Ricky: Hey,
all those races I won, that was for you. You know that? I did just like you
told me. If you aint first, you’re last.
Reese: What
the hell are you talkin’ about?
Ricky: What
you told me that day at school for career day.
Reese: (looking
lost)
Ricky: You
came in and you said, “If you aint first, you’re last.”
Reese: Oh
hell Ricky, I was high when I said that! I mean that doesn’t make any sense at
all. If you aint first, you’re last? You can be second. You can be third;
forth. Hell, you can even be fifth!
Ricky: What
are you talkin’ about?! I lived my whole life based on that! (pauses) Well now
what the hell am I supposed to do?
Reese: Well
that’s the million dollar question isn’t it? (pauses) Good luck to you son.
(walks away)
When Will
Ferrell says anything it sounds funny. The man doesn’t have a serious voice.
‘If you aint first, you’re last,’ uttered by Will’s iconic character Ricky
Bobby seems instantly preposterous. From the first time he said it in the movie
Talladega Nights, most of us realized how nonsensical the statement really
is. I say ‘most’ because I believe that most
of the people I know realize that there is more to life than winning, that
winning isn’t everything, and that there are certainly varying degrees of
success.
For
professional athletes however, (those people whose profession is being an
athlete) this can often be a hard distinction. The goal of many professions is
proficiency in a specific skill set and, while this is also true for athletes,
the goal of professional athletics is to win. That’s why we play the game. We
are selected, evaluated, and ranked based on our ability to win or to help the
team win. In a professional sense winning is
everything and there is a very clear distinction between first place and every
other place. It shouldn’t be a surprise then that for many athletes it becomes
difficult to separate their worth as a professional (an athlete) and their
worth as a person.
One example of
this which sticks out vividly in my mind occurred during a bobsled race my
rookie season. After recording a start on our first run which was admittedly
slower than we had expected my teammates were furious. They described the start
as, “pathetic,” and one said that he was, “embarrassed,” by it. Calling the
start pathetic is understandable. Pathetic is a judgment of the quality of the
performance, a harsh judgment, but a judgment none the less. Being embarrassed
by the performance on the other hand implies that the athlete feels somehow
shameful about the performance and indicates a direct connection with
self-worth.
It has been my experience in
athletics that more often than not this is the case. Athletes feel their
performance is tied to who they are at a deep level. If they perform well they
feel good about themselves but if they fail to perform up to expectations then
they feel somehow less valuable as people. This is why ‘morale’ is such a big
issue at coaching clinics across the nation. I heard this over and over playing
college football, “What can we do to keep morale high?” What coaches really
meant is, “How can we keep athletes feeling good about themselves as we
traverse the inevitable ups and downs that come with any season?”
Truth be told,
there are many, many more failures in sport than there are victories. In
bobsled there will only be four athletes who will win Gold in the 4-man bobsled
event at this year’s Olympic Games. Four! Every other athlete in the entire
sport of bobsled will fall short of that mark. It’s the same in every sport. Of
all the athletes involved in a sport, only a select few will even make it to
the pinnacle of their sport (the NFL, the NBA, the Olympics, etc.), and out of
that small number only a fraction will ever win a championship. Coaches know
this and they’re actively developing strategies to deal with it. My question,
and what I want to address here, is what can we do as athletes to help
ourselves avoid these pitfalls and keep performing at our best throughout a
season, a career, and beyond that.
A good place to
start, I think, is with how we define success. In general if you ask an athlete
what success is they will say, “Winning.” Merriam-Webster’sonline dictionary defines success as a favorable or desired outcome: the
attainment of wealth, favor, or eminence.
Neither of these definitions really helps the situation at all. Both are
focused on the achievement and not the effort. The great UCLA basketball coach
John Wooden came up with his own definition of success which I think hits the
nail squarely on the head. Take a minute to consider the definition and video
below and see if you agree or disagree with how and why Coach Wooden came to
define success as:
I believe that what
Coach Wooden said is true. I believe that if we focus on things which are out
of our control it will adversely affect our ability to perform to our best. I
believe that an athlete, or a person, knows when they have truly given their
best (and when they haven’t) and when they have there is nothing more that they
can do. I believe we must have faith that things will work out as they should,
providing we do what we should and we must have the patience to wait for that.
And I believe that winning is not a product of trying to win but rather a
by-product of doing things the right way over and over throughout a season and
a career. If the goal of an athlete (or team) is doing things the right way then
success will follow on its own.
I have learned through a career in
athletics that there are far more times when we will give our best yet fall
short rather than achieving the desired outcome, and while we must never cease
in our pursuit of excellence, we must also take time to enjoy the
self-satisfaction gained from the knowledge that we made the effort to do the
best of which we were capable for that is true success.
“For
who can ask more of a man,
than
giving all within his span.
Giving
all it seems to me,
is
not that far from victory.”
-Joseph
Moriarty
Important Notes
From the video:
00:47 – We are all unique in size,
intelligence, and appearance. We each have unique gifts.
02:35 – 3 rules on guiding your
ambitions
02:52 – Thy Best, poem
03:09 – Definition of Success
03:28 – Character and reputation
09:01 – Pyramid of Success
09:25 – Faith and Patience
10:53 – The Road Ahead, And The Road
Behind, poem
11:58 – Don’t whine, Don’t complain,
Don’t make excuses
12:35 – When a game is over you
shouldn’t be able to tell by looking at the players which team won
13:10 – The score of a game should be
the by-product of doing things right and not the end itself