It's Your Team, What Will You Make it?

Entering into my 20th year of coaching (that's 40 seasons!), I'm still amazed at the process of team building. At the core, it's what coaching is all about ... anyone can do the "X's and 0's", but can you pull a group of disparate individuals and make them a team? Can you get folks who are naturally on their own page and put them on the same one? Can you get soloists to sing in unison?

These are the yearly questions I face and they are a yearly challenge.

But the more I coach the more I realize the job of making a team from individuals doesn't rest on me alone. Sure, I'll work hard toward the goal. I'll do what I can to pull and prod and push the scattered cattle into a herd. But here's the catch. The cattle have minds of their own. And sometimes despite my best efforts, we run the risk that by the season's end, it just may not be.

So this is for you. You, the runner, the teammate. What will YOU do to make this a better team this season? What will you bring to the group that helps smooth the rough spots, paint over the cracks, patch the wounds and repair the hurt feelings? Will you be someone that makes others on the team WANT to come to practice, or will your attitudes, words and actions make others think twice about showing up?

High School girls have a tendency to be "drama queens." They're good at talking behind others' backs, running in cliques and exagerrating the faults of others. Such drama is poison to a team. I have NEVER -- EVER! -- seen a team infected by drama or led by drama queens, succeed. It's a guarantee to fail. Drama makes everyone miserable, including those who dish it.

Guys are prone to be cut-throat. They like "one-upping" their teammates and are married to the pecking order. "That freshman isn't going to beat me!" some say. Where girls talk behind others' backs, guys will just stab them in the back. They can and do take lessons on clique building from the girls.

So here we go ... King XC's 11th season is dawning. If you're reading this, you are probably going to be one of the members of the team.

And it's going to be YOUR team. What will you make it? What contributions will you bring that will lift us up or tear us down? Will you work diligently, daily, to make our team more of a unit, or will you be one of those heads of cattle that is head strong, willing to see things only your way, and in the process you'll go your own way thank-you-very-much. (And while you're at it, you'll convince a couple of others to go with you).

Vince Lombardi, one of the greatest coaches of any sport once said, "Individual commitment to a group effort -- that is what makes a team work, a company work, a civilization work." True words.

But the opposite is true too, when "Individual commitment to individual effort, that's what destroys a team ..." and it's THAT that is the yearly risk and challenge of throwing a bunch of individuals together and calling them a team.

You can call them a team, or any other title you want, but what makes them a team is the consistent individual willingess to sacrifice one self for the good of the others.

Are you willing to do that this season? Are you willing to swallow your pride, your ego, your comfort zone; to blend your passions and desires with others' which might not be like yours, for the betterment of our team?

If you are, then I promise you this 11th season of KXC will be like none other. If you aren't I promise you a miserable season ... for yourself and for everyone around you.

It's your team, what will you make it?

The Voice of a Father

Today's my dad's birthday. I won't say what number it is since reminders tend to annoy him. Let's just say he's had a long life, and a good one.

I owe my running to my dad. Back in the 70's when the "running boom" was hitting the US like some pre-Oprah inspired craze, my dad jumped on that bandwagon and beat the drum into my two sisters and I. We were living in Nepal at the time, and I can still remember my dad organizing little road races for the students in the Wycliffe Bible Translator's school where he served as principal. I always got beat by my older sister, but somehow the memory that serves me most readily of those races was getting a little ribbon at the conclusion and seeing the monkeys roam around the Buddhist temple we ran out to and back from. Strange, I know, but that's my story.

Ribbons and monkeys aside, I really didn't like running. I was in elementary school at the time, and getting beat by your big sister, (and occasionally my younger sister too!) was humiliating even at 6 or 7. We came home to the States in 1974, the year before Steve Prefontaine's death and the heyday of Frank Shorter and Bill Rogers. My dad kept beating that running drum on into my junior high years and for the most part it just gave me a headache. He'd take us down to the track at California High School in Whittier and run laps with us. I'd cry. I hated it. As part of the school's PE program, we were occasionally timed for a mile and I remember running 5:58. It was an accomplishment, but not big enough to make me like running. I was stubborn.

