Book of the Week: "Row The Boat" by Jon Gordon and P.J. Fleck

As a history buff as well as political science major I took my fair share of history classes. During my junior year at McDaniel I took a post-World War II U.S. History course. In the class we examined the events after the second world war. Midway through the semester our professor gave us the prompt for a short essay about whether former President Richard Nixon's presidency was a success or a failure. 

Many in the class, myself included, believed this was going to easy question to respond to upon first glance. Nixon was a polarizing figure, responsible for the Watergate break in, but re-thinking the question it dawned on me and took a different approach to the paper. Nixon's legacy was tarnished, but his overall presidency was far from a failure. I forced myself to separate HOW Nixon was going to be remembered (his legacy) and what he actually accomplished in his five years in the White House. 

What does this have to do with Jon Gordon's latest book, which he co-wrote with current Minnesota Golden Gopher Head Football Coach, P.J. Fleck? Everything. For Coach Fleck and his rowing the boat culture, it's about making a difference in people's lives and being the reason others experience success. "Rowing the boat' is continuing to plough through the difficult times and keep going. That should be your legacy. 

It mirrors a new Disney series that originated on Disney-plus and starred America's favorite uncle, Uncle Jesse, or as he's known in the real world, John Stamos. 

In the new Disney-plus original, "Big Shot," Stamos plays plays a former college basketball coach with multiple championships who gets barred from the NCAA after going all Bobby Knight and throwing a chair at a ref. In trying to re-claim his reputation, he begins coaching a private, elite, GIRLS high school basketball team, who care more about how being a member of a sports team looks on their college applications than they do about winning. 

While Stamos' character, Marvyn Korn, was attempting to rehabilitate his image for a return to college basketball, the girls on the team as well as colleagues and his daughter was teaching him other crucial lessons. 

As a college coach with multiple national titles, Coach Korn was riding high at Wisconsin where they constructed a statue of him in front of the arena, but after the chair-throwing incident people were calling for that same statue to be taken down, in Joe Paterno statue fashion, and melted so Korn took it back himself. Mirror that to the present when Korn's star female player's father had just been arrested on embezzlement charges and the student body was calling for his name to be removed from the school gym. 

Lesson learned is quite simple. The statue represented the the past successes Korn had achieved and was not something that could be stripped away from him. He earned those wins and championships,  but those wins and titles also turned changed him into a volatile, unstable person. At Westbrook, Coach Korn was changing his persona into a kinder and gentler coach, father and most importantly human. So when he had the opportunity to return to the college ranks at UC Santa Barbara, it was incredibly difficult decision. 

Seeing how he had the ability to change and shape people's lives - including being more of a presence in his own daughter's - he knew that was something he desperate did not want to give up. And that is important when it comes to coaching and building a championship culture, it's about helping others improve and change their lives, not your own glory. 

The statues, accolades, awards, and privileges are all great, but we all have an expiration date. When that day is reached we learn that all those privileges and accolades we once had, we no longer have because they were for the title and position we were in. What we are left with is is our legacy and what we want to be remembered for. 

BOOK OF THE WEEK: "Nineteen Minutes" by Jodi Picoult

Jodi Picoult is an amazingly talented author who writes about tough topics that need to be discussed - one of her more known piece of works is My Sister's Keeper, which was made into an award-winning movie starring Cameron Diaz and Abigail Breslin. Nineteen Minutes takes us through the aftermath of a school shooting that devastated a fictional, small New Hampshire town and the events that ultimately led the protagonist, Peter Houghton's, decision. 

The character of Peter Houghton can be found in many high schools - an outcast and a kid who just didn't fit in. He wasn't an athlete, nor was he part of the popular group. Very similar to the character Tyler Down from 13 Reasons Why. 

Tyler was slightly different because he had an interest in photography and was the school's photographer that he could bury himself in, but both characters were kids who found it difficult to fit in. They were, both, relentlessly bullied by the more popular students and each had one particular moment that triggered their decisions - although Tyler's efforts where thwarted by a martyr-like character in Clay Jensen. 

Since Columbine we've seen more and more school shootings and mass shootings. As much as we want to grieve for the victims of what we deem a senseless act, we do owe it to society to have a a little bit of sympathy for the perpetrators. The likes of Peter Houghton's character are out there - Sandy Hook, Marjory Stoneman Douglas - and they too deserve empathy. 

Something happened to them in their past that led them to the actions they took. On the surface it may be small potatoes to you or I, but to them it was as if the world was crashing down. In Peter Houghton's case, it was the single event of being publicly embarrassed in the cafeteria by the popular athlete, Matt Royston. With Tyler Down, it was being violently beaten and violated by the school's bully that he thought there was no way out and things were never going to get any better. 

Not only are these kids teenagers, who haven't yet developed the full capacity to think through all scenarios and realize that this is not the end of the world, but the constant pressure of fitting in does not help the case. 

High school is hard. (Well from what I hear it's hard, my own experience I was so in my own little bubble that I really didn't care what the others were up to or what they thought.) It's easy to say everyone should think like this and not listen to others, but what we forget is that high school peers can have a huge influence on decisions. If they are going to play a big role in decisions, might as well make all those influences positive ones.