Tag: sports

The Power Of Enthusiasm And Teamwork.

Last week I had a fun and unique opportunity. Some of the coaches and parents of my son Magnus’s freshman football team asked me if I would come speak to the team at their Wednesday night team dinner before their final game of the season on Thursday. I jumped at the chance, nearly pulling a hamstring in the process.

The team had a frustrating season and hadn’t lived up to their own expectations. Despite good coaching and plenty of talent, they were going into their 8th game with a 2-4-1 record. They were just 5 points away from being 4-3. Which is like the difference between being cute and having a nice personality.

So on Wednesday night, I talked to them about two things that could have a major impact on their final game.

First, I talked about the energy and enthusiasm they brought to the field. The psychological force you bring to the game offers a major advantage. I noticed that they weren’t bringing their full allotment of energetic horsepower to their games, and that hurt their play. (It was like their 10-gallon hat was feeling 10-gallons flat, and they hankered for a hunk of cheese.)

Then I talked about the importance of playing as a team. Even when you make mistakes, and everyone makes mistakes, you have to support each other and move forward. You have to include everyone in the team huddle, treat each other like a band of brothers, because you are stronger when you play together. Otherwise, you’ll all end up living in a van down by the river.

I also shared that when I played football and the other team started pointing fingers and fighting with each other, we knew we had won. Because when teammates fight each other, they beat themselves.

To add color, I told the team that my freshman football teammates were still many of my closest friends. We stood up in each other’s weddings. We helped each other start businesses. And even though we are scattered from New England to California, we still have a group chat, do team Zoom calls, and get together back home every few years. And we have more inside jokes than most people have outside jokes.

This group of 14 and 15-year-old boys listened intently as I encouraged them to bring their best energy and enthusiasm to the field on Thursday. They paid attention as I urged them to end the season on a high note, with the right trajectory going into the offseason, their next sports, and the next football season. I encouraged them to play like a team, feed off each other’s energy, and good things would happen.

So what happened?

From the moment the boys took the field, I could see the difference in their attitude, energy and team dynamics. They were fired up, they were connecting with each other, and ready to bring the heat. (And maybe da noize, and da funk.)

And they did.

On the opening drive, the Homestead Highlanders’ freshman team was hitting on all 11 cylinders. The boys marched down the field with attitude and scored a touchdown and a 2-point conversion to go up 8-0.

On their following defensive series, they bent, but they didn’t break. They played united as a team. Then, cornerback Markey Walker intercepted the opponent’s pass at the 3-yard line. With a key block from my son Magnus and an escort of teammates, Markey returned the interception 97 yards for a touchdown. Boom!

That play fanned the flames of their team spirit. (Not Teen Spirit.) And they just kept rolling. The score at halftime was 20-0.

They came out sharp and aggressive in the second half. Like aged Wisconsin cheddar. In fact, when the opponent fumbled the opening kickoff, our boys jumped on it. A minute later, we punched the ball in for another touchdown.

At that point, the opponent began fighting with themselves and blaming each other. And our boys knew they had won.

Our team scored again. Everyone got significant playing time. The sideline was spirited and the play on the field was inspired. The camaraderie was palpable. And the boys were a force to be reckoned with. The coaches were pumped up. The parents were proud. And when the final whistle blew, the scoreboard accurately summarized the story of the game with the final score of 33-8.

After shaking hands with the opponent, a fired-up group of young men rushed to gather in the endzone, as a team, one last time. The team energy was palpable. The pride and togetherness hung like a halo over the huddled players and their coaches. It was the perfect ending to an imperfect season. A great step in the right direction. And proof of what happens when you play together, with energy.

I am thankful for the opportunity to talk to the boys the night before their last game. I was extremely proud of the way they took full ownership of their mental approach to the game. And I am delighted to see this group finish on such a high note. I hope that over the course of their high school careers they create deep and lasting relationships with each other that last a lifetime. Like the relationships I have with my high school football teammates. And I hope that they learn the most important lesson of all. And that is that the same things that make you successful in sports, make you successful in life. Which is why youth sports are so important.

*If you know someone who could benefit from this message, please share it with them.

+For more of the best life lessons I have learned, check out my book, What Does Your Fortune Cookie Say? from Ripples Media. And consider subscribing to Adam’s Good Newsletter.

