Call me old school, but I don’t think losing should ever be a laughing matter.
And you know who agrees with me? Coach Prime.
That’s right, Coach Deion Sanders, the head signal caller for the University of Colorado proved as much last week when he dismissed three players from his team after a 41-7 loss.
The decision came after the trio of players were seen laughing on the sidelines, yucking it up like the blowout didn’t mean a thing.
Sure, they are kids, young people in their teens or early twenties. But that’s also part of the problem. In today’s Wild West-like college football system, immature student-athletes are earning millions of NIL dollars, no matter the outcome of a game.
Can you imagine if something like that happened in the middle of a boardroom at Apple or Nvidia? Can you imagine what might happen to three young VPs openly laughing the day they lost their biggest client? Yikes!
College football fans saw yet another display of outright immaturity this weekend when a USC defender nearly decapitated Oregon QB Dante Moore and then seemed to start to celebrate the hit on the field and later on the sidelines.
Seriously. What are we teaching our kids today?
In Colorado’s case, the offense wasn’t nearly as physically dangerous. But if Deion didn’t act, he was risking the spread of something nasty. “It was the few knuckleheads that I didn’t want to poison the team,” Coach Prime said of the decision.
Of course, how you react to a situation says an awful lot about you. In all my years covering football, I’ve never been in the locker room of a good team where players were hootin’ and hollerin’ after a loss.
It’s more like a graveyard. As it should be.
Let me give another example: Years ago, I actually got to play one-on-one against Michael Jordan. The game to a single basket was part of a bigger charity event. I actually won. (If you haven’t heard the story, I’m open to share it EVERY day for the rest of my life! 😊)
Of course, I have zero fantasies about being anywhere near as good a basketball player as Hir Airness, but immediately after my shot MJ’s face turned to a scowl and a few sharp words came my way. He was pissed I’d scored on him!
“Why do you care?” I asked him later. “It’s a charity event.”
“Because the moment you become okay with losing is the moment you spend your lifetime there,” he said. “Everything I do, I want to be successful. I want to win.”
Boom. A loss, MJ told continued, is not a failure until you make an excuse. Or in the case of the three Colorado players, until you laugh at it openly like it doesn’t matter.
Can you imagine MJ laughing after a loss to the Celtics? Can you imagine Tom Brady joking after a playoff loss to Peyton Manning? No, you can’t.
The same holds true in business. If you’re in a position of leadership and you don’t care about losing a big client, your best salesperson, or your edge in the market, then what are you doing?
Those who know me well know I’ve been a fan of Coach Prime’s for a long time. Heck, we wrote a best-selling book together, Elevate and Dominate: 21 Ways to Win On and Off the Field. More than anyone, Deion understands. He couldn’t let the poison fester.
But I have a suggestion now for those three young players who were dismissed. If I saw them out in the world, I’d tell them, “It’s not too late to learn a lesson.”
And then I’d show them the video of MLB pitcher Justin Verlander, who just completed his 21st season in MLB.
After his final out, Verlander waited on the mound, expecting his manager to come and take the ball from him. Verlander waited an extra second, then two.
Finally, his young daughter sprinted out from the dugout to hug her father.
Standing ovation. There wasn’t a dry eye in the house.
That’s the result of a career executed well. That’s the career of a player whose manager and teammates wanted to honor, not dismiss.
I’d show the Colorado players that video. And I’d hope they understood.
