The Power of the Crummy Facility

I have been tempted, I'll admit it. The thought goes through my mind occasionally. What would it be like to coach at a school that has a really nice track. I have never had one at North Shore and as I get older and continue to figure out ways to get kids to be successful without one, I wonder if I have been truly blessed not to have one.

When I was in college I had similar feelings. I was on a strong small college track and field team. We never lost a dual meet in my four years in college and rarely lost in cross country. However, we did not have the facilities other colleges had or were starting to build. There was a track at Franklin & Marshall College, but it was a cinder track. Cinder tracks were old fashioned even in the 1980's when I was competing. We had no indoor track to train on. We had to shovel our cinder track when it snowed in the winter to get our workouts in. I was sure I would have been a better runner if I only had gone to a college with a better facility. I doubt that would be the case now.

I am actually starting to believe in the "power of crumminess." Do not get me wrong nothing about North Shore Country Day is actually crummy. The concept of the "power of crumminess" was coined to my knowledge by Daniel Coyle writer of The Talent Code and is really a relative term. In his study of talent hotbeds around the world, he found little correlation between really nice facilities and achievement. In fact, he saw some of the most impressive talent hotbeds had not so impressive facilities.  Coyle has posted twice on his blog about this concept.
The Power of Crumminess
Please Help Rescue My Schools Crummy Facilities
Check out the comments section in these posts too. Readers add some very interesting points.

So the question remains, why do many hotbeds have what appear to be spartan facilities at best. I liked what one of the commenters said after one of Coyle's posts. "Innovation doesn't come from money. Innovation comes from being forced to find a way to make it work."

For me, not having a track forced me to think of track events and training differently, reach out to people for support that I probably would not have otherwise, and experiment with methods that I might not have tried if I had the choice of just going to the track ever day. Not having a track actually created opportunities for me as a coach.

Here is a great Simon Sinek post on the making of the movie Jaws. Sinek explains how crummy equipment probably helped Steven Spielberg make an even more frightening movie.
How to Innovate Like a Shark

I think the power of crumminess is a good lesson for coaches and athletes. Don't dwell on what you don't have. You cannot control what you don't have and these negative thoughts will not help you. In fact what you do have may be exactly what you need. Focus on what you do have. Focus on the ultimate resource -- the power of people. As one of my coaching friends regularly reminds me "the grass is always greener on the other side of the mountain because there is more manure there."

But please don't misunderstand me. If you have $25 million dollars lying around, I will be glad to build the school a state of the art facility that our coaches and athletes deserve!