The 2 Key Factors That Determine Success in Sports and Life.

I have spent a lot of time coaching and participating in sports. Both team sports and individual sports. My teams have won and lost. The individual athletes I have coached have both dominated and been dominated. Along the way, I have carefully analyzed what creates wins and losses. And I have discovered that there are 2 key factors that determine the outcomes of all sporting events. And despite what Nike and Mars Blackmon would like you to believe, it is not da shoes.

The key 2 factors that determine the outcomes of all sporting events are effort and errors.

Effort

In sporting competitions, the effort exerted by a team or individual competitor is stacked directly against the effort exerted by the other team or individual competitor.

The more effort you exert, the more likely you are to win. This is true in contact sports, races of all types, gymnastics, putting the shot, dodgeball, and Red Rover. (Where you always ask your opponent to send that low-effort kid over.)

However, effort is not the only factor at play. (See what I did there?)

Errors

The other key element that impacts every sporting event outcome is errors.

There is an ideal way to perform every move in sports, from the discus throw to the jump shot to the form tackle to the Triple Lindy. Any deviation from that technique, form, move or execution is an error. The more errors you commit, the less likely you are to win. Like Bruce Hornsby said, that’s just the way it is,

Sometimes, errors result from a lack of focus and are self-created. Other times, your errors are forced by your opponent. In fact, it is your job as a competitor to force errors in your competitors. You do this either through physical effort or through mental or psychological stress applied through pressure, confusion, conditions, or crowd noise. (Although crowd noise is illegal in tennis and golf.)

However, you and your opponent aren’t the only ones committing errors. There are also errors made by officials, judges, referees, umpires, scoreboard operators, timekeepers, and eager Cubs fans in left field excited to catch a foul ball. Their errors have the potential to completely change the outcome of a competition. Those are simply the facts of life, like Tootie, Blair, Jo and Mrs. G.

As a competitor, there are two things you can do to impact the outcome of a sporting event.

  1. Maximize your own effort.
  2. Minimize your own errors.

The rest is beyond your control.

Beyond Sports

The impact of effort and errors doesn’t just apply to sports. The same key factors influence such varied fields as business, relationships, and academic success. They are the key ingredients in gardening, investing, music performance, and even picking up hotties at a nightclub. So pay close attention to both your successes and failures. You’ll find these two critical variables play a major role in each.

Key Takeaway

Success in sports is simply a result of maximizing effort and minimizing errors. It is why you train and improve your strength and stamina. It is why you practice and drill over and over and over again. But these same influences on sports also determine the outcomes in most areas of life. From marriage to sales to self-confidence. Which is why sports are so valuable. They teach you how to be successful in all areas of life. And that’s the great win for us all.

*If you know someone who could benefit from this message, please share it with them.

+For more of the best life lessons I have learned check out my book, What Does Your Fortune Cookie Say? from Ripples Media.

You won’t know if you’ve made the right decision until the very end.

I share a pair of season tickets to the Milwaukee Bucks with a group of other guys. At the start of each season, we rank our games in priority order so that we can each see one of the games we would like to see most. This year, my number-one-ranked game was against the Golden State Warriors. I have never seen Steph Curry play live. Finally, this was my year. Because when the games were handed out, I got the tickets to the Golden State game. It was a swish come true.

My family and I are always looking for fun experiences and adventures. Like the Bucks games. So over the holiday break, my wife Dawn found another cool experience for us to enjoy. It was a torchlit snowshoe hike through a park in rural Wisconsin. I loved the idea of it. We have done similar outings while cross-country skiing. And far from being tiki-torcherous, these outings are magical. So I was all in.

However, the snowshoe hike was a leap of faith. Because when we registered for it, there was no snow on the ground. None. Not a flake. It was kinda like the movie White Christmas. But me and my Rosemary Clooney had faith. So we registered and paid our fee anyway. Because in the forecast it looked as if we were likely to get significant snowfall over the following 10 days.

But in the middle of last week, I discovered a problem. The Golden State Warriors game and the hike were on the same Saturday night. Which is like a plot twist in a sitcom. I thought about my options like any good Dad in a good sitcom would do. I thought about leaving the hike early. I thought about sending Dawn and the kids on the hike while I went to the game with one of my guy friends, like Kramer or George.

