Rochester Pride - RSC Lightning '96

To my Team, 22 October 2001 I want to take a moment to once again tell you how very proud I am of you. At the very beginning of the year I shared with you what I hoped we would accomplish this year. One thing I hoped to accomplish was to help you become very good soccer players. What does that mean? Well, to me it means: Ø Learning how to handle the ball. Being comfortable with it at your feet and being confident and skilled enough to take-on a player or keep possession without panicking and kicking it away blindly because you don’t know what else to do or you don’t feel like you have the skills to do anything significant with the ball. Ø Learning to see the field when you are on the ball and to see your options and being able to pick out the best option so that the cause of the team is advanced and the scoring of a goal is made more likely rather that less likely because of your choice. Ø Being able to execute that good option. It is one thing to know you should serve the ball toward far post, it is another to be able to do it. It is one thing to know the best choice is to take-on a player with a skilled move, it is another to be able to do it. It is one thing to know you must delay an attacker’s advance, it is another to be able to do it. Ø Learning how to play off the ball. Being able to create the good option for your teammate with the ball. Understanding your job and roll off the ball so that the team is working together. Ø Learning and understanding that every player on the field is a part of the defensive effort when the opponent has the ball. Learning what those defensive roles are and carrying them out. Ø Thinking the game. Not just running through the motions mindlessly but truly understanding why certain principles are important and knowing when and how to apply them. These are the things I wanted us to accomplish when we started together in August. These are things that most 10 & 11 year old players are not yet capable of. And these are things that are being accomplished and achieved by you. That is a plain fact. You know it is a fact because you can feel it in your play. I know you can feel it in your play because I can see it in your play. I can see the creativity and sense the intuition that only comes about with an understanding of the game and a command of the fundamentals. I can see it when, with every game that passes, I need less and less to be vocal from the sidelines – because you are doing the right thing on your own… without my “help”; because you understand. I can hear it every time a spectator behind me says “Wow! Can you believe that?” or “Oh my gosh! I didn’t even know she could do that!” or some other such thing. I can hear it when opposing coaches or parents of opposing players come up to me privately and tell me how impressed they are by your play. I can tell every time one of you makes an insightful observation to me about one of your teammates making a really good turn or run, or even an insightful observation on something we could have done better. I can see every time I read a game assessment that correctly and insightfully assesses a game. The other, more important thing I hoped to accomplish (or continue) this year, had much less to do with soccer and much more to do with effort, dedication, commitment, sportsmanship, grace and other such things that extend far beyond the painted lines of a soccer field. For our purposes the game of soccer is the vehicle by which to learn the value of these things. Given our dynamic, the game of soccer is where we, as a group and a team, can most readily see and feel the results of these traits. But the actual game itself is very much secondary to the point that these virtues be learned, understood and embraced. Because these are not soccer virtues, they are life virtues. In this, as well, you have succeeded brilliantly. Our goal and our focus are clearly set down on the home page of your website: Pride are a team of exceptional girls dedicated to sportsmanship and fair play and committed to full and honest effort in training and on the game field. Pride measure their success not by scores and record but on improved skill and increased understanding of the game from week to week and over the course of a season – knowing full well that if we focus on our own improvement and execution, the results will take care of themselves. In these things our season is clearly a success. There is still more to learn and much upon which to improve, no question – there always is. But your individual and team skills have improved markedly, and they have only done so because of the effort, dedication and commitment you have put into the season. Where we are today from where we were in August, and how & why we’ve got there, is how we measure ourselves. And in that there can be no disputing your tremendous growth & development – and therefore, your tremendous success. "How a man plays the game shows something of his character; how he loses shows it all." With regard to yesterday’s game, even that had it’s own silver lining. It is rather an easy thing to be gracious and generous as the victor. All season long, we have been fortunate and blessed to be put in that roll. It is something rather different to summon up the same graciousness in the midst of a bitter defeat. But you did. And for that I give you my highest praise, because it is a very difficult thing to do. Especially when you are of a driven and competitive nature… as you are… as I am. But the manner in which you accepted the difficult loss yesterday speak more highly of you and your character than any win possibly could. I told you at the beginning of the year about my coach’s meeting where 3 different coaches came up to me at different points and stated about the same thing, and basically it was this: "I really admire you team because they are extremely good – but more than that I really enjoyed playing against your girls because they display the best sportsmanship we came across all year/in years." Ladies, THAT is the legacy you are creating for yourself. I have told you before that class and dignity are never wasted efforts. And it makes me proud to see that you have learned that. So what are people, players, coaches and spectators alike, going to remember about you? A great team with a lot of class that’s almost impossible to beat, and if we do beat them we feel pretty lucky. You know what? I’ll take that any day of the year. And so, what does yesterday’s loss mean? Well, not that much, really. Certainly not as much as it may have felt right after the game. And here is why, ladies: Even if we had won yesterday’s match, do you think it is at all possible for me or your parents to have been any more proud of you for all your accomplishments on the season than we already are? No. You have nothing left to prove to me (or anybody for that matter) about this season’s success. Your accomplishments from throughout the season and your development over the season are not diminished in the least. And you cannot have pleased your parents even one tiny degree more for your season’s accomplishments than you already have. Because for all your work this season, what has it got you? What do you have? I’ll tell you what you have: Ø The delight and support of your spectators; Ø The respect and admiration of your opponents; Ø