University of Connecticut (UConn) women’s basketball coach, Geno Auriemma, is one of the most successful coaches in the history of the game. To this day, the UConn women’s team has not lost a basketball game for over two years and they’ve won four consecutive national basketball championships.
In this video, Geno’s talking about young basketball players and their “me” attitudes. But his words are a great life lesson for all of us, young and old, whether we play sports or not.
Take a look, and listen…
(Video footage from a 2016 news conference during the NCAA Women’s Final Four, shared by Matt Lisle on Facebook, March 20, 2017.)
In a world where many youth are taught that they are entitled to win, to play, to have equal time on the court, or on the field, or on the screen, or in the boardroom, or wherever, and they’re taught that their happiness depends on the successes that are orchestrated by their coaches, teachers, and parents, we’re bound to have disappointed people because the world does not operate that way.
Geno’s statement that young people will say things like, “I didn't score, so why should I be happy?” or “I'm not getting enough minutes; why should I be happy?” is something I’ve seen in the classroom as well. “I didn’t get my A, so I’m unhappy with the grading or with the professor or the coursework or the crowded parking lot.” Hundreds of times, I’ve heard a student say, “I worked a lot on this, so I should get an A.” And my response is always the same. Top grades are not earned because of effort; they’re earned for top performance. There are no “A’s-for-effort” in life.
We need to work hard, build our expertise, and excel at what we do if we want to get “game time” and the successes that come with it.
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