Let me clarify that I am a 49er faithful. But I live in Tennessee, so I go watch the Titan’s as well. So the Titan’s vs. Texans was not exactly a….good game. In fact, the Texans spanked the Titan’s 41 – 7. It was less than pleasing to watch.
But how can you expect to win a game when all of the coaches are in the stands? I mean, I’m sure the guys yelling out all the things that the Titan’s should do, or what they were doing wrong, were on staff…right? How else could they be so educated on the game? Ok, you know this is pure sarcasm.
The truth is, the dorks behind us must be brand new to the sport of being a fan. They cheer when the team is doing well, and immediately go to booing if a play gets busted. String a set of bad plays together, look out! The super fan is now turning on the team he’s such a great fan of. It’s amazing the depth of their loyalty.
My buddy Ron Cook and I were cracking up because one guy literally called play after play and missed every one! It went something like this – guaranteed, they’re gonna run it right up the middle, guaranteed! Nope, it was a pass play. Guaranteed, screen pass! Nope, stretch play. Ronnie would look at me and count of the missed calls from our grand stand coach…0-1…0-4…0-8. 11 calls later he hadn’t called a correct play yet.
Then some guy stood up and yelled with all of his might, DON’T TACKLE, TRY STRIPPING THE BALL!!! At this point, Ronnie takes out his cell phone as if he’s calling Munchak himself and says, Yeah, try stripping. Yep, forget tackling, go straight to stripping. Uh huh, it should work. While we were disappointed in how the Titan’s played, we were laughing our tails off at the collective genius of the play callers in the stands.
The bad thing is, it reminded me of how many people have a tendency to do that in their day-to-day as well. All around we have people who have never experienced the game, yelling from the stands how people should play. Or what calls they should make. In fact, many times it happens from team members around you or on your team.
Yelling with all your might from the stands, down to the field through 70,000 other voices, that the team should stop tackling and start stripping the ball, shows your absolutely ignorance about football. On top of that, it shows that you have no good ideas, or constructive help in the current situation. Same goes when people sit in the stands and say what this leader, or that team member should do.
If you’re so concerned with that person, get out of your seat, walk down to the field, and use your vast experience with the current situation to help out. Otherwise, how ’bout you sit there and just cheer on the team so they hopefully get some encouragement from you. I’m just sayin’.
Question: How have you seen team members tear down instead of help build?
Oh, gosh, totally. I’ve seen this my whole career. For some reason, we’re all experts when we examine other people’s situations but we’re a disaster ourselves in that area or we know nothing. At least, don’t be so declarative. For example, “I believe a good option to at least consider is running the ball up the middle. However, I don’t know all the facts and variables to include the long-term plan, so I offer this humbly.” I could tolerate that “fan” a bit more!
Hahaha….amen!
Hey now, how about those Detroit Lions 😛 !?!?
Dork, oh yeah, TOTAL dork here!
…its a swing and a miss… 🙂
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Yeah, you know, they are the Pros on the field after all, not me, that dude down there past the interview at some point to be there :).
this makes a lot of sense. appreciate this perspective this morning…!
Thanks John!!
I experienced a sad example of team members tearing down instead of building up while playing football as a Junior in High School. Our Fresh-Soph team had gone undefeated, and now the Sophomores were Juniors, and we could add to them the best and biggest of the Seniors. But because of some critical Seniors, we didn’t play together as a team, and we ended the season 4 wins 4 losses. However, the following year, playing together intensely as a team, we went undefeated once again.
Wow!!!! Great example of actual team work!!
I love this:
“…use your vast experience with the current situation to help out. Otherwise, how ’bout you sit there and just cheer on the team”.
Good reminder!
hahaha…thanks brother!!
In this highly competitive world, we can see team members tear down instead of help build often in our day to day office life. The principle “Survival of the Fittest”comes into play here. Always one tries to move up the ladder by pulling down others in the team. This cut throat competition always makes one to be aggressive in overtaking others.
And yet, it never fulfills in the long run.
I’ve learned that it’s easier to tear someone down than to invest the time in building them up. It costs a lot less effort and resources. It’s also much safer because when we invest in people we have to come down to the “playing field” and risk being hit! Too many people want to be in charge but they’re afraid to take a hit! Strong leaders don’t mind doing both!
Wow! Great input Eric!!!
Thanks. I sense another blog post coming on!
Great post. It is a great example of the importance of character. Anyone whose personal aspirations more important than those of the team is harming the team. The tough thing is you can’t put a metric on how much poor character damages productivity.
Nice Work!
Thanks Jeff!!
You hear this at the work place a lot. “If i was in my leader’s shoes, i would be doing this, i would not be working with that vendor etc”.
If you ask the person, if they’d like to switch places with the person they were bring critical off, they give some excuse, and may back off.
You’ve just given us some great ammunition and/or response, next time somebody starts going down this path, the response will be “Stop being a grandstand coach, and let the assigned coach do his job”. I hope ig i ever do this (Offcourse i wouldn’t”) that somebody will have the grace to say the same thing to me. Thank you for a great reminder.
My pleasure!!
Loved this. I have a co-worker / check that teammate, that posted how horse she and her husband were after a college futball. I asked where they sat, i.e. how close were they? She said they were at home in there living room. Wow, yelling that much and not even “AT” the game.
Oh and to those that think I misspelled foosball, I did. I think it is over rated and slow.
BAH!!!!
I’m in the mortgage business. Has anyone heard of the “Frand/Dodd” legislation? Talk about two “coaches” telling someone out on the field how to play the game – these two take the cake!
Clueless is what the government is on how we really operate our business on a day to day basis – but they will REWRITE the rules from a desk somewhere outt here – and it is amazing how “expert” they become in their “rule making”.
There are many things the government COULD have done to help the mortgage crisis -they just did none of them. Their rules have attempted to “tear down” our businesses instead of “build up”.
So – I had my rant – thanks for the opportunity, Chris!