By everyone, I mean outgoing seniors Kevin and Magic; my seven-on-seven team; Coach and Cassidy Hope; Tom and Tracy Dole; Kendal; my best friends Jeff, Alan and Gina; plus my mom and dad. Counting me there were twenty people.
I sent Tami a text and we logged on to the video chat so she could listen in, live.
I had a couple of the guys help move furniture in the living room to make room enough for everyone. We had folding chairs in the garage that were brought in.
I started the meeting once everyone was seated.
“This all started last week when Coach Hope and I had a talk about leadership. He’s been mentoring me, and we have chats now and then. I went to some of my ‘go-to’ people, Kendal and Tami, and bounced some ideas off them. My original talk with Coach Hope was for me to find a handful of leaders to assist with the workouts.
“I admit that my original thought was that I wanted to win the state championship my junior and senior years in high school. Coach Hope pointed out that my goal should be to win three straight years. I thought about that. I think you’d agree that we have a team bonding issue. The incoming seniors never really had a leadership role before. Magic and Kevin have filled that role for the past three years. I think that’s why we’re seeing some growing pains with incoming leadership.”
“You mean they’re a bunch of jerks,” someone said in the back.
Coach Hope bristled. I’d been dancing around it. Kendal had coached me on how to say it in a diplomatic way. If I wanted to win these guys over, I couldn’t start lying to them.
“I think the technical term is ‘ass-hats,’” I said.
That got everyone laughing. Coach Hope just shook his head.
“In all seriousness, I don’t know if we can get them to become team players or not,” I said, pausing to let that sink in. “I’ll continue to offer them help and support because I am a team player. That doesn’t mean, though, that I’ll let them stop me from achieving my personal goals.”
“David, what is your ultimate goal?” my dad asked.
“I’m glad you asked that,” I said, flipping through my notes.
Finding what I was looking for, I began again.
“It has evolved over the last few days. I think Lincoln High is a sleeping giant. I don’t just want to see success on the football field, I want to see it in all sports. I also want to see your involvement translate into long-term success. I see the key to that being education, both here at Lincoln High and beyond. I would like to see every one of you get a college education. I want to see the leadership skills that you learn here translate into you being leaders in your life. If that’s being the best mom or dad you can be, then that’s great. If you become a community leader, that’s even better. I want you to become successful on and off the field.”
“That sounds like a lot. How’re we going to do that?” Jim, Suzanne’s little brother, asked, looking around the room.
“You hit it right on the head, Jim, when you said ‘we.’ I can’t make you do anything. However, if we, as a team, decide to do this, we will succeed. Therefore, as a team-building exercise, we’re going to break out into groups, and attack the various tasks we need to do. We’ll brainstorm to figure out what needs to be done. Once each group has a list, we’ll come together as a group and we’ll prioritize. After we do that, we’ll break each task into a logical plan, and assign people to do them. Finally, we’ll have accountability.”
“Explain to them why accountability is so important,” Coach Hope said.
I thought about it for a moment.
“A friend of mine was telling me about the difference between being a ‘doer’ and a ‘wanter.’ For example, if you want to lose weight, it’s a hard, long task. Doing it on your own is almost impossible. That’s why so many companies make a lot of money on weight-loss programs. How do they do it? They make you accountable by making you come to meetings and weighing yourself each week. They change you from being a wanter into a doer. Knowing that you have to answer for your actions allows you to continue when it gets hard. You now have a reason to get up and lift instead of hitting the snooze button. People are counting on you,” I said.
Everyone broke into groups and brainstormed for a couple of hours. The two people whose involvement didn’t surprise me were my dad and Tom Dole. When we were in California, Dad mentioned that he and Tom had come to an understanding. They bounced from group to group and helped whenever they were stuck. They also helped folks get refocused.
Everyone got hungry, so Mom ordered pizza. Mom had also made cookies. I’d tried to sneak some earlier, but she watched me like a hawk. She knew my lunch would be cookies, and more cookies, if she let me have my way!
By the end of the afternoon, we had the outlines of a plan and everyone was assigned tasks to complete. My dad and Tom were nominated to be our project managers, with Coach Hope taking the overall lead. Dad and Tom would also help if people got bogged down or stuck.
A number of good ideas came out of the meeting. One was the idea of specialized training. That was why I was going to quarterback camps this summer. Why shouldn’t our linemen go to lineman camp? Someone was assigned to find out the who, what, when, where and how much for all the different camps.
Another good idea came out of an accountability discussion. Everyone would be assigned a buddy. You were responsible to make sure your buddy made it to work out, study sessions, etc. They were responsible to make sure you did the same. The buddy teams were assigned to a big brother or sister. They were there if you both messed up. My buddy was Jim, and our big sister was Cassidy. I think we’ll both be showing up.
On the academic side, we put together study groups. We would make sure that we had someone strong to help. I somehow got assigned to help with algebra. I teased them that I needed help with dance class. I was informed that if I was dumb enough to sign up for it, I was on my own.
I WENT BACK TO MY APARTMENT and sent a text to Tami. We were soon logged into the video chat.
“Thanks for your help today. How did your group go?” I asked.
Kendal had snatched my tablet as soon as she knew what group she was leading. They had worked on the scholarships.
“It went great. Tracy shared a lot of what she’s been doing for you. That helped us quite a bit. I didn’t know that a questionnaire has to be filled out before a school will look at you for football. She also explained that for a coach to be able to talk to you, they have to be contacted first. So she created a group list and will send either a text or email and say something like, ‘Hi, this is so-and-so.’”
“That would make it easier for her.”
“Wait, it gets better. We pulled Alan into our meeting and he told us that we could create a database that could help automate everything. Then we called Lily.”
“I knew I forgot to invite someone.”
“Don’t worry about it. She said you could make it up to her personally.”
“Yeah, right.”
“Anyway, back on topic, we asked her what it would take to create websites for everyone. She said that she could use yours as a template. I guess she uses WordPress. When she wants to add a video or message, she uses the blog feature and it automatically updates the site.
“She suggested that we create an overall site for Lincoln High. Each team would have a link that the coaches could update. On the side would be another link for each player with their picture. It would take you to their personal site. They would have access to update their blog. That way if they wanted to do a quick update with a video or post a blog, they could.”