“Life is 10% about what happens to you, and 90% about how you respond to it,” – Football Coach Lou Holtz (Press Pros Feature Photos)
Fourteen teams will vie for tournament immortality this weekend, only to find that thirty years from now they’re the only ones to remember. So here’s what the other seven have to look forward to…something that lasts longer than a trophy, and does you just as much good.
I had a great time with a pair of boyhood friends I met in Columbus this week…Danny Huff and Andy Owens…for their friendship, for the days at Chesapeake East Elementary, and for buying me lunch as a birthday tribute, three weeks late.
“Are you doing Ohio State baseball this weekend, or the state tournament?” Danny asked.
“The state tournament,” I replied. “We have too many people on the ‘IL’ (injured list). Comes with the privilege of ownership.”
“Well tell me this,” Andy added. “Are you going to get on your platform about winning?”
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Which I’ve written before, and it’s true, in human terms. Vince Lombardi once characterized it by saying that “Winning isn’t everything. Its the only thing.” And I think we all know that people would throw eggs at the great coach if he said that now. We live in a much softer culture than before, where handshake lines and post-game prayer is more satisfying to those for whom compassion is more inspiring than cutting down the nets.
And one of the great lines I’ve ever heard is attributed to the legendary basketball coach Abe Lemons, whose team at Oklahoma City University once lost a critical conference game and was asked to join the winning team in a post-game prayer at midcourt. Afterwards, the wife of the Dean of Students confronted Lemons and told him how impressed she was with his humility after losing such an important game.
“I wonder if I might ask what you prayed about?” she asked.
“You sure can,” Lemons responded. “I prayed for a 6’10” center to transfer in over the summer that gets more than four points and two rebounds a game. Because if one doesn’t, I’ll be praying for a job this time next year.”
But our lunch conversation (over Thai’s Asian Bistro food…the best) gave rise to another truth about tournaments, and titles, and winning that’s just as true now as it’s ever been – undeniable. Everyone doesn’t win the state tournament, leaving the other seven teams this weekend to weigh their options for the future. Football coach Lou Holtz once said this about the disappointment of not winning a big game – or the biggest game.
“Life is 10% about what happens to you, and 90% about how you respond to it,” said Holtz. “So there you are. No one has ever drowned in sweat.”
Yes, winning is important because it teaches you strategies that you lean on for the rest of your life. But if you don’t win you’re faced with what to do next. Do you accept losing and wallow in its frustration? Or do you get back up and adopt some new habits, and a greater commitment to work.
“Everyone wants to win. But it’s the will to prepare to win that’s most important.” – Bobby Knight
Nobody likes to admit their appreciation, or admiration for Bobby Knight, publicly…his bombastic personality, his competitive fire, and for his throwing the occasional chair. But almost universally every kid who ever played for Knight at Indiana admits to leaving school with skills centered around hard work and the same winning commitment from basketball that helped them achieve professional success later in life.
“Everyone wants to win,” said Knight. “But it’s the will to prepare to win that’s most important.”
And of course, that will is rooted in the reality that you might not be as good as you thought if you lose an important game in the state tournament. Yes, games can be lost. Yes, games can be determined by a turnover or a missed free throw. And yes, the people who see it will remember on the drive home that it was poor Jimmy who missed the shot that cost his team the title.
Publisher Sonny Fulks writes OHSAA and Ohio State sports for Press Pros Magazine.com.
And winning, of course, is proportional to your aspirations and your concept of success. It was also Abe Lemons who once said, “Finish last in your league and they’ll call you an idiot. Finish last in medical school and they’ll call you Doctor.”
But regardless of how large or small the size of your dreams, understand. There’s always going to be someone your size, who looks like you, and dreams like you who wants the same thing that you want. And what you learn at, and after, the state tournament this week…is how to make sure they don’t get it.
In fact, Huff, Owens and I spent most of our time together this week trading tales, and experiences – what we learned from losing, and how to move on. Everyone’s different, but the answer’s the same.
Bobby Knight called it ‘will’.
Lou Holtz called it ‘sweat’.
But Lombardi said, “Once you learn to quit it becomes a habit.”
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