These words may sound a little harsh to you, but just wait until you hear what happened when a high school football team adopted "Put Up or Shut Up" as their team motto.
The story begins a few years ago in a large high school out on the West Coast. IT seems that the chool football team had found itself in a big losing streak, and no one really knew what to do about it. There were some great players on the team, and teh coach felt confident that they could win any game they played if only they would work together as a unit. But somehow the spirit and morale of the team always seemed to be kind of low. All the players seemed to be good friends with each other, but there was never any real team work or group enthusiasm.
In desperation, the coach decided to spend a half hour at the next two practices just watching his players work out together. Slowly, as he watched the afternoon practice scrimmage, the coach began to notice one little habit that almost all the players seemed to have. For instance, whenever one of his players would get ready to run out for a pass, another player would yell something at him like, "Forget it - you'll never catch this one" or "You can't catch" or "Watch out - you're going to blow it!"
Sure enough, when the receiver did run out for the catch, he got so nervous and self conscious that he actually bobbled the ball and missed the catch. This was a cue for the rest of the players to yell something nice like "Way to go, butterfingers" or "Where's your glasses, four-eyes?" or "Hey sticky fingers, how about turning out for the water boy position?"
The coach stood frozen on the field in amazement. He hadn't realized it before, but his team was actually putting each other down!!!!
|
Oh, sure - it was all good natured fun, and no one really meant any harm. But after the coach and his players got to talking about it, they agreed that maybe all the "put downs" and "wise cracks" were the real reason for the low morale and their losing streak. They decided to try an experiment.
They all agreed that for one week, there would be no put downs allowed on their team. In fact, they hung a reminder sign above the locker room door that said "Put Up or Shut Up" and each player would jump up and slap the sign on his way out to the field - just as a little extra reminder.
After just a few days, the results were fantastic. Confidence and team spirit were at an all time high. Comments like "Nice going, I knew you could do it," or "Way to go" - "Good Work" - "Do it again, that's great" were ringing out loud and clear. Even when mistakes were made, the coach heard things like, "Hey, no sweat, next time you'll do it right" or "Don't worry about it - the next play we'll do it OK."
What amazed everyone was that pretty soon the whole school started doing it. The Pep Committee sponsored a "Put Up or Shut Up week" and students hung colorful banners in teh halls that said things like: "If you can't say something positive, bag it" or "I'm OK, You're OK" or "Pat your neighbor and yourself on the back" or "Our school is a happy parade - don't rain on it."
One of the best banners of all was hung bu the students over the entrance to the front door. It said: "WIN OR LOSE, OUR SCHOOL HAS A GREAT TEAM!"
And you know what? They still do.
|