The love and pride of your parents; Ø Newly-forged & otherwise strengthened bonds of love, friendship and camaraderie in each other; Ø An enhanced understanding and first-hand experience of the fruits & rewards of hard work, honest effort and commitment; Ø Newly gained knowledge, improved skill and truly well-earned confidence in yourselves; Ø And so much of all those things bound up inside your coach that I can barely express it. And that’s a lot. In fact, it’s everything. These bonds of friendship I speak of, for example, are the sort that run strong and deep because they were forged of hard work, and pushing yourselves and each other, and sweating and working and learning together to accomplish a common end. That – sharing the effort together, sharing the work together, sharing the difficulty together and ultimately achieving your success together despite all the difficulty in getting there - is where the strength of these bonds are drawn from. And it is the kind of thing that is impossible to gain with out the effort that you have given. There are countless kids your age who will never have the privilege of being able to experience this sort of thing because they were never asked or urged or made to put in the sort of effort that is required to create these bonds – the effort I have asked of you, and the effort you have given each other. Those are the sorts of kids who will forget the names of their own teammates the day after the last match ends; because the effort was never ever there, so the value was never there, so nothing was ever truly gained because nothing was ever truly given. But when you work so hard together to accomplish something as you girls have, those things are not so easily forgot, and the people you shared it with are not so easily forgot either – nor should they be. These are the sorts of things that can, and often do, lead to unshakable, unbreakable, down-to-the-core-of-the-soul, life-long friendships. What an amazing and beautiful gift to give yourselves. What a precious return for your true and honest effort. And this self-confidence I speak of, again, this is a gift well and truly earned only by those who have put in the effort to make it real. I could, if I chose – and you could, if you chose – just throw you lip service and tell you “you are doing awesome” whether you are or not. But that is not confidence. That is feel-good silliness. Because if it were not true, both you would know and I would know, so whom would we be kidding? You cannot kid yourself. I cannot kid you either. You know the truth of whether you are truly doing well or not – regardless of what I say out loud, right? After all, if my instructor tells me I am a great musician, and I tell myself I am a great musician, and we both tell the world I am great musician, but I still cannot play a song – then what’s the point? So, my choice has been to try to guide you so that your development is real, that your improvement is tangible, so that it shows up on the field on game day. Game day is where we see it or where we don’t see it. That is OUR song. That is our concert recital. And you saw how you played. You felt how it feels to KNOW how to play this game… to understand this game. I don’t have to lie to you to try to convince you to feel good about the way you play soccer (I wouldn’t do that anyhow). I can say it truthfully. And you can feel it truthfully, too. You would know if you were just kidding yourselves. But you are not. That confidence you feel is true and well-earned because your play on the field is very smart and well-executed. That fulfillment you feel for have got to your current level of play from where you started is fully deserved – because if it wasn’t deserved you wouldn’t be feeling it in the first place. Take a moment to think on that. Feels pretty good, doesn’t it? Friendship, camaraderie, true self-confidence, real fulfillment, new skills and knowledge that you will now possess forever... like I said, that’s a lot. These things are priceless. And it’s much, much more than a great many players ever leave a season with. So what did you lose yesterday… very little I would say. In fact, to reflect on the matter, I would propose you even gained a great deal, because you learned something more about yourselves than you ever could have known without some sort of loss on the season – and that is: “How close am I to being a young woman rather than a little girl”. Yesterday, you showed the grace and dignity of young women. There is a very beautiful poem that I love by Rudyard Kipling titled “If”. That poem contemplates the very sort of thing I’m talking about here. I will enclose it with this letter. Read it and you will get a sense of what I am talking about, and perhaps understand even just a bit more of why I am so proud of you girls that it brings tears to my eyes sometimes. So there it is. Look the season over. Reflect on it. Think back on all you have learned, won, experienced and gained. Think about how, even as we have worked so hard, how much we’ve had a chance to laugh and joke and play around and take joy in each others’ company. Do that, and there can be no room for disappointment. Do that and there can be no question as to the value of all that you put into it. Do that, and you cannot help reach any conclusion but that you have, indeed, won. Because, as Jesse Owens, a great champion and a truly great man, once said “…extra effort… command of the fundamentals… desire, determination, discipline… self-sacrifice… a great deal of love, fairness and respect for your fellow man. Put all these together, and even if you don’t win, how can you lose?" I tell you that this season has been an unequivocal success. Don’t you doubt it for a moment. I love you all very much and I cannot wait to get back to it this spring. Coach K IF If you can keep your head when all about you Are losing theirs and blaming it on you; If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, But make allowances for their doubting too; If you can wait and not be tired by waiting, Or, being lied about, don’t deal in lies, Or, being hated, don’t give way to hating, And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise; If you can dream – and not make dreams your master; If you can think – and not make thoughts you aim; If you can meet both triumph and disaster And treat those two imposters just the same; If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools, Or watch the things you gave your life to broken, And stoop and build ‘em up with with wornout tools; If you can make one heap of all your winnings And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss, And lose, and start again at your beginnings And never breath a word about your loss; If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew To serve your turn long after they are gone And so hold on when there is nothing in you Except the Will which says to them “Hold on”; If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue, Or walk with kings – nor lose the common touch; If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you; If all men count with you, but none too much; If you can fill the unforgiving minute With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run – Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it, And – which is more – you’ll be a man my son! - Rudyard Kipling