"Thinking Eternally, Acting Locally." - Neal August
Once upon a time there was a professional football team that was the most winning team in their league. They consistently won their games and made it to the playoffs and even won the Super Bowl with clockwork regularity. Throughout the league this team was known to have the best coaches and best players now playing the game. It seemed that this team could do no wrong and would continue to win games far into the future.
Now the owners of this football team were very passionate about the game of football and very earnestly wanted their team to win games and do well. However, the owners, though being passionate, had only a fundamental knowledge of the game and were somewhat irked and confused about how the team's coaches and players played the game of football. The teams' training practices and even the games themselves were full of razzle-dazzle plays and apparently unorthodox strategies that confounded their opponents as well as the owners. Because the owners only had a fundamental knowledge of the game they were a little distressed by such plays, but, as long as the team won football games, they did not see it necessary to change how their coaches and the players played the game.
But one day a group of outside assistant coaches began coming to the owners complaining to them about the unorthodox plays that were being conducted by the coaches and players. They complained that such plays were an affront to the game of football and would soon lead to the demise of the team. They complained that such plays, if they continued, would spell doom for the most winning team in the league and that the current coaches and players, regardless of their past successes, would surely be soon losing their games. "We need to get back to the fundamentals of the game", they said. "Only then will we be assured of continuing our winning streak." In short, these outside assistant coaches played on the fears and ignorance of the owners and offered themselves up as the answer to the problem they had convinced the owners was soon to come.
Now the owners of this football team were very passionate about the game of football and very earnestly wanted their team to win games and do well. So, on the advice of the outside assistant coaches, the owners fired the head coach and his coaching staff and hired the outside assistant coaches as their new coaching staff. Soon the new head coaches began to make significant changes to the team, including firing most of the players that had once won so many games and altering the plays that had once won so many football games.
Soon the new coaches were advertising their new coaching staff and new players on every available media outlet and promoting their new and improved team with their great game strategy as the next great thing in football. The coaches and players appeared on sports shows and commercials and even appeared on the boxes of cereal. In time, the new and improved team began attracting more and more fans to the games and more and more money poured into owners' pockets and into the team. However, despite the new and improved team with its coaches and players who were dedicated to the fundamentals of the sport, the team could not win their games.
Now the owners of this football team were very passionate about the game of football and very earnestly wanted their team to win games and do well. So they called their new coaches up and asked them to explain why the team was not winning as many games as the new coaches had promised or as many games as the old coaches had delivered.
"Well," said the new coaches, "we're taking in more revenue than ever, we have more fans than ever before ..."
"Yes," replied the owners, "but we're not winning football games and that's the whole point of having a football team in the first place. How do you explain this?"
"Well, a few of those assistant coaches that you fired, they are now teaching high school football and they're not winning as many games as we are so things would have been much worse if we had not become the coaches."
"That's not an explanation that is an excuse," the owners replied.
The coaches took in a deep breath and said, "Well, our team has the best coaches and the best players in the league - all chosen by us - and our team has the best football strategy - all okayed by us - so the only possible explanation for why our team is not winning football games is that the owners are not very passionate about the game of football."
7 comments:
great Parable!!
dano
The huge problem with this parable, is that the football team wasn't originally winning games by razzle-dazzle plays, but rather by unsportsmanlike conduct that was extremely close to getting them in position to be not allowed to play. It's not worth winning the game by this form of conduct, it cheapens the team, the players, the fans, and the plays and strategies. This razzle-dazzle team was becoming a laughing stock to other teams due to their conduct.
The assistant head coaches from the outside came in and helped the team come back to a proper way of playing football and combining winning strategies.
What has to be understood is that when the players don't have their unsportsmanlike plays anymore, there is a learning time where they must re-learn how to play the game in a correct way, and well enough to win by reducing their number of errors.
Just as the team didn't become unsportsmanlike overnight, but pushed the boundaries with the referees and got away with more and more, they will also not see an undefeated season overnight either.
There will be some really bad games, some really good games, and some hard-fought games that go either way based on one play. But in the end, if the team wants the win bad enough, they'll play as true competitors, and have the discipline to take the time and learn the game as well.
ON a sidenote, if the sports commentators don't like the team, there's always the option of switching teams. But to sit and show nothing but replays of the team's mistakes doesn't make the commentator look good, and all it does for the team is get tiring and bothersome.