Finally, I decided that as much as I wanted to see Stef Curry play, this was the last year that my family of 5 would be together before my 18-year-old daughter Ava leaves for college. So in my Good Luck, Charlie moment, I prioritized the family snowshoe outing.

I decided to see if I could trade my Bucks tickets with someone else in my group. Our group’s Ticketmaster, Darren Fisher, helped me swap my tix for a future game to be determined later. I was bummed to transfer the tickets away. But I want to prioritize family time. (I also want Ticketmaster to not sue me for using the name Ticketmaseter without express written consent.)

Then came the snow. We got all the snow that was predicted and more. We got pounded with nearly 2 feet of snow in 5 days. The conditions were perfect for snowshoeing. That is, until they became too perfect. It seems that the amount of snow, plus wind and cold temperatures messed up the prep for the event. So Friday night we were notified that the event had been postponed to the following weekend.

This meant that I gave up my tickets for nothing. A classic sitcom plot twist. Newman...

So on Saturday afternoon, with no Bucks tickets and no snowshoe hike, I took Ava and my son Johann to our local high school boys’ basketball game. Steph Curry didn’t play in that game. Then I took my sons Johann (16) and Magnus (13) to our health club to work out. Again no, Steph.

When we got home from the club we ate dinner and turned on the Bucks-Warriors Game. If I couldn’t be there in person, I could still watch the game on TV. That’s when the final plot twist of my real-life sitcom was revealed. Steph Curry wasn’t playing. He was taking a scheduled rest day as part of what the NBA calls ‘load management.’

Key Takeaway

Life is full of difficult decisions. This is true in our careers and in our personal lives. Make the best decision you can in the moment, with the information you have at the time. Sometimes you’ll get it right. Sometimes you’ll get it wrong. When you are right, give yourself credit for your good call. When you get it wrong, enjoy a good laugh. And know that you’ve got yourself another good story.

*If you know someone who could benefit from this message, please share it with them.

+For more of the best life lessons I have learned check out my book, What Does Your Fortune Cookie Say? from Ripples Media.

How Our Team Won An Impossibly Close Championship.

I have loved track and field since I first joined my high school track team as a freshman. I loved it when I was no good. I loved it when I set a state record. And I loved the whole self-improvement journey in between. (Other than the times that I threw up. Which was a lot.)

While track and field is thought of as an individual sport, some of my favorite memories were winning conference team championships, both in the Connecticut Valley Conference as a Hanover High School Marauder and in the Big Ten Conference, as a University of Wisconsin Badger. There is something about being part of a great team win that makes you feel like part of a gang. A very fit gang with good nutritional habits.

Today, my day job is running the advertising and ideas agency The Weaponry. But in the spring, my later afternoon job is coaching athletes to throw the discus and put the shot on the girl’s track team at Homestead High School in Mequon, Wisconsin.

Conference Championships

On Tuesday afternoon we had our North Shore Conference Championship meet. Our conference is loaded with 10 great schools with top-tier talent and excellent coaches. (I note that because it is true and because some of them also read this blog.)

We knew the meet would be close, but just how close we never would have imagined.

The Homestead girl’s team is deep and talented. But so are our competitors. And despite our high hopes and the fact that we have won the team championship the past 2 years, we stumbled right out of the blocks. #UhOh

We had a talented runner, Sophia LaGalbo, hit a hurdle and take a nasty fall. We had an athlete we expected to score in several events, Korynne Moga, get hurt in her first event and have to drop out of the competition. We got disqualified in an early relay for passing the baton outside the zone. And we had other girls enter the competition ranked high in their event and wind up just outside of the top 8 places that score points. #gulp

As the defending conference champions this was all very disappointing. Especially as we watched other teams rack up great performances and the well-deserved points that go with them.

But despite the poor luck and poor performances, the Homestead Highlanders kept going. And we kept collecting points. Senior Savannah Fraley won the 800-meter dash like a rock star. And Eva Brandenburg dominated the 300-meter hurdle race. Plus Sophia LaGalbo, road rash and all, finished 7th in the 300 hurdles to add 2 more points.

Too Little. Too Late?

