Recovering From A Blowout

So how does a team recover from a thirty point blowout? How does a team think it can play again after a game where nothing seemed to go right? How do players find their way back to self confidence when it was eroded and erased by a team who simply wiped the floor with our efforts?

I think the questions have to be answered with character. If our players are built more of the character of years rather than the outcome of a game or games, they can recover. If all their self-esteem is based on a performance rather than years of learning and growing, then we cannot find our way back to playing hard, to competing, or to making opponents fight against us. It is not a question of what the coaching staff says or does; it now becomes a question of who each individual is.

I no longer base my self-worth on a game or the outcome of a game. When I was a player, I certainly did this and I hate to admit this, but as a young coach I was also guilty of this judgment. Now I know through years of self-reflection, reading and meditating that I am not better or worse because we won or lost a game. I have enough confidence and faith in who I am I no longer need to reassure myself through a contest I am good enough. I hope I can pass this onto my players--that they know they are still worthy and loved if they lose.

I hope they way they judge themselves is on effort, persistence, dedication, and willingness to learn from adversity. I hope they can see their growth throughout the season and know they have traveled a great distance. I want them to understand they are getting better; they are growing; they are expanding in ways and means they cannot yet understand and even more that this experience is not a bad experience. It is neither good or bad. It becomes whatever they want it to become--that they attach the emotion to the experience. In other words, they can feel great about how they handled the adversity or they can be angry about the number of losses in the season. They can find the good about the games we've lost or they can beat themselves up feeling totally unworthy.

It is not the judgment of others which hurt us the most; it is our internal judgment for nobody else can hurt us without our consent. This season may not been deemed a year for championships but maybe, just maybe, it was meant to be more. It was meant as an opportunity for expansion and for players to learn to love themselves no matter what the numbers on the scoreboard read.

PLAY HARD. PLAY TOGETHER.