Terrier Identity

The following is from an article on Huddersfield's David Wagner:

"We call it the Terrier's identity. Exactly the style of football I love is like a terrier. We are not the biggest dog, we are small, but we are aggressive, we are not afraid, we like to compete with the big dogs and we are quick and mobile and we have endurance. We never give up. This small dog has fighting spirit for sure." 

"I don't set targets because sometimes targets are limits and we don't like limits. But I'm not a dreamer, I'm a worker."

You're A Weber Boy

Below is a story I've heard Coach Brandt repeat often. It's told by Stu Weber, former Green Beret and now pastor of a church in Portland, Oregon.

Grandpa and Grandma and I were seated in the kitchen nook, at the old, yellow Formica table, playing Parcheesi. To my frustration, I had fallen well behind in the game, and I was becoming desperate. The last thing a scruffy little boy would ever want to do is lose to his own grandma. So I cheated. And I got caught.
 
The game stopped. So did the chatter. My grandma turned her eyes to my grandpa, and the mood in the kitchen turned very serious. I felt my face getting hot. Grandpa dropped his glasses down to the tip of his nose, and he looked directly into my eyes. “Stu,” he said, “you’re a Weber boy. And Weber boys don’t lie, cheat, or steal.”

The story is about identity. Stu Weber is a Weber boy. And because he is a Weber boy, he must not lie, cheat and steal. His actions are rooted in his identity. 

Stu Weber goes on to talk about the impact that moment had on him later in life:

Twenty years later, when a superior officer in the Army directed me to falsify a report, I refused to lie. That night at the Formica table flashed through my mind, and I remembered my grandpa’s words: “Weber boys don’t lie, cheat, or steal.”

Later, quite apart from any initiative on my part, the inevitable investigation (which deception always breeds) was launched. Not only was my own name clean, but the senior commander actually commended me.

Gus' Toy Box

Here is an awesome excerpt from Run with the Horses by Eugene Peterson:

I once knew a man who had come to this country after World War II as a displaced person. He had been a skilled cabinetmaker in his home country but after the war he had to settle for a job as sexton in a church. Not long after I became a pastor in that same church I also became a father. Toys began to accumulate around the house. Knowing of his dexterity with tools and lumber, I asked Gus if he would throw together a toy box for me when he had a few minutes. I wanted a storage bin for the toys; I knew Gus could do it in an hour or so. Weeks later he presented our family with a carefully designed and skillfully crafted toy box. My casual request had not been treated casually. All I had wanted was a box; what I got was a piece of furniture. I was pleased, but also embarrassed. I was embarrassed because what I thought would be done in an off hour
had taken many hours of work. I expressed my embarrassment. I laced my gratitude with apologies. His wife reproached me, "But you must understand that Gus is a cabinetmaker. He could never, as you say, 'throw' a box together. His pride would not permit it." That toy box has been in our family for over fifty years now and rebukes me whenever I am tempted to do hasty or shoddy work of any kind.

V. We Walk Like Champions

'We walk like champions' was one of our core values at Messiah. It's about action rooted in identity. It's about doing what you ought to do because of who you are (or who you want to be) regardless of how you feel -- or the result or where you finish in the standings or some other set of circumstances outside of your control. We are champions therefore we act like champions even when we don't feel like champions. Here are related excerpts from Mere Christianity, Resilience and Champions: The Making of Olympic Swimmers:

1. Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis
In a chapter called "Let's Pretend," C.S. Lewis writes:

The story is about someone who had to wear a mask; a mask which made him look much nicer than he really was. He had to wear it for years. And when he took it off he found his own face had grown to fit it. He was now really beautiful. What had begun as disguise had become a reality. Even on the human level, you know, there are two kinds of pretending. There is a bad kind, where the pretense is there instead of the real thing; as when a man pretends he is going to help you instead of really helping you. But there is also a good kind, where the pretense leads up to the real thing. When you are not feeling particularly friendly but know you ought to be, the best thing you can do, very often, is to put on a friendly manner and behave as if you were a nicer person than you actually are. And in a few minutes, as we have all noticed, you will be really feeling friendlier than you were. Very often the only way to get a quality in reality is to start behaving as if you had it already.

2. Resilience by Eric Greitens
Resilience is a collection of letters written by former Navy Seal Eric Greitens to another former Seal, Zach Walker, plagued by depression, alcoholism and debilitating lack of purpose. In the chapter on "Identity," Greitens asks Walker to think about the following three things in relationship to one another: feelings, action and identity. Greitens writes:

We tend to assume, without really thinking about it, that everything starts with our feelings, that our feelings are in control. Feelings lead to action. Action shapes our identity.

He then challenges Walker to think about feelings, action and identity in the opposite direction (identity, action, feelings):

You begin by asking, 'Who am I going to be?' You decided to be courageous again. So what's next? Act that way. Act with courage. And here comes the part that's so simple it's easy to miss: the way you act will shape the way you feel. You act with courage and immediately your fears start to shrink and you begin to grow. If you want to feel differently, act differently.

3. Champions: The Making of Olympic Swimmers by Daniel Chambliss
Chambliss wrote Champions after observing the practice habits of Olympic swimmers ahead of the 1988 Olympic Games. He writes:

They become champions by doing what needs to be done, by doing everything right, by concentrating on all the silly little details that others overlook. What makes them champions is the knowledge -- and the action following from that knowledge -- that champions are only real people, not gods, and all that it takes to be a champion is to do what champions do. 

Row The Boat

Here's a good article written by PJ Fleck, head football coach at Western Michigan University. What impresses me most about Fleck is his capacity to stay on message. He's relentless. I've watched a dozen or so YouTube videos featuring Fleck and they're all the same. He was delivering that message at 1-11 in 2013; at 8-5 in 2014; at 8-5 in 2015; and he continues to deliver that message in 2016, on the verge of a perfect season. WMU's identity and process have remained the same since Fleck's arrival at WMU. Only results (and media attention) have changed.