ADVERSITY AND COURAGE: A PLACE FOR BOTH

Great teams are born out of adversity and courage.  Both of them are good for you.  But it's like going to the dentist.  It's scary, but in the end you're better for going through it.

These past few weeks have been tough for us.  Emotionally, it's tough to find out you aren't perfect.  It was hard to bounce back.  But I feel like I've learned some lessons from our boys. 

Here are a few:  

Adversity strips a team down and exploits it's weaknesses.  It creates doubt and humility.  Adversity is a fire that burns to ashes all of the facades and false pretenses.  It chases away false friends and scourges pride out of a heart.

Courage rises up out of the ashes.  It heals the wounds.  It reminds us of those who have stayed by our side and it brings hope and faith back to the heart.  Courage replaces facades with brick walls and creates iron out of raw ore. 

Every team deals with fear, doubt and discouragement.  Every player questions the ability they have to succeed.  That's a part of life and, honestly, it's healthy.  Great teams fight back through the adversity and show great courage.  Great players fight back the doubt they feel and find renewed purpose.  The team that goes through adversity and doesn't give up finds stockpiles of courage that make it better than the team that hasn't been challenged.

My kids have learned the lessons that adversity had to teach.  They have been through the fire and they have found the courage to work on the weaknesses and fix the problems.  I feel very proud of each of them because they each made a conscious decision to fight back and improve.  I can't see the future so I don't know how the story will end but I will step out just far enough to say this:  I wouldn't want to play us. 

SHOW LOW GAME THOUGHTS

I can't say enough good about how tough our kids played this week.  They were especially stingy on defense.  Coach Reidhead has created an identity and personality for our defense.  Show Low was a great opponent and a good football team and it was a great game.  Final score 35-14 with Snowflake on top.

A ROLLING STONE GATHERS NO MOSS

We've spent the last week evaluating and changing our practice schedule.  It's been a tough process because we had to look at the way we were doing things and ask hard questions.  Why isn't this working?  Why are we still doing that?  Is this worth our time?  Tough questions, but necessary ones.  We really feel like the process of improving at something takes time, evaluation, change and reevaluation. 

There's no question that I work with great coaches.  The best thing about them all is that they take criticism well.  It's hard to be the best at what you do if you aren't willing to change the things that don't work.  So, when we evaluate ourselves we are pretty critical.  Pointing out weaknesses in the program is tough.  This program and it's kids are my biggest concern outside of my own family.  To hear that it's not perfect is tough.  Having said that, the progress that this kind of assessment has lead to is staggering. 

The other great thing about my coaches is that we aren't convinced that the way we are doing things is the only effective way.  They are constantly learning, studying and evaluating.  They are willing to listen to others that have a different viewpoint.  I believe this is the key to our success.  Everyone has a voice in the success of our program. 

It's fun to work in an environment when the people around you are like this.  It's a breath of fresh air to work with men that are so eager to succeed.

Robby Martindell gets ready to play.

The guys on the car at the homecoming parade. 

GOOD JOB LOBOS

The Snowflake Lobos beat the Payson Longhorns 31-0.  Watching game film gave us more things to work on.  Even with a great win we can still improve.  So we move on to another week of improvement and look forward to another great test this weekend.