Hidden Gems
We learn a great deal from those we follow about what to and not to do. Some of it is write down worthy. Most of it is not. The majority of what we carry with us doesn’t even feel significant at the time when we absorb it. It just nestles in without much fanfare finding a comfy place to gestate. Then later, somewhere way on down the road, it serves us. Sometimes when we least expect it to.
When I was a freshman in college, as funny fate would have it, the men’s basketball coach was also enjoying his rookie year at the school. Dan Hays was a remarkable teacher and coach who had come to Oklahoma Christian to re-build a once storied program back from the ashes of a crash. He believed devoutly in progression and he had a meticulous plan. But it took a while to get things going (the way most efforts of significance usually do.) Coach was aware, and he was big on keeping everyone engaged in the interim as his team was trying to get good. During the dog days of private improvement, while public failures were adding up, he tried a lot of things to keep our fan base hanging on.
I remember one Saturday, in particular, when he went off the beaten path.
The women’s team I quarterbacked usually played prior to our men’s games, so we would pass the guys when they were preparing to take the floor, in the hallway on our way back to the locker room. One day after ticking down the high five line, we made the corner toward our cave and passed a casket just sitting in the hall. A real one. Just sitting in the hallway. The kind you see at funeral homes usually with dead bodies lying inside.
We were intrigued to say the least.
I had no idea what coach was up to this time, but I couldn’t wait to find out. I don’t even think I showered. I just quickly changed into sweats and went out to watch pre-game warm-ups. Clearly, something was in store.
Our men’s team was about .500, best I can recall. If they wanted to make the play-offs, the game at hand was a must win. At that point in the season, every game had “must” in front of it. And every possession within each one was touch and go. The gym was fairly full that Saturday afternoon and it was baited in maybe breath. The band was working. The cheerleaders were jumping. And the players who were warming up looked more than ready to play. Three balls were falling from beyond the arc, guys were jabbering, and the dunk lines had just taken off as the officials vacated the floor.
That’s when I saw it out of the corner of my eye: the casket from the hallway being carried by the all-male rowdy squad (affectionately known as the Nine Noises.) It was making its way around the court just outside the boundary lines.
A sort of audible murmur, the kind that stems from a confusion that doesn’t yet have words, took over the air of the gym as the Nine Noises continued to play the role of pallbearers respectfully encircling the court. About the time the casket reached the mid-court line on the home stands’ side, the lid of the box flung open and up sat the coach of the Eagles, holding a hand-painted sign.
It read, “We ain’t dead yet.”
The Eagles’ Nest exploded. Every one of us in attendance united in a bone deep intention to prove our leader right.
All I thought at the time was that I’d chosen a pretty cool college, and that in addition to being a good ball coach, Dan Hays was a confident, funny man. That’s it. In no other way did it register. I sure didn’t write it down.
Fast forward 27 years.
I’m at the University of Oklahoma in the season behind the season when we were supposed to win it all. The Paris twins had just graduated and though we had a talented roster, it was small, and most people didn’t realize the quality pieces we had left. Outside projections were “meh” and pre-conference play had stolen our shooter in the form of a ripped-up ACL. Though we were winning, there was a pervading sense that a wall was coming we wouldn’t be able to scale. As we headed into the gauntlet stretch of what was then the Big 12 South, I could tell we were at a tipping point, precariously teetering between who we thought we could be and who we were afraid we were.
Texas A & M was next up on the slate. They were long and fast with a roster that went for days. And they played a style that resembled rugby, one that sat at the opposite end of the spectrum from how we tried to play. I knew for us to have a chance, we would have to be able to withstand their pressure, their physicality, and the general aggression with which they played. We couldn’t execute the way we needed to if we couldn’t first survive all that. I knew for that to happen, an internal switch would have to flip.
So I channeled my inner Dan Hays.
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Before practice, on the day before the Aggies came to town, we gathered in the film room just as we always did. Except we didn’t go over the scout. Instead, when we turned off all the lights, Mel Gibson, as William Wallace, was waiting on the screen. With half his face painted blue and a spear in his hand, he bounced atop a horse, exhorting a throng of Scotlanders to fight for what they valued most—their freedom. “Many years from now,'‘ he said, ‘would you be willin’ to trade ALL the days, from this day to that, for one chance, just one chance, to come back here….” As his impassioned speech built toward a crescendo, you could feel the growing bravado from our athletes who were hanging on his every word. When Gibson’s band of hungry brothers charged off across the screen, we tripped the lights and told our guys, “You have to earn your stripes.” Then we burst out toward the practice gym where a table full of war paint was waiting at half court.
It didn’t take Abi Olajawon ten seconds to make it all make sense.
With the passion of a lion, she raced toward an errant ball I kicked across the court, screaming “FREEDOM” at the top of her lungs. She snatched the ball and squeezed it violently underneath her chin, shaking her giant ponytail for effect. Assistant coaches ran to meet her with paint they smeared across her cheeks as she thrusted her fists triumphantly in the air.
Within minutes our gym was Braveheart. All that was missing were the spears.
What happened in the game the next day is part of Oklahoma lore. We dismantled the Aggies’ pressure and we played the game our way. That day tipped us toward our destiny. We wound up at the Final Four.
I didn’t consciously think about the casket and the sign when I dreamed up painting players’ faces in lieu of reviewing a scout. I just wanted us to figure out a way to not be scared of A & M. But when I look back on it, I know exactly where it came from. The leader who taught me how to cover a ball screen had also taught me how to re-direct. I just didn’t know it at the time.
One of my closest childhood friends lost her father a couple of weeks ago. When we gathered to talk about what he did and who he was, we realized we learned a lot about a lot of things by watching him, whether he was trying to teach us or not. We talked about a lot of it and thought about it even more. And it prompted a realization about the leadership loop.
What we’re willing to allow gets in, though rarely do we know enough to be able to use it when it arrives. It typically needs to sit a spell until we can catch up. Then one day we find a treasure trove just waiting to be mined, and we mostly have to strain a bit to figure out where it all came from or how or when it found its way in. I find jewels almost every day I didn’t know I had.
And in case I never told you, Coach, thanks for the assist.