Better time would be spent bolstering the fans and showing what the team has made improvements on, praying to God that they learn to play well, and being supportive throught the tough times.
The commentator might just learn something about football by watching those who have devoted their lives to the game, and are giving their all to learn to play that much better.
The commentator has the option of sitting above the stands watching the game and saying "I wouldn't have done that, I would have done THIS". The players have to learn to play in the midst of the game, and still maintain integrity.
They aren't perfect players, but they're giving their all, and they ARE a lot better now, and are closer to playing true football, than they were before and would have been had the new coaches not come in.
But changes take time, and need to happen in an orderly way. Before you can win the game, you must retrain all the players to play correctly. It will take time for the coaches to pass down their knowledge, but in the end, it will be worth it.
The huge problem with this parable, is that the football team wasn't originally winning games by razzle-dazzle plays, but rather by unsportsmanlike conduct that was extremely close to getting them in position to be not allowed to play. It's not worth winning the game by this form of conduct, it cheapens the team, the players, the fans, and the plays and strategies. This razzle-dazzle team was becoming a laughing stock to other teams due to their conduct.
Ah, but you are incorrect. The evidence is all there and it shows how well the old coaches were doing. Even the new coaches admit that the old coaches were winning games. The point that the new coaches were making is that the way the old team was playing football would eventually lead to the loss of games. Now that the new team is losing their games they can only state that 1) the team, despite all evidence to the contrary, would have been worse if the old coaches were still there and 2) the current team problems are the fault of the owners not the new team.
Furthermore, the old team was highly respected by other teams for their innovation and great success. Only now with the new team's attempts at media promotion, advertisement, and successive losing seasons do the other teams shake their heads and laugh at the empty, arrogant confidence of the team.
The assistant head coaches from the outside came in and helped the team come back to a proper way of playing football and combining winning strategies.
Winning strategies that are not winning games. If these winning stategies are not winning games then how winning can they be?
What has to be understood is that when the players don't have their unsportsmanlike plays anymore, there is a learning time where they must re-learn how to play the game in a correct way, and well enough to win by reducing their number of errors.
The players were hand-picked by the new coaching staff for the very reason that they were supposed to already know how to play the game of football better than the old players. And that hasn't been the case.
Just as the team didn't become unsportsmanlike overnight, but pushed the boundaries with the referees and got away with more and more, they will also not see an undefeated season overnight either.
There was no unsportsmanlike playing on apart of the old team as the other teams will atest to. In fact, the greatest amount of complaints about unsportsmanlike and unprofessional playing has come from other teams since the new team arrived. But in twenty seasons of successive losing seasons, I would certainly hope the new team would have some grasp of how the game is played.
There will be some really bad games, some really good games, and some hard-fought games that go either way based on one play. But in the end, if the team wants the win bad enough, they'll play as true competitors, and have the discipline to take the time and learn the game as well.
So far the team has had 20 seasons of disaster and the bad games are more numerous than the good games by a large margin. While the old team won and continued to win, the new team cannot even make it to the play offs. Unfortunatley, their pride is such that they are convinced that they have the right strategy that works and no matter how many games they lose they know that another win is just around the corner. Sad.
ON a sidenote, if the sports commentators don't like the team, there's always the option of switching teams. But to sit and show nothing but replays of the team's mistakes doesn't make the commentator look good, and all it does for the team is get tiring and bothersome.
Ah, but I am showing lots of the team's wins ... unfortunately all those wins were with a different coaching staff and players.
Better time would be spent bolstering the fans and showing what the team has made improvements on, praying to God that they learn to play well, and being supportive throught the tough times.
Why did the assistant coaches not spend their time bolstering the fans and showing improvement and being supportive? Why did they feel it necessary to get the owners to change the staff and players? Why, because the assistant coaches honestly believed that their team, despite all its wins, was headed for disaster. Of course they had no evidence of that but they had their conclusions. Now the team is in a disaster and no sports commentator is allowed to show the irony?
The commentator might just learn something about football by watching those who have devoted their lives to the game, and are giving their all to learn to play that much better.
Oh, the commentator has learned a lot about the game of football from observing those who have devoted their lives to the game, both the old coaches and new coaches. Both groups have shown the sports commentator how to play and not-to-play football. It's just that the new coaches are showing a lot more about how not-to-play than they are showing how to play. If the commentator wants to learn how to play football it is incumbent upon him to learn from a team that actually wins.
