Maine’s high school basketball tournament season brings to mind the way my former colleague Mike Nowell wrote to parents before the big track and field day for third- through sixth-grade students at The School in Rose Valley in Pennsylvania.
“Be prepared to be supportive of everyone who chooses to take part,” he wrote. “As in sports class, our goals are to recognize everyone’s best efforts and to give them the support they need to improve.”
As a sports and woodshop teacher, Mike sent this notice home so you would know exactly how it would feel to compete on the school field: how to cheer for your classmates; how to feel a sense of accomplishment in your new times, heights and other data. It was like doing the box scores on your elementary school athletic career.
It was a teaching philosophy that carried over into woodshop, art, music, your next writing assignment, social studies and algebra. Or lunch. And according to the law of transitive operations in school, you’d also learn how to handle the social ins and outs of recess — heck, of middle school, high school, college classes and even the distant goal line of careers. You’d have a universally applicable standard for answering the question “Who am I?” beyond today’s contest. Mike’s philosophy produced terrific teammates, partners and spouses, parents, and community members.
“On Track and Field days, we give each student the opportunity to take stock of their own physical development by posting their personal bests in seven events over the course of four years,” Mike told the parents. “In the 31 years that I have documented this event, the overwhelming majority of children have posted across the board gains each year. The cumulative goal of the event is for all of the children to recognize that they are not in physical stasis, that they are capable of physical improvement regardless of their current level of participation in any organized sports or other routinized physical activities and that no doors to physical activities have been closed to them as they enter the next phases of their lives.”
Not many schools turn children into students of their own progress.
And then he talked about rewards.
“There will be no ribbons, trophies, cash or new cars handed out after the events! The goal is simple: give each child the opportunity to take note of his or her own development.”
Then Mike explained how to handle the media.
“If you choose to take part in any of the Track and Field events, know that I don’t expect your best efforts to be the same as anyone else’s. You are the only you and neither I nor anyone else expects you to be able to do more than your body can currently do. The only expectation you should have for yourself is that you’ll try your hardest.”
It’s a radical, counterculture notion. But it works. It produces good athletes — and good 30-year-olds, long after the shot put and javelins are retired.
You’re not in elementary school anymore? Consider this: We live in a kind of simultaneity with our past selves; our inner third-grader co-exists with our outer career professional. I submit we all need Mike’s voice in our lives. It’s not too late to understand your performance from a vantage point that helps you to excel at something to which you aspire. Or to forgive your shortcomings based on inappropriate comparisons with other people’s bodies, growth rate, dexterity, endurance and performance.
Consider applying “Sports with Mike” to your present unique “event.” Mike is tell you the following:
— Your development is singular. We all progress at our own rate.
— You own your improvements!
— You are in motion — not stuck or standing still — and always adapting and growing.
— Possibilities abound.
— Real rewards — lasting rewards — are intrinsic rewards.
— Do your best, not someone else’s best.
— Help your teammates—and everyone’s a teammate.
Would an NBA player, talking to the media after the game, have anything in common with one of Mike’s students?
“I did well in the high jump this year — better than last season. So I’m pretty happy with my performance. I think I can improve as the season” — aka life — “goes on. I need to work a little harder at my takeoff; the landings went pretty well. In the off-season, I’m planning on doing a little more strength training — we’ll see what happens. I also want to say what a great job my teammates did in the other events. All in all, I think we’re all progressing; practice is paying off. We’ll just have to see how the next meet goes. But I think we’re on the right pace for competing well at the nationals.
“What about the Olympic trials?
“Well, that’s a long way off. We’ll just take it one meet at a time and keep up our positive attitude. Gold medals will take care of themselves, if we focus on the one real competition — between ourselves at the last game and ourselves at the next one.”
There will be a championship team at the end of the basketball tourney. There will be trophies to take home. But I’m betting they follow the team that has best lived up to Mike’s values.
Todd R. Nelson is principal of the Brooksville Elementary School