Margin Call...

John F. Kennedy once wrote, "Victory has a thousand fathers, but defeat is an orphan." As the XXXIII Olympiad ended in Paris, France last night, hundreds of athletes won medals of different alloys while many, many more went home with nothing than the right to say they were Olympians, if for only once. The difference between those two extremes lie in the margins: some afforded them and others gained through guile and experience.

For some, they ran through walls with no time left and found victory on the other side...

For some, they held victory in their steely grasp only to let is slip away in the end...

For these two it came down to 1/100th of a second shredding through waves...

And for these two it was 2/100ths of a second scampering over vertical resin holds...

For another duo it was the 1/100th of a second lean of a sternum on the last step of 800 meters...

And the first torso crossing the line 5/100ths of a second in a blur lasting less than 10...

For one athlete, summoning that which maybe he didn't know he had...

For one, it was the margin of the ball of her foot that seperated her from possible gold...

And for another, it was an extended glove that saved a team and defeated another...

Yet still others felt the sting on a last gasp heave into a guarded net, treading water...

The thinnest of margins from a group of dedicated, hard workers who live on the margins. Some with little to no support or funding, and others with exorbitant resources to choose from. Scores, judges cards, times, goals...they  are the margins athletes live and die on. 

This summer's Olympics proved again just how important training needs to be. Specific, representative of the sport and competition being contested with added pressure. Anything less than that and those athletes above that won could have been on the underside of the margin of victory. 

Orphans and a thousand fathers roam Paris today, some perhaps waiting to come to Los Angeles in 2028. They know the margin call will be thin, as always...

"The Game Doesn't Owe You Anything..."

As the summer camp season winds down and high school volleyball begins, here are five more quotes for thought, confirmation and/or exploration from some coaches, athletes and some wiser than most.

Physical Educator and author of the book, "Seoul Ambition," Joel Cressman has some realizations for those coaches that use social media as tools and rewards for young athletes. 

"Social Media is changing the way kids play sports: It makes everything high stakes, mistakes can be devastating and it promotes social curation and strategizing. Kids care about clips because they consume clips. Modern coaches need to help them see the bigger picture." 

It may not seem harmful, but hearts, likes and follows are a currency that is based on whimsy and opinion. An athlete should be rewarded based on performance, effort, behavior with the team. As Cressman points out, Coaches need to help athletes see the bigger picture.

Head Men's Volleyball Coach at Long Beach State Alan Knipe has been busy on the podcast trail the past few months and two of his quotes have stuck. When asked if he could give his younger self some advice, his answer was a blueprint for transformational coaching.

"I think view the head coaching job as if you're a CEO of a small business. You're not responsible for every detail but you are responsible for everything. So hire really good people, but empower them and be incredibly detailed with the business plan and follow it. Listen to the worker bees, listen to your team players and invest in and build them up. If you get a chance to be around great people take it. And if if you're not strong in certain areas, then find someone who's better than you in that area and then follow up with their advice. I think that the last piece would be leaders have to be able to lead and it's not for everyone. And not everyone will like your decisions. You can't make everybody happy. You can't make every player on your team happy about everything all the time. Every parent, every person you work with in the athletic department, every other coach you coach against. It's about being respectful and having high integrity, high character, it's  a lot  about those things. It's about leading and leading with some some really clear goals and trying to be as open and honest, transparent you can be."

From the macro to the micro, Knipe adds some insight on coaching too much and keeping youth sports in perspective. 

"Talk to your kid when they get to the ages my kids are now: 23, 27and 21. You go back in time and you remember a rough practice or a rough game or rough tournament, maybe a rough season. And they don't remember the entire season, not one thing. And parents are losing their mind thinking it's super important and the kid can't even remember the season, never mind that one moment."

"So, I think the coach's job, even at a college level, but certainly when you coach juniors is when you have a practice and they love your practice. They should have been super excited for wanting to play that game. And when they go play the game, win or lose, they should be super excited to come back into your practice with you. And I think if you just win that battle, you're doing a lot of really good things. If they don't want to come to practice, they feel anxious and don't want to go into games, chances are that's coming from some pressure from adults. Maybe from the coach, maybe multiple coaches, maybe parents, whatever. But you're part of the problem if that's the case." 

After a disappointing round at the Genesis Scottish Open in July, professional golfer Matt Wallace dropped this wisdom, all the while battling his emotions and self doubt. “I’m just not where I want to be, you know? In the game,” he replied. “You can’t force it. You gotta roll with the punches. That’s what I’m doing at the moment. Just working hard every day. It’s just how it is. The game doesn’t owe you anything. I don’t like to get emotional about it. But I’m quite an emotional person, as everyone knows. Yeah. It’s hard.”

Finally, one of the masters. Vincent Van Gogh fired this up regarding his elaborate work process, but it's a quote that has lasted these 134 years since his death. 

"Great things are not done by impulse, but a series of small things brought together."

A simple idea that we, as coaches, must reiterate with our athletes each and every day.