Soccer Championships, Bloody Knees and Vince Lombardi

Club United: Southeast Pennsylvania U-15 Champions

We just got back from the best soccer game I’ve ever seen. And trust me, I’ve been at a lot of soccer games over the years. Steve’s team, Club United, won the Southeastern Pennsylvania championship for the elite division in U-15. The score? 1-0.

Steve had an assist on the goal, which happened in the first 30 seconds of the game. Their opponents took the ball from the circle and tried to cross the field with a pass. But Steve was there. He chested the ball, passed it forward and with one more flick Club United had a goal. From then on it was a game with the most amazing goalkeeping I’ve ever seen. Our goalie, Sergio, saved shots at the top of the goal, by flying to his left, and he stopped two breakaways with spectacular saves.

There are moments that young men will remember when they’re old dudes like me. Tonight was one of them. it was like in a movie when then whistle blows and there’s a moment of pure joy. There’s nothing better than seeing young men do their best and celebrate their win. The part I’m most proud of, though, is how they handled themselves after they game. They shook their opponents’ hands. Thanked their coach. And behaved with dignity. It’s how it should be.

The Mark of Playing Hard

If you know Steve, you know he plays all out. He used to bust dudes when he was younger, but now he out-muscles and out-hustles them. He’s always in the action. Tonight, he left some skin on the pitch. But he played on.

When I saw Steve’s bloody knee I thought of the “What it Takes to be Number One” speech by Vince Lombardi:

Winning is not a sometime thing; it’s an all the time thing. You don’t win once in a while; you don’t do things right once in a while; you do them right all the time. Winning is a habit. Unfortunately, so is losing.

There is no room for second place. There is only one place in my game, and that’s first place. I have finished second twice in my time at Green Bay, and I don’t ever want to finish second again. There is a second place bowl game, but it is a game for losers played by losers. It is and always has been an American zeal to be first in anything we do, and to win, and to win.

Every time a football player goes to ply his trade he’s got to play from the ground up—from the soles of his feet right up to his head. Every inch of him has to play. Some guys play with their head. That’s O.K. You’ve got to be smart to be number one in any business. But more importantly, you’ve got to play with your heart, with every fiber of your body. If you’re lucky enough to find a guy with a lot of head and a lot of heart, he’s never going to come off the field second.

Running a football team is no different than running any other kind of organization—an army, a political party or a business. The principles are the same. The object is to win—to beat the other guy. Maybe that sounds hard or cruel. I don’t think it is.

It is a reality of life that men are competitive and the most competitive games draw the most competitive men. That’s why they are there—to compete. To know the rules and objectives when they get in the game. The object is to win fairly, squarely, by the rules—but to win.

And in truth, I’ve never known a man worth his salt who in the long run, deep down in his heart, didn’t appreciate the grind, the discipline. There is something in good men that really yearns for discipline and the harsh reality of head to head combat.

I don’t say these things because I believe in the “brute” nature of man or that men must be brutalized to be combative. I believe in God, and I believe in human decency. But I firmly believe that any man’s finest hour—his greatest fulfillment to all he holds dear—is that moment when he has to work his heart out in a good cause and he’s exhausted on the field of battle—victorious.

Steve had a Lombardi moment today. If pride goeth before the fall, I’m ready to hit the dirt.