It was getting late in the meet and we were still well behind. But we had some late events with great potential to add points to the team total. In the 200-meter dash, Brandenburg took 3rd and Natalie Mueller took 8th to add 9 more points. Which was great. But that was followed by the 3200-meter run, where we had no entries, which was bad. Then came the discus results. One of the events I coach. And I was a very proud Coach-Dad when my athlete-daughter Ava took 1st place by 7 feet. And Senior Mariah Reynolds took 5th. This meant we added 14 points to the team total, which was great.

The Final 2

The meet came down to the final 2 events. The triple jump and the 4×400 meter relay.

We have a strong 4 x 400 relay. And we started strong with Grace Zortman finishing the first leg in first place. Then Shaylin Swenson ran an equally strong 2nd leg to lengthen our lead. Natalie Mueller added a great 3rd leg to maintain the lead. Which meant the race all came down to first-year track athlete Charlotte Lueck, a smiley and talented sophomore, and her 4th and final leg.

Charlotte, who is one of my favorite athletes on the team, came around the first 100 meters strong and steady. But a strong runner from Grafton High School charged hard and was right behind Charlotte by the time they reached the backstretch. But Charlotte kept her cool, and at 200 meters the challenger had dropped back several meters. The Homestead home crowd was going crazy. But on the final 100 meters, the race tightened up again, getting closer and closer as they approached the finish line.

But Charlotte held the lead and ran a very fast lap against very tough competition. Like all-you-can-eat-steak-buffet tough. With the victory, we added 10 more points to our total. Which meant that the conference championship all came down to the triple jump to determine if Homestead or Slinger High School would be conference champs.

One…Two…

Our team is great at the triple jump. Standout athlete Anisa Barnett won the event. And Sheba Bentum-Mensah grabbed 8th to help us rack up 11 more points. However, the Slinger Owls are also great at the triple jump. And they placed 2nd and 6th, to also scored 11 points. OMG!

The Final Tally

In sports, there are close competitions. And then there are really, really, really close competitions. In football, basketball and baseball you can win by as little as one point. And our track team would have been thrilled to have just one more point than our competitors. But we fell short.

However, in track and field, because of ties within the field events, (typically in the pole vault and the high jump, where competitors can finish at the same height) you can be awarded half points. And when the final total was tallied our team had won the North Shore Conference Championship by 1/2 of a point. A freaking half-point!

This meant that if any of our scorers had finished just one place lower we would not have won. It was the truest possible team victory. Every performance matters. There was no literally no breathing room. No room for error. But we won. And winning by 1/2 point is as good as winning by a mile. Maybe better.

There are 3 great things about team championships:

  1. Your teammates are there to help you out when you stumble, fall or pull a hamstring.
  2. Celebrating a victory together is far greater than celebrating alone.
  3. The win creates a team bond that lasts forever. And at the end of the day, the relationships and team memories are what you will remember and value most.

Key Takeaways

  1. Sometimes bad things happen. Keep going.
  2. Get up when you fall.
  3. Never give up.
  4. Work hard.
  5. Run your race.
  6. Lean on your teammates. You’ll go farther together.
  7. Finish Strong.
  8. It’s not over until it’s over.
  9. Sometimes 1/2 point is all it takes.
I am very proud to coach and win 3 conference team championships in a row with this crew of Laura Bosley, Jay Fuller, Me VonMe, John Krueger and Heather Krueger.

Congratulations to the following girls on their hard-fought team championship!

  • Ava Albrecht
  • Anisa Barnett
  • Scout Bonkoski
  • Eva Brandenburg
  • Savannah Fraley
  • Sierra Gill
  • Alexandra Gaskin
  • Korynne Moga
  • Natalie Mueller
  • Kyah McCray
  • Savannah Fraley
  • Shaylin Swenson
  • Charlotte Lueck
  • Sophia LaGalbo
  • Julia Gaskin
  • Sheba Bentum-Mensah
  • Mariah Reynolds
  • Emma Rader
  • Grace Zortman
  • Leila Lu Maye
  • Annika Johnson
  • Grace Zortman
  • Kelsey Hart
  • Caroline Garsha
  • Addie Kane
  • Amelia Horwitz
  • Ava Lamb

*If I missed anyone I am sorry. If I duplicated any names you are welcome. The search engines will find you first.