"Don't be Good. Be Great." The power of a coach to change a life.

For 27 years, my commute to work was about 30 seconds. 60 if I found myself behind a school bus. These days, I spend 45 - 60 minutes on I 95 every morning and evening. I spend some of that time on the (hands free!) phone, talking with people I hardly ever used to seem to be able to make time for a conversation. And I have spent a considerable amount of time listening to podcasts. While some of them - like The Promised Podcast, Israel Story and The Times of Israel Daily Briefing - focus on the news of the day, the news of the day mostly sucks the life out of me. So I have a number of favorites that make me think or simply entertain me.

One of my current favorites is Against the Rules with Michael Lewis. He describes it as "a show about various authority figures in American life." Season 2 (he is just finishing Season 4) is about the rise of coaches. Episode 2, "Don't be Good. Be Great." is about the power of a coach to change a life, in this case his own. 

The series is really great. I started with Season 4, because it showed up in my feed. It explored how online sports betting is changing our world and the way sports works for us. Spoiler alert - it is not a positive outcome. The I went back to the beginning Season 1 which explores the role of the referee in our world today. It begins with sports, but quickly moves into the wider world. It was published at the end of the first Trump administration, so I imagine the moment gave it a different context as to when I listened to it in the closing days of the Biden presidency.

So coaching - season 2.

As an educator, it should be obvious that this season is going to resonate differently than seasons 1 or 4. This morning made cry a bit, smile, and sigh very deeply. Lewis tells this story from a deeply personal place - it centers on the man who coached him in high school, and who made a very deep and indelible impression on him. It talks about how a coach - or a teacher - can shape and and give someone tools to change their own life.

This is not a review - beyond my saying it is worth your time to listen to it. I will not recap the story. It is worth hearing.

I will share a transcript of one of two of Lewis' personal stories about Coach Billy (Fitz) Fitzgerald.

Our baseball team’s actually very good, but we're playing the only team in the league that might be better. I'm the new young pitcher, and I really don't belong in the game. Our older, better pitcher has it all under control, but his fate would have it.

Fitz is forced to pull our older pitcher in the last inning with one out and us up two to one, and them with runners on first and third and lots of grown-ups in the stands screaming and yelling and going bat shit crazy.

I'm not an imposing sight. I've not so much hit puberty as dealt it a glancing blow. I look like a scoop of vanilla ice cream, maybe with pickup sticks jutting out of the sides. The other team has facial hair and muscles. They're actually laughing and dancing with glee.

As I walk out to the mound, Fitz just stands there, looking like he wants to punch someone. The situation's terrifying, but strangely, I'm not terrified because Coach Fitz is on my side, and he's by far the most terrifying thing in the entire city. And he looks at me and says, “There is no one I'd rather have in this situation,” which is total bullshit, but such is the force of the man that I believe him every word.

Then he hands me the ball and says, “Stick it up their ass.” Before he leaves me out there alone, he nods towards the kid with a little mustache on third base and says, “Pick his ass off.”

I didn't have the words for how I felt just then, but I did later. I'm about to show the world and myself what I can do. The strength of this coach was inside me like a superpower. I picked the kid's ass off third base, then stuck the ball up the ass of some other kid, and we won.

But that's not the full magic of this moment. The magic is what Billy Fitzgerald uses it to do. After the game, he gives a little speech to the team about the nature of courage and how if you want to know what it looks like, you just need to watch me pitch.

I'm hearing myself being described in an entirely original way and wanting to believe it that incident is more the beginning of a longer story than the end, because what that coach did in that moment is to hand me the start of a new identity by giving me a new narrative.

I was no longer this pointless human being, this nightmare of inertia.

I was brave, a hero, almost, and I ran with it.

Four years later, when the letter arrives saying that I'd gotten into Princeton, I run to the school to find Coach Fitzgerald to let him know - not to say "Look what I did!" but to say, "Look what you made it possible for me to do."

I am not sure any commentary I have can make a deeper impact than the actual story. It happened fifty years ago. The impact of this coach is with him today.

It is critical for our work as educators to look beyond the lesson plan, beyond even the curriculum. We are not trying to fill brains with essential information. We are simply trying to create the habits of Jewish living. Sure we do some of both of those things. They are the building blocks of our work.