The commentator has the option of sitting above the stands watching the game and saying "I wouldn't have done that, I would have done THIS". The players have to learn to play in the midst of the game, and still maintain integrity.
Well, the players do not seem to know how to play. They think they know but all the evidence suggests otherwise. Now the new coaches thought the old team didn't know how to play, despite all the evidence to the opposite. The most logical conclusion is that the old team played the game much better than the new team.
They aren't perfect players, but they're giving their all, and they ARE a lot better now, and are closer to playing true football, than they were before and would have been had the new coaches not come in.
No, that's the problem; they are a lot worse now and both the owners and the new coaches publicly admit that fact. The question is what is the cause of this losing streak. And the commentator is asking why did the old team win games while the new team cannot.
But changes take time, and need to happen in an orderly way. Before you can win the game, you must retrain all the players to play correctly. It will take time for the coaches to pass down their knowledge, but in the end, it will be worth it.
Hey, all the players are new and were hired because they were supposed to know the game better than the old players. Well, it appears that they do not. And the ordely path that the team is going on is a declining one. By their own admission, the owners and the coaches say that the trend shows that the team will continue to lose and lose at an even greater rate. If the end result was positive one would expect an orderly rise in wins and not an orderly rise in losses.
The commentator should have been at a particular meeting of about...
I believe it would be 5 other commentators that comment together regularly...
the teams and plays were looked at from both sides and it was agreed that the assistant coaches were needed, they just took the team to far the other direction....
Now that (for the most part) the coaching staff and teams are on the same page, the tightening of rules and regulations needs to be eased up on, and winning games should be the goal again.
For a while, the team and coaching staff needed to focus on rebuilding along better guidelines, the games suffered because of this (All commentators in the meeting - even this one - agreed on that), now the primary goal of any team: winning games - should be focused on once more. Thoughts?
It's nice that commentators can have opinions that have no basis in the reality of the game. It shields such opinions from contrary facts.
The new coaches were needed for what? Because we were winning too many games with the old coaches? The new coaches took the team too far in the other direction from what? Winning games? If I understand the commentators correctly, you want a good balance between winning a lot of games and losing a lot of games. That's what makes a great team: mediocrity!
The new coaches and the new players have always been on the same page because the new coaches chose the new players. Both are on the same page and both are dumbfounded about why their game strategies end in defeat.
Winning games was always the focus of the owners, the old coaches, the new coaches, the old players and the new players. The only difference is that the old coaches and players won games and the new players and new coaches cannot. The reason the owners changed their team was because they wanted to keep winning games. Unfortunately and ironically, the owners made a huge mistake in changing their staff and now they are faced with a new staff that is blaming them for the losses.
Have you not read this parable carefully enough? I admit, its not Jesus' "The Prodigal Son" or Kafka's "Before the Law" but I have been getting overwhelmingly positive feedback from it.
Perhaps the commentators need to examine the history of the team before they shrug off the recent losses as a mere bump in the road of an overly ambitious coaching staff ... or maybe the commentators do not want to admit they've been cheering for the wrong team?
This commentator is very well aware of the reasons for the change-over of the coaches.
What has been left out originally in the parable, and misunderstood in the last post about the parable, is that winning games was NOT the reason for the change of coaches. Changing the way the players were educated about the game and what they believed about sportsmanship was the desired result of the coaching staff change.
Winning games was a desired aftershock, but the attention of the owners and players had to be diverted to change the staff over first. Where the coaches messed up is thinking that they could undertake such a huge endeavor without having to give all their attention to it.
Upon realizing they were in over their heads, all resources had to be put into re-training and eliminating old methodologies that were thought to acceptable among the players. Now they need to ease up on the training a bit, and get back to winning games.
Why did they feel the need to change the old methodologies?? Becuase while those methods were seemingly winning games, no one could be sure anymore if those wins would be allowed to stand. The idea was to win games, to build confidence in the players and fans. More fans would come to see the games, spend more money on snacks and souvenirs, pay the players a higher salary, and they would want to win that much more.
Unfortunately, what was considered to be a legal maneuver within the rules of football, was not clearly understood by all the coaches, and some were telling the players one thing, and others were telling the players contradictory things, and the players were trying to combine to two opposites and say they were all ok. This was clearly not the case according to the rulebook, but it won games so it must be ok to over look things right! WRONG.
