heaping more shame on an already shamed institution? That his ability or inability to coach three more football games was not worth that extra layer of tarnish?

Shooting the messenger -- the extra layer of tarnish.

To hear anyone say that Paterno was denied the "right" to retire on his own terms by the Board of Trustees is so galling, so myopic, it defies belief. Paterno lost any right he had to any sort of sympathy, understanding, or deference when he turned his back on the first boy he knew had been violated by Sandusky and lost it even more with every one that followed.

We know where Joe will not be on Saturday when his team takes the field without him for the first time in 60 years. And that is exactly the way it should be.

An Extraordinary Leader

"War is Hell" of that there can be no doubt.  But out of that Hell emerges extraordinary leadership, sometimes from unlikely sources.

Richard "Dick" Winters was a smart, mild-mannered, college-educated man from Pennsylvania who, at the age of 23, three months before the attack on Pearl Harbor, enlisted in the Army. He underwent basic training, then was selected for Officer Candidate School.  He joined the paratroop infantry and was assigned to Easy Company of the 101st Airborne Division. The first active combat he saw was on June 6, 1944 -- D-Day. That day the Company Commander was killed when his plane was shot down and Winters became the acting commanding officer.

Winters led his troops during the Normandy Invasion and on his first day of command led an assault that destroyed a battery of German 105 mm howitzers which were firing onto the causeways that served as the principal exits from Utah Beach, an attack that became known as the Brécourt Manor Assault. The attack is still taught at West Point as an example of a textbook assault on a fixed position.

He went on to lead his troops through several of the major campaigns in Europe in 1944 and 1945, including Bastogne. Many, many years later Winters' heroism, as well as that of most of those with whom he served, was depicted in Stephen Ambrose's book Band of Brothers and a television mini-series of the same name.

The real Dick Winters, courtesy of Wikipedia.

Dick Winters passed away last week at the age of 92. Consistent with his self-effacing manner, he had requested that news of his death not be made public until after his memorial service, which was held last Saturday. As I read of his death, and reminded myself again of his extraordinary life, I reflected on the words of his comrades and Major Winters himself on what made him such a great leader.

And it's really pretty simple. Most importantly of all, Winters cared about his men and made sure that they understood both what he expected of them and how proud he was of them. One of the men who served under him summed up Winters and his leadership to the Associated Press this way: "He was a wonderful officer, a wonderful leader. He had what you needed, guts and brains. He took care of his men, that's very important."

Winters himself wrote of his view of leadership this way in an article in American History Magazine: "If you can, find that peace within yourself, that peace and quiet and confidence that you can pass on to others, so that they know that you are honest and you are fair and will help them, no matter what, when the chips are down."

Most of us, as coaches, managers, human resource directors, or lawyers are fortunate to not find ourselves tested on the field of battle. But the rules of engagement with those working under us are largely the same, just not a matter of life and death. We don't need to be Dick Winters to be at least good leaders. Caring for those we work with, and letting them know that, is the hallmark of a good, if not great, leader.

Nor must we be Henry V of England, or William Shakespeare, who wrote the St. Crispin's Day Speech, delivered by the character of Henry V before the Battle of Agincourt, from which Band of Brothers borrowed its title. That speech is a fitting epitaph to Winters and that Greatest Generation who are leaving us day-by-day:

And Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be remembered;
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother

Crazy Like a Fox

I admit it. I've been waiting for Diego Armando Maradona, and, by extension, Argentina to implode at some point in this World Cup. It seemed inevitable, didn't it? It still might happen, but even if it does Maradona has proven many of us wrong. And in his success may be some lessons from which all of us can learn.

For the uninitiated, Maradona (one of those one-name players that are indigenous to soccer) is one of the greatest players of all-time, mentioned in the same breath with Pele, Cruyff, Beckenbauer, and very few others. He almost single-handedly (pun intended) led Argentina to the 1986 World Cup, beating West Germany 3-2 in the Final. His most memorable performance of that tournament was in the quarterfinals, where Argentina avenged the indignities inflicted on it in the Falklands and defeated England 2-1. Maradona scored both goals in that match which are two of the most memorable goals in history -- the first the infamous Hand of God goal, and the second which was (sixteen years later) recognized as the "Goal of the Century".

Off the field, however, Maradona was a mess. Addictions to cocaine and alcohol stunned his abilities and bloated his body. After his playing career ended he became nearly unrecognizable because he gained so much weight. He went to Cuba twice for drug and alcohol rehab, and nearly died in 2004 after he suffered a heart attack due to a cocaine overdose. His family at one point tried to have him declared legally incompetent. Two brief forays into coaching at the club level in the mid-90's resulted in a dismal combined record of three wins, eight ties, and twelve losses.

Despite his personal life, Maradona remained an icon in Argentina. When Argentina struggled in the qualifying tournament for the 2010 World Cup Maradona offered himself as a candidate to replace the resigned coach and was astonishingly chosen. He managed to eke Argentina into the Finals and chose to celebrate the occasion by berating the press.

Argentina did not enter this tournament as a favorite, partly because of its mediocre qualifying campaign, and partly because Maradona was regarded as a tactically naive coach and a manager who was more concerned with his own success than that of his players.

Maradona and his team, however, have proven the pundits wrong. Not only are they one of two teams to win every game up to this point (Germany being the other), but they've done it with style and flair, scoring the most goals of any national in the Finals. Maradona struts the sidelines during every match, pleading, cajoling, complaining, and, whenever he can, showing off his still-considerable ball skills.

And therein lies Maradona's genius. It is very clear that the man cares. He passionately wants to win and he passionately supports his players. His players want to play for him. And, as the French proved already in this tournament, that is a very important ingredient to a winning team.

Great players do not often make great coaches. They become frustrated when their players can't play as well, work as hard, or be as imaginative as they were. This may explain why Maradona was a failure at the club level. At the international level, however, he's surrounded by players that, while perhaps not as great as he once was, are very, very good.

He's also managed to deflect the glare of the media spotlight from his players (including the Best Player in the World, Lionel Messi) and their performances by making himself the story of his team, and probably the whole tournament. Only Maradona could trash-talk Pele and the head of UEFA (Michel Platini, who is also occasionally mentioned in the same company as an all-time great player) and receive not vitriol but chuckles in return.

Very few of us (and, I dare say, no one who would be inclined to read this blog) have the cache that Maradona has that would allow us to be hand picked, without any previous success, for the high profile position that received. But he has made the most of his opportunity and has in the process rewritten the latest chapter in his life. Most importantly, he has inspired his team to perform at great heights and, either because of or in spite of his tactical decisions, it has managed to be both successful and entertaining while doing so.

If you believe in yourself, believe in your team, and let the world know that you do, marvelous things can happen. And you may not even need the Hand of God to help.