I worked with Rabbi Jim Prosnit for 24 years. More than once he would remind me that my job was in some ways more challenging than his. He would say "As a rabbi, I am with people at some of the most difficult as well as the most joyful moments of their lives. They are always grateful for my being there and helping them cope or celebrate, and they express that gratitude. When they come to me, they are seeking support. You don't get as much of that."

My answer has always been that as educators, we are playing the long game. It is not about winning today's lesson. It is about seeing what kind of family our students create 10 or 20 years down the road. Are they making choices that help them create a Jewish home, no matter the background of the love of their life? Are they living the values we helped them explore in ways that bring them joy, contentment or even excitement?

I for one have been blessed. I have seen or heard from a lot of my former campers and students. They are doing all kinds of things that they love to do. Quite a few of them have made being Jewish something in which they and their family engage, rather than just as a recessive gene.

Later in the podcast, he says that without Coach Fitz, Michael Lewis never becomes a writer. He is certain he would not have the confidence in himself to take such a risk. That is the kind of educator I still hope to be. That is the kind of educator I hope I can inspire the teachers I coach and lead to be.

And by the way, Michael Lewis is a pretty good writer. You may be familiar with some of his work.

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In cased you missed the link above, you can find this episode of Against the Rules at https://www.pushkin.fm/podcasts/against-the-rules/dont-be-good-be-great

David Bryfman, the CEO of the Jewish Education Project posted this on the Times of Israel Blogs last Wednesday. I believe his point is very important for Jewish educators and parents. Here are the first two paragraphs. I urge you to read the entire article at https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/a-new-anne-frank-moment/.

A new Anne Frank moment

Jewish educators must teach our youth to be confident and competent in their Jewish selves and in how they relate to Israel

Behind closed doors, I used to refer to it as the “Anne Frank moment.” This is when a teacher in a public or independent school, usually in an English or Social Studies class, presents “The Diary of Anne Frank” to his or her students. Sometimes, the teacher might have given the parents and students a heads-up. Other times, students are caught off-guard for what may be their first encounter with the Holocaust.

But the “Anne Frank moment” that I mentioned was not the actual teaching of the diary in these schools. It is rather precisely at that moment when the Jewish kids in class, even the ones who have consciously not presented their Jewishness prior to this time, often have an awakening. Whether they wanted to be identified as Jewish is irrelevant; the combination of an internal spark, a presumptuous teacher question, or the sideway glance of an all-knowing classmate make that student feel like — and become known as — the “Jewish kid” in that classroom.

Continue reading at The Times of Israel

Do you want to be helped, heard or hugged?

Jancee Dunn is a columnist for the New York Times. Last April she wrote a piece in the NYT's Well newsletter called "When Someone You Love Is Upset, Ask This One Question." In it she describes her response to her sister Heather, a teacher who had just completed a challenging week with some agitated students:

“What do you do when a kid is emotionally overwhelmed?” I asked. Many teachers at her school, she told me, ask students a simple question: Do you want to be helped, heard or hugged?

The choice gives children a sense of control, which is important when they’re following school rules all day, Heather said. “And all kids handle their emotions differently,” she explained. “Some need a box of tissues, or they want to talk about a problem on the bus, and I’ll just listen.”

First, I urge you to read the rest of the article. She posits (and shares the science) that this is a useful approach for adults as well as kids.

Second, this is an incredibly stressful time for so many of us. Pick your stressor of choice: Israel and Gaza, antisemitism, Congress and the inability to govern and listen, presidential possibilities, the economy, racial strife - there are definitely more than four horses being ridden toward the seeming apocalypse. 

Once thrice in my younger days, as my wife was sharing something that bothered her (at work or somewhere else - not at home) she told me to stop trying and give a solution and JUST LISTEN. I am sure I am not the only person who has thought "I wonder if they tried...." and then shared that nugget, never realizing that the sharing was a form of pressure relief, a search for sympathy or empathy and decidedly an invitation to brainstorm.

I have (mostly) learned my lesson. I had bookmarked Dunn's article and happened upon it today. And I really needed to reread it. I have had a build up of stress, and the article reminded me to think about what I need right now. And it may not be a "solution." 

On Tuesday I shared something my rabbi, Danny Moss, had posted. His words served as both a way to help me and for me to be heard - even though they were not my words. And now I am going home for a hug.

As you wrestle with the issues of your day - whether they are personal issues, existential issues or geopolitical issues - think about what you need. Do you need to be helped, heard or hugged? And once you figure that out get some of it. If I can be the hand, ear or hug that you need, please let me know. I am all in.