Early failures or missteps in life – personal or professional – prepare us for the future; they do not predict it. Life is full of examples, but as I did a few mental trips down memory lane, a couple stood out from my high school years.
He was an assistant varsity football coach during my freshman year. He had a reputation for expressing his anger during a game by throwing his cap on the ground and kicking it, which happened often. His behavior was considered immature by teenagers, not to mention their parents, which was inconsistent for a small, young, all-boys school dedicated to turning boys into men for others. He was no longer there for my sophomore year.
He returned the year after I graduated and led my alma mater to four state championships, winning 57 games during his tenure as head coach. He then moved to the public school realm where he became, at the time of his retirement several years ago, the winningest football coach ever in the Houston area. Who da thunk?
In my sophomore year, we got a new head football coach. It was his first head coaching assignment. Expectations were high. In the first four or five games of the year, we were outscored three-hundred-and-something to seven, as I recall. “Congratulatory” notes were scrawled on walls on which urinals hung in the locker room. He served as head coach and athletic director for a few years. He was replaced by the previously mentioned coach; however, this man’s story, too, is unlike what some might of forecast based on his brief tenure at the school.
This second coach moved on and became one of the greats in the Houston area. There is a football stadium named after him. He was named National Coach of the Year for the Southwest Region, honored as the Greater Houston Coach of the Year once and nominated three times, and was District Coach of the Year nine times…among other accolades.
Some may draw a conclusion that the problem was the school. It too was young. I entered the school on the year of its 10th birthday. Over the decades since, it has become formidable in many sports, a nice complement to its academics.
We must be careful when trying to predict the future for ourselves or others at times of struggle or perceived failure. Those times prepare us for what is to come if we use them as growth opportunities, as times to develop our courage and resilience. This wisdom is not unique, new or provocative; it is only too easily forgotten.