putting the 'we' before 'me'

Several years ago, I picked up Phil Jackson’s book entitled Sacred Hoops and during some rare downtime actually had a chance to read it. When it hit the shelves, Jackson was the well-respected and highly successful coach of the Chicago Bulls, who won six National Basketball Association championships during his tenure. After a yearlong hiatus, he guided the Los Angeles Lakers to three titles before a variety of issues forced him to throw up his hands in disgust last spring. Both teams boasted high magnitude stars and included a supporting cast of less talented athletes.  It was up to Jackson, the master motivator, to blend the various egos into a cohesive unit in which the total was much greater than the sum of the parts.

As I read along one afternoon enthralled by Jackson’s wisdom, a line simply leaped off the page at me. Good teams become great ones when the members trust each other enough to surrender the “me” for the “we.

I sat up in my chair.  I highlighted the sentence in yellow and put a star in the margin.  I folded the corner of the page. I read the passage again and committed it to memory not so much because the idea was novel but because it affirmed our athletic philosophy here at Collegiate.

Many times, I’ve thought of it, but never more clearly than a Sunday evening not long ago when each of the fall varsity coaches stood at the podium in Oates Theater and shared the reasons for his team’s success. Because cross country comes first alphabetically, I got first crack at the audience, and among my brief – yes, I can sometimes be brief – remarks, I included the following:

Along the way, our teams trained together, faced challenges together, had fun, gained respect for each other, reveled in each other’s successes, and dreamed of the championship meets in November.

We achieved reasonable success in those meets, but with some time to put the season in perspective, I saw it this way: 

The true victory was that our athletes ran their best when their best was needed and each ran not for personal glory but for the most important reason of all – their teammates.

In what should have been a rebuilding year, the soccer team opened 2-2, then reeled off 15 straight victories and won the state championship. When head coach Charlie Blair spoke, he attributed the feat to teamwork.

The best teams are the ones where the players work hard in the off-season to stay fit and sharpen their skills, stay focused in practice, and believe in each other and what is asked of them. They must understand roles, put aside personal goals and egos, and commit to the greater goals of the team.

The field hockey team was 40-1 over the last two years and has claimed back-to-back League of Independent Schools and state titles. The Cougars put up some serious numbers  – 66 goals scored to their opponents’ 3 and 18 shutouts in 21 games – but Coach Karen Doxey viewed their performance as much more than statistics.

Sometimes when you have a strong team, they think they can win just by showing up. Not this team. They were on a mission every game. They had a very strong work ethic.  You don’t win championships without dedication, off-season work, daily focus, desire and heart.  This group had it all.

The others – Kimberley Nance (tennis), Charlie McFall (football), and Bill Shalley (volleyball) – shared a similar theme.

A couple of days later, I sat down with Keith Evans, the head of school, and asked him for his thoughts about the premise that it wasn’t individual talent – or even superior talent – that allowed us to take four state and three league titles in another magnificent autumn.

“The highlight to me,” he said, “was that on virtually every team, there were extraordinary efforts when the chips were down, when all seemed lost, and when the momentum had shifted against us. “The success of this fall didn’t ride on individual effort but on groups of kids that came together. “What I saw was the embodiment of teamwork.”