It's So Simple. Yet It's Not.

In December, Haverford Colleges long time Cross Country and Track and Field Coach, Tom Donnelly was inducted into the Collegiate Track Coaches Hall of Fame. There were a couple parts of that induction that I wanted to highlight. In the introduction Donnelly is quoted as saying:

"... a coaching award distracts from the essence of a coaches job which is to educate the students. You can only justify the existence of a team at a college campus if being on the team benefits the athletes educational experience."

Later in his speech, he acknowledges one athlete over all others. It was not one of the many many All-Americans that he has coached. It was a nameless athlete who is the slowest runner on the cross country team. He is a double major in math and philosophy at Haverford who shows up every day to practice and is typically 35th out of 35 guys on the team. But he buys into the dedication, hard work, and determination it takes to make himself into the best athlete possible.

Although this athlete may not have the physical talents to contribute directly to the success of the team, the fact that they buy into the other qualities that create a successful team makes a huge indirect contribution to the team.

There are a lot of things I like about these remarks. Here are two.

First, is the acknowledgement that everyone on the team is important and their importance is not first and foremost based on their physical talent.

Next, that winning is not the top priority. The top priority is that athletics should positively contribute to the educational experience.

All of this seems like common sense. But coaches like Tom Donnelly are rare. Why?

Here is a link to the presentation: http://youtu.be/DCtPrm52R4E?t=24m46s