High School Lessons
I was a high school coach for forty years: cross country, wrestling, and track and field. All of my teams worked hard; the early middle school wrestlers, the state contending cross country teams, and those amazing last track teams. We always wanted to succeed, to win, to achieve our goals.
As “the coach”, it was my job to teach more than just athletic techniques. The idea of school sports is to teach “life lessons”: hard work leads to success, helping others achieve makes everyone better, and how to sacrifice for a greater goal. It often worked. My teams were successful, and more importantly, as the “old retired guy” I now get to see those same team members have success in life. They are working hard, having families, achieving life goals, and making the world a better place. They learned the lessons beyond how to pass the baton, run the hill, or “snake” the bar. Success in life: that, more than the wins and losses, is what it’s all about.
Final Lesson
One of the hardest lessons was to convince them to be willing to risk failure. Big goals, big achievements always involve big risks. Whether it was winning the Conference by one point or plotting to win the state in a cabin on a hilltop, getting high school kids to “take the chance” and risk disappointment was hard. No one wants to be disappointed; it would have been easier to make “safer” goals.
At the end of each season there was always “the final” lesson. More often than not, it was how to deal with failing to achieve that last, ultimate goal. I put it to them this way – have class in defeat. Whatever the outcome, it doesn’t change who you are, and the work you have done. Have pride in the journey, of being willing to take the risks, success or failure. And sometimes it all worked, and the lesson was to show class in victory, in ultimate success. I had to teach that one too. Sports is about winning and losing, so when you win, remember what it was like on the losing side. Show grace in victory, because we have all had to show grace in defeat. And sometimes, it was by just one point.
Sun Rise
Those same lessons apply to politics. In fact, that’s where I learned them in the first place. In political campaigns you put your heart and soul into trying to succeed. If you have the right candidate and the right ideas, you know that success will be more than just “winning”. It will be about making your world a better place, improving life for more than just yourself. So defeat is so much harder. It’s crushing. You lose not just for yourself, but for all of those that would benefit from your ideas.
Defeat, failure to achieve that ultimate goal: it was so bad that the world seemed to stop. The sun clearly could not come up – this bad day would last forever. But that was a lesson to be learned too. The next morning, no matter how bad the loss, the sun still rose. And with that, the journey began again. The sun came up, and it was time for new goals, time to plan a new journey.
Many of us re-learned that lesson in the early morning hours of November 9th of 2016. Unimaginably, all of our collective ideas and goals were tossed away. To paraphrase President Gerald Ford, for the majority of us, a “long national nightmare” began – the Trump Administration. And as we know now, it turned out to be far worse than any of us even imagined on that long dark night that seemed to last for years. From the Muslim Ban to Child Separation, Russia to Ukraine, “fine people on both sides” to “I’ll march with you to the Capitol”: it’s been a long, long four years. It ended just as badly as it began.
Our Team
Somehow the win of Biden/Harris this past November feels more like winning the Conference by one point than some overwhelming victory. While more than 81 million Americans voted for Biden and Harris, 74 million voted for Trump and Pence. Almost half of our nation now has that same long night we had in 2016.
I feel good about the win. Today, Joe Biden will become the President of the United States. In the next few days, the United States will rejoin the Paris Accord, remove the Muslim Ban, and make it a government priority to reunite the remaining separated children with their families. The XL pipeline will be canceled once again, and the Federal Government will finally “take charge” of the COVID vaccination program. And that’s just the beginning.
The sun rose this morning on a new America. But it’s an America that is still divided, still shocked by the Insurrection, and a long way from Reagan’s “city on a hill”. So, my Resistance, my Democratic friends, savor “the win” today. But learn this lesson from an old Coach: show class in our victory. We need our fellow Americans, even those that voted for Donald Trump. We need them to be a part of our team effort.
I saved my Biden signs from the election, and I thought about putting them back out last night, just for today. Instead, I’m making sure the US Flag is waving high in front of our house. It’s the “class” thing to do.
Post Script
I watched President-Elect Biden speak to the nation twice yesterday. The first time, as he left his home in Delaware, he was willing to show his emotion, his attachment to his home state, and his pride in the son he lost.
Then he took that same emotion and strength and led the nation in the FIRST national mourning for the 400,000 lost to COVID. He gave us a moment to mourn, to finally recognize our loss.
It was good to have a President for our whole nation.