The players weren't sure of the actual rules of the game anymore. THAT is why the change-over took place. NOT for winning games. Admittedly, that had to be put on the side to clean things up in-franchise first.
What has been left out originally in the parable, and misunderstood in the last post about the parable, is that winning games was NOT the reason for the change of coaches. Changing the way the players were educated about the game and what they believed about sportsmanship was the desired result of the coaching staff change.
To what end? Well, to win games … which is not what the new team is doing. Read the parable, please. The new coaches and the owners were worried about the possibility of losing games which is why the team was changed.
Winning games was a desired aftershock, but the attention of the owners and players had to be diverted to change the staff over first. Where the coaches messed up is thinking that they could undertake such a huge endeavor without having to give all their attention to it.
A desired aftershock that hasn’t occurred. The only aftershock is the SHOCK that the new team has not won games AFTER replacing the old team that did win games. Of course it is only a shock to the owners and new team, but then it would be.
No, you haven’t understood the parable at all.
Upon realizing they were in over their heads, all resources had to be put into re-training and eliminating old methodologies that were thought to acceptable among the players. Now they need to ease up on the training a bit, and get back to winning games.
Of course they were in over their heads; they didn’t have enough knowledge about the game itself in order to effectively coach. And the results have been the very results they were trying to avoid.
Why did they feel the need to change the old methodologies?? Because while those methods were seemingly winning games, no one could be sure anymore if those wins would be allowed to stand. The idea was to win games, to build confidence in the players and fans. More fans would come to see the games, spend more money on snacks and souvenirs, pay the players a higher salary, and they would want to win that much more.
Yes, the only ones who thought those wins would stand were the owners, the old team, the new team, the fans, and other teams. The concern was not that these wins were illegitimate but that they would continue. Well, the methodologies were changed and the wins did not continue.
Unfortunately, what was considered to be a legal maneuver within the rules of football, was not clearly understood by all the coaches, and some were telling the players one thing, and others were telling the players contradictory things, and the players were trying to combine to two opposites and say they were all ok. This was clearly not the case according to the rulebook, but it won games so it must be ok to over look things right! WRONG.
Yes, the new coaches (and the owners) did not have enough knowledge of the game to recognize sound plays; they only new basic plays and thought all other plays that they could not comprehend were against the rules.
Yes, the old coaches were telling the players one thing and the assistant coaches were telling them another. The assistant coaches were mad becasue the players were listening to the old coaches and not to them. What made the assistant coaches even more mad was that the players were winning games because they were listening to the old coaches. Of course, when the assistant coaches became the new head coaches they fired players that would not listen to them and hired players that would listen to them. Of course, the new players and new coaches are not winning any games but at least everyone is listening to the new coaches. Talk about the blind leading the blind.
The players weren't sure of the actual rules of the game anymore. THAT is why the change-over took place. NOT for winning games. Admittedly, that had to be put on the side to clean things up in-franchise first.
The old players knew the game rules as did the old coaches. The problem was that the new coaches and new players do not know the rules. Well, they know some of the rules.
So after 20 seasons the new team has decided that it’s time to start winning games now? Oh, yeah, football is about winning games. 20 seasons? If a new board of directors in a corporation went 20 fiscal years without making a profit the board would be investigated for embezzlement. Actually, such a board would be fired after only a few years. The stock holders would either find a new board or bring the old board back that was making profits.
Yes, only in these years has losing become a badge of honor. “Well, we don’t win the games that we said we would, but at least we don’t win as many games as the old team with plays we cannot comprehend.”
Is it not possible that the assistant coaches and the owners did not know as much about football as they claimed to? Is it not possible that the old team was fine and very successful because they knew how to play the game in a very sportsmanlike manner, following the rules of the game? Is it not possible that if the owners and the assistant coaches had left well enough alone the team would have continued its winning streak? Since all the evidence suggests the above, it is only logical to assume that the owners and assistant coaches were wrong and now they are reaping the rewards (or lack there of) of their error.
If anything, the old coaches only made one mistake: not effectively teaching the owners the game of football. Sure, they taught the players and won games because of that, but they did not deem it necessary to teach the owners the finer points of the game and now … the owners do not know the game as well as they should. Sad.
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