Communication Basics: Being Ready (A Football Story)

There are only a few games in my entire coaching career where I felt a bit of shame.  In three cases, there was nothing that I could do, because control over aspects of the game had been taken from me.  There was one game where it looked like I might feel more than a bit of shame.  I was the coach in charge.  The head caoch was gone for that week.  I thought we were reasonably ready to play.  That time I was wrong.

We unceremoniously fell behind 16-0 at the end of the first half.  For a freshman team that is a long way behind, because usually a quarterback takes a bit longer to mature as a passer than do some of the other positions with their respective roles.  So heading to our end zone area at the end of the half, I had better have something to say to avoid a potentially embarrassing loss.

I saw everyone of my player's heads hanging.  I think I interpreted this as a lack of confidence at the time.  I now realize it was a clear indication of shame.  You  know this too.  Your parents will say to you when you are ashamed, "Stop hanging your head".  So I pulled out a story that didn't just address fear and confidence, but also shame and acceptance.  I did not realize the latter then, but I got lucky.  Then I hitched to that story the idea of Keep It Simple Silly (KISS).  I was just thinking of the idea of information load here and not overloading their brains.  Actually, it is also a great logic to connect with the feelings of acceptance.  How many times can a guy get lucky in one game?

So I shared with them that I had watched our team while I was playing come back from 21-0 at the half and win in a state record 5 overtimes.  Part of this story too each guy taking responsibility for their part on the field rather than pointing the finger at someone else.  Then I told the offense one thing to fix and the defense one thing to fix.  I told them not to think about any other errors.  Just fix the biggest on each side of the ball.  This did avoid mental overload, but it also avoided acceptance overload - we'll never measure up.

I was about to be greeted by one of the greatest turn arounds I have witnessed in my life.  Two things really stand out.  First, is one of the more talented players on our team stepping up and taking on more responsibility rather than pointing his finger at others.  The other is that the defense did exactly what I asked and it changed everything on that side of the ball.  The offense quickly turned their game around as well as we roared back into the game the second half.  Very late in the game, we had one play left to win or to lose, the score was that close.

We came up just a few yards shy on that last play of winning the game.  Everyone on our sideline knew that with more play or with any more luck we would have won.  The most shocking thing was the response from our fans.  One of the parents said that in all of the games he had witnessed he had never seen anything like it.  I also was greeted by the other coach who asked, "What did you change at halftime?"  I had to apologize and say I can't answer that question.  They were after all probably our number one rival in our conference.

But only sidnce this last May 2014, have I seen what I did.  I did it then, but I didn't see it.  Not only that I think I mishandled the players feelings of acceptance later, because I didn't know that is what they were feeling.  You see that second half, the KISS method made it possible for the players on each side to feel they measured up to what was acceptable to me and then thta changed the scoreboard in terms of what was acceptable to their fans.  It is a "shame" that we didn't score on that last play, but the shame of the first half, it was rightly gone.  They had good reason to feel so unashamed for that half.  Take care and face down shame and aim instead for acceptance.  That is the emotional part of being ready.

Sincerely