I'll never forget a conversation we had near the end of 8th grade at the kitchen table. Dad told me that once I started high school I would have to be involved in some extracurricular activity. I guess I had few options, and maybe now that I look back at it, he knew that. I was all of 5-5 and 120 pounds and afraid of getting hit, so football was out. My adventures in piano and accordion lessons (yes, accordion, that was my mom's fault) never worked out, and lets just say when God handed out the whole "eye-hand-coordination" thingy, I was in the bathroom. So that left cross country.

But I don't like running!

Get over it.

So there I was in my short-shorts (hey, it was cool in 1980!) on the first day of summer practice. Nervous, yet eager to prove myself. We went for a seven-miler that day, a "lets see who's been running this summer" kind of run. The competitor in me drove me, despite the discomfort, and I finished near the front of the group.

I was hooked.

I went home and proudly gave my dad a play-by-play of the whole run. I don't recall what his response was, but he must have smiled.

For the next four years I ran. Like most kids, I had highs and lows, good races and bad. But one thing remains today, as clear in my mind as if 1983 were just yesterday: His voice.

That voice, above all others, carried. It was at every single meet I ran, never missed one of them. It was cheering, encouraging. It was loud. Not once was I told I had a bad race, even when I did. I heard his words of support even before I heard my coach's. They could cut through the pain and push their way through the exhaustion.

The air on which the words carried became a tail wind. In those lonely, painful third miles, they'd get me to the finish line.

Had it not been for the push my dad gave me so long ago, a significant part of my life wouldn't have been formed. Running became a part of my identity, even more so than it was part of my dad's. But through the last two decades we have shared pieces of the sport, including running the LA Marathon together in 1987. In 1996, when I ran the 100th Boston Marathon, he came along to lend that voice at the finish once again. He has on occasion traveled to Fresno to cheer on my cross country teams at the State meet and to Walnut for the CIF Finals. Though his voice at those meets wouldn't rise to a shout, when the last of my kids had crossed the line and the score had been tallied, he was always quick to offer praise or a simple "good job, Bradley".

Now drenched in a coach's sweat, that tail wind of my younger days has become a refreshing breeze.

And it pushes me on, still, in the miles we cover together today. Life is like a long distance race, how great it is to have a cheerleader, someone to shout from the side lines, "You can do it!" My dad has been that for me for 43 years. And for that, I'm eternally grateful.

Happy Birthday, Dad!

Living a Life that Matters.

I know it's been almost a month since my last post here, but I'm hesitant to post "just anything" or to be pithy for the sake of posting. So I apologize if you think this blog has died, it hasn't I'm just waiting for some inspiration.

That inspiration came when I stumbled upon this charge to live a life that matters. Read it, be motivated! It is written by Michael Josephson.

"Ready or not, some day it will all come to an end.
There will be no more sunrises, no minutes, hours or days.
All the things you collected, whether treasured or forgotten, will pass to someone else.

Your wealth, fame and temporal power will shrivel to irrelevance.
It will not matter what you owned or what you were owed.
Your grudges, resentments, frustrations
and jealousies will finally disappear.
So too, your hopes, ambitions, plans and to-do lists will expire.

The wins and losses that once seemed so important will fade away.
It won’t matter where you came from
or what side of the tracks you lived on at the end.
It won’t matter whether you were beautiful or brilliant.
Even your gender and skin color will be irrelevant.

So what will matter? How will the value of your days be measured?

What will matter is not what you bought,
but what you built; not what you got, but what you gave.
What will matter is not your success
but your significance.
What will matter is not what you learned,
but what you taught.
What will matter is every act of integrity,
compassion, courage, or sacrifice
that enriched, empowered or encouraged others
to emulate your example.

What will matter is not your competence,
but your character.
What will matter is not how many people you knew,
but how many will feel a lasting loss when you’re gone.

What will matter is not your memories,
but the memories that live in those who loved you.
What will matter is how long you will be remembered,
by whom and for what.

Living a life that matters doesn’t happen by accident.
It’s not a matter of circumstance but of choice.
Choose to live a life that matters."