“Go Play Striker”
It was the end of the season All Star Soccer Tournament, probably U-15. As All Stars, it was a mix of players from across Herndon, including a ‘new kid’ that no-one knew well. He was a great goalie, with the consummate bright uniform, but also had said that he loved playing striker. I had observed him in practice a few times… and on this day, in the Finals, we were losing with less than 3 minutes to play.
It is rare that a Coach actually affects a game, but with nothing to lose, I shouted that to him. In that bright Goalie outfit… he looked stunned… asked to be sure… and when I shouted again, he started running through the field towards the other goal… leaving our defense stunned… and vacant a keeper…
…the leader who has already decided who plays where…
You know your team. You could draw the depth chart from memory, and you have not redrawn it in 2 years. Nobody on it has had the chance to show you the seat they could play, because every seat is already filled by the person who has always played it. It happens at home too. The kid who always does the dishes never gets asked to plan the trip, and the one who plans the trip never finds out they would have loved the kitchen. The chart in your head is a picture of the past, and the people on it have kept growing since you drew it.
…the night the bass player did not come out…
Adam Clayton has played bass on every U2 album, and was the band’s first manager until he handed that job to Paul McGuinness in 1978. On November 26, 1993, deep into the Zoo TV tour, U2 were due to play the Sydney Football Stadium. Adam had been drinking and could not play. His bass tech, Stuart Morgan, walked out and played the whole show in his place. Adam said later that it was a pretty awful feeling, the kind where you promise yourself it will never happen again, and that he was lucky. He has been sober since 1993.
The one who can play the seat is usually already on your bench.
… observe the game closely enough…
What I hadn’t counted on was to have a flashing streak of color running fast through the field distracted the other teams defense just long enough that my son Kyle was able to cross the ball to the other striker, Mike, who buried the shot in the net. Tied it up…
Now we would find out if this kid could play keeper as we went to penalties. I don’t need to tell you that with the adrenaline of that run and the surprise shot, he stoned the other team, and we won the tournament. That picture, and all those grins were real.
I am still in touch with most of those kids. They have very strong and fond memories of that win… and honestly, it is the only time in my Legacy of coaching where I made a unique difference in the outcome.
…a song that nobody would mistake for Sinatra…
Somebody decided, that night, that Stuart Morgan could do it. A tech does not walk out in front of a stadium on a guess. Whoever made that call had to trust that every part was already in his hands. A call like that only takes minutes when the observing has already been done, quietly, long before anyone needed it.
Stay (Faraway, So Close!) began at Hansa Studios in Berlin, where Bono and the Edge wrote the verse under the working title Sinatra. The director Wim Wenders asked for a song for his film Faraway, So Close!, and the band finished it for the Zooropa album, released in July 1993. Adam joked that nobody was going to mistake them for Frank Sinatra’s backing band. The single came out on November 22, 1993, 4 days before Sydney, and reached #4 in the UK and #61 in the US, and it was nominated for a Golden Globe.
…the meeting you sit through with your mouth shut…
You cannot observe a team you are busy running. The seat someone could play shows up in the question they ask, the moment they cover for a colleague, the thing they fix before you notice it was broken. Write the name and the seat down before you leave the room, because by Friday you will have forgotten which moment tipped you off. Your Legacy is often the one person you moved up front with 3 minutes to go.
Your “Simple… Not Easy” move: Watch 1 meeting this week without speaking, and note who could play a seat they have never played.
If you would like a second set of eyes on what you observe in that meeting, and what to do about it, schedule time with me here.
Keep your notes, and give the new striker a reason to… Stay (Faraway, So Close!)
