Winners for Life

Guest blog by S. Robert Maddox

While living in the Chicago area I would occasionally speak at Leadership Development and Team Building conferences. This often led to counseling and coaching executives, professionals and educators on career and life skills. I still do this in an extension program of Oglala College; most recently with Law Enforcement Officers on the Pine Ridge Reservation.

The concepts used in coaching corporate leaders can be applied in athletic coaching. This Fall I was privileged to coach Volleyball for ten extraordinary teenage girls and assist their parents in teaching them how to be winners-for-life.

Here are just a few life principles we learned as a team:

1. Unconditional love. Love is not linked to performance. The mere fact you made the team is reason enough for love. In life people perform better and produce more when involved with someone they love rather than with someone they simply endure.

2. As a team, everyone gets the credit; no one gets the blame. Life is lived-out with others. Trust your teammates and believe in your ability to contribute to the goal.

3. Live and act humbly. Communicate who you are as a team by your performance instead of with your talk.

4. Win with grace (treat others with respect) and lose with dignity (give 100% effort to the very end).

5. Everyone is allowed one mental meltdown (no one is perfect). Make it a good one, then get up and try again.

6. Life is not fair – get over it. Be thankful for what you get to do and give it your best.

7. Life is sometimes painful – this should come as no surprise. Make the necessary adjustments, work through the pain and never give up.

8. Life is meant to be enjoyed – celebrate it. Take pleasure in the victories, learn from the disappointments and look forward to what is coming next.

The team experienced some great accomplishments. Of the 28 matches they played, they won 25 of them. A match is the best two out of three sets. Of the 25 matches they won, they won 24 by playing just two sets. Only one match went to three sets and they had to come from behind to win. In the beginning of the season court positions were assigned to them; part way through the season a Libero position was added and some team members changed assignments; at the end of the season everyone, except the Libero, played a different position for the final match. They made all the athletic and mental adjustments and continued to be successful.

There were a lot of fun moments, as there should be in life, but they also worked hard. I appreciated that when being asked to “Jump!” they did not respond with, “Do we have to?” but with “How high?” They demonstrated a winning attitude in practice and in the game.

Conditioning is about maximum preparation and peak performance. Being in top condition is connected to rewards and was not used as punishment. Physical conditioning became something desired by the team instead of dreaded. In life a consequence for failing an important self-discipline or a group’s core value is not being allowed to participate. None of the team members had to sit out a game as a consequence of poor judgment.

These young ladies rose up to the challenge of being a highly disciplined and intensely motivated Stevens High School Raiders Volleyball team. Each of them is well on the road to being winners-for-life.

Robert Maddox is the pastor at the newly planted WestGate Community Church in Rapid City.