Written by: Stephanie Mello, @stepheeg, @emplyengagement
I am a 1980, US Men’s hockey-team fanatic from a coach and team perspective. As a company, we present the Olympic story to Coach Brooks’ lessons of team innovation to the movie, Miracle. It is one of my favorite multimedia presentations to deliver.
Like many Americans, I was watching the US and Russia game this past Saturday. If you watched or heard the highlights, you know that the US won from a shoot out. Was I thrilled that T.J Oshi scored and won the game for us? Obviously. However-it was a bit of a bummer. You are an Olympic team-and you win with a 1:1 shoot out? That is such a snoozer if you know the story of Herb Brooks, head Olympic coach who lead his team of kids-yes, college kids to beat the #1 Soviet team in 1980.
It’s just not as exciting when one individual wins it. There’s no team passing, dynamics or teammates piling on top of each other to celebrate their team goal. I was watching the shoot out with my 6-year-old nephew, Thomas. He looked at me and said, “I don’t get it”. Thomas, I don’t get it either buddy.
What I do get is:
- The excitement of a team working together to beat all odds. The US team, coach by Herb Brooks were college kids that only had 7 months to beat professionals that won five of the last seven world championships and 8 eight of the last 9 Olympic gold medals. If that doesn’t inspire you, check your pulse.
- Herb Brooks, a coach that found a way to beat the Soviets with teamwork, innovation, practice, and conditioning. Although we would be remiss not to acknowledge the time and devotion Brooks made to choose the “right” players-not the best players.
- A group of kids that put their own biases aside (East versus West college hockey) and worked together to accomplish what they all wanted and what Sports Illustrated named the greatest sports moment-ever.
It won’t happen again-we all know this-but a girl can dream can’t she?
We should be dreaming. We grew up as kids having dreams, but now we’re too sophisticated as adults, as a nation. We stopped dreaming. We should always have dreams.
-Herb Brooks-
Sources
Sports Illustrated, A Reminder Of What We Can Be, 12/20/1980, http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1124069/1/index.htm
CBS News: USA defeats Russia in rivalry game decided in shootout, 2/15/14, http://www.cbsnews.com/news/winter-olympics-2014-united-states-bests-russia-in-hockey/
Bleacher Report: USA vs. Russia Olympic Hockey 2014: Live Score, Highlights and Reaction, 2/15/15 http://bleacherreport.com/articles/1961312-usa-vs-russia-olympic-hockey-2014-live-score-highlights-and-reaction
BrainyQuote: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/h/herb_brooks.html
