Motivate Your Team! Cheer Up A Friend! Inspire Yourself!
Motivate Your Team! Cheer Up A Friend! Inspire Yourself!
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| Wooden's Wisdom - Volume 13 | Issue 688 |
| Craig Impelman Speaking | Championship Coaches | Champion's Leadership Library Login | |
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"MY HERO: THE IOWA CHEERLEADER" BY TONY FULLER "In the winter of 2005, I traveled to Linn - Marr High School in Marion Iowa. I thought this was just another of the many recruiting trips I had made during my 20 plus years as a college coach. Little did I know that the most impactful and impressive lesson I would witness on this trip would come from a cheerleader on the visiting team’s cheer squad.
The Linn - Marr HS gym was packed with an intense conference battle between the league’s two top teams. The student sections were loud and animated as they went back and forth at each other with cheers like: "Who’s your Daddy!’ and "We’re #1!".
When the horn sounded to end the 3rd quarter, both teams reported to their respective benches, and the Cheerleaders for the visiting team sprinted onto the court to perform.
The cheerleaders looked sharp, and all had their hair slicked back on their scalps with long blue ribbons at the top of their ponytails. The music began and the packed gymnasium stilled and silenced as the visiting cheerleaders started an incredible performance filled with twirls, spins, flips and acrobatic moves.
The cheer squad was about halfway finished when a magical moment began to unfold. A ponytail belonging to one of the cheerleaders flew off her head and landed on the floor, right in the middle of the court in the middle of the routine for all to see.
My heart dropped as the student sections from both schools gasped at first, then burst into loud laughter, pointing and jeering! I was sitting in the parent, family, and faculty section and I saw grown people in my section with hands over their mouths, and tears in their eyes, speechless due to their sadness and/or embarrassment for the girl that lost her ponytail.
I focused my attention on my hero. She kept dancing and smiling and finished her routine with perfection. She trotted back to her position on the sideline smiling all the way. Her ponytail was still lying at half court. Fans were laughing and pointing at it.
One of her teammates came to her, whispered and pointed to the ponytail on the court. Without missing a beat my hero jogged back onto the court with everyone mocking her, picked up her ponytail, shook it out, stuck it back on her head, and jogged back to the sideline, as if nothing had happened. She performed to perfection the rest of the night!
As her actions were being witnessed by the crowd, the entire gym was transformed from loud obnoxious mockery to completely dumbfounded silence, respect, and reflection.
It was one of the most transformative scenes I have ever witnessed, proving what Coach Wooden always taught us: "It’s not what happens to you, but how you react to it that counts most!"
How do you pick up your ponytail?
Yours in Coaching, Craig Impelman
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The Obligation of Friendship You ought to be fine for the sake of the folks Edgar Albert Guest (1881-1959)
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