Character

“Goodness is the only investment that never fails.” – Henry David Thoreau in Walden

"Everyone tries to define this thing called Character.  It's not hard.  Character is doing what's right when nobody is looking." - Anonymous

"I have no regrets in my life.  I think that everything happens to you for a reason.  The hard times that you go through build character, making you into a stronger person." - Rita Mero

                 The dictionary definition of character is “moral and ethical strength.”  I took a class this summer devoted to character development, and it became readily apparent that defining character was a much more difficult task.  None of the fifteen teachers in the class could agree on a solid definition of character.  It seems to be one of those qualities that you know when you see it.  To me, character is the strength to do right.  People of character are people of substance in their community and among their peers.  They are respected because they respect others.  People of character make good choices and are role models for others.  People of character also have the strength to follow their convictions when pressured to do otherwise.  Finally, people of character demonstrate on a daily basis the characteristics of success – hard work, respect, clean living, and leadership.

                Maybe it is easier to define character by the things that it is not.  Teenagers today are beset with choices concerning drugs, underage drinking, and sex.  It takes strength of character not to fall into these adolescent traps.  While there are a ton of great athletes at Palatine, I know some who have made poor choices.  These are the kids who have athletic boards and serve suspensions for drug and alcohol offenses.  These are the same types of kids who I see throwing food in the lunch room or picking on other kids in the hallway.  Character not only involves living a clean lifestyle, but also treating others with appropriate respect and dignity.  Too often, peer pressure causes young men and women to make poor choices, choices that reveal a lack of moral and ethical strength.  As coaches we have an opportunity to create a peer environment where kids can be exposed to others who have strong values and make good choices.  Nurturing this environment is one of our foremost duties.

Character also plays an enormous part in producing a successful team.  Athletes with weak character fail their teams because they do not recognize that their decisions outside of the arena of competition directly impact their performance inside the arena.  One of the primary goals on our cross country team is to collect as many young men of character as possible.  For us good character is more important than talent.  That statement may sound like a noble lie, but I truly believe that athletes in a disciplined and hard-working sport like cross country must be those who are capable of living a clean lifestyle and making good decisions.  When we wanted to start winning again, we recruited good people, regardless of how fast they were.  We raised both the behavioral and the performance expectations for our athletes.  Some of the slowest kids on the team became some of the most important.  They served as daily examples for others of how to live and how to train.  Their consistent display of good character was their most important contribution to the team.  These kids came to practice on time, got proper rest at night, lived a clean life, respected their teammates, and tried hard.  Any kid who can help to create a positive environment is important to a team.  As competitive coaches, too often we become fixated on the talent a kid possesses or his results.  We surely expect each of our athletes to improve each year to stay on the team.  However, we also recognize that giving our attention to the slower athletes is not a waste of time.  They help us teach the younger kids about the “characteristics” of success.  Sometimes, they even put enough work in to compensate for a lack of natural ability and become varsity contributors.

One athlete that symbolizes the importance of having good people on the team is Matt Morlock.  Matt Morlock never came close to making the varsity cross country team at Palatine.  However, he was a captain of the team and one of the more remarkable young men I have worked with.  Matt came out for the team his sophomore year.  By his own admission, his early times were not good.  He worked hard throughout his three years to get better.  He improved constantly, running under 19:00 on our course by his senior year.  To the non-discerning eye there was nothing remarkable about his participation on the team.  To the coaches, though, Matt was an indispensable athlete.  He cared tremendously about the team and the people on it.  He helped drive our summer training, giving kids rides to practice and organizing runs.  He often led our warm-ups and cool-downs.  He wrote columns in our team newspaper “The Weekly Planet.”  During his junior year, Matt suffered a femoral stress fracture.  Rather than quit the team, he rehabbed diligently for eight months and became a great role model for perseverance.  He became just like another assistant coach, always encouraging others on the team.  I remember the whole team cheering for him in his first race back during his senior year.  For me the team’s show of support demonstrated how much the other athletes recognized his importance to the team.  To top it all off, Matt is one of the best students I have ever met.  He took every AP class at Palatine, finished in the top 25 of his class, and collected 46 hours of college credit before ever stepping on campus.  Matt now attends the University of Michigan where he will finish both his undergraduate and Masters programs in engineering in four years.  He is the essence of what makes our team great – a young man who possesses and transmits the characteristics of success.

You cannot build the environment necessary to win without having a high degree of character in your athletes.  A coach who accepts kids that drink, smoke, party, or demean others just because they have talent may win for awhile, but this approach will fail in the long run.  The seduction of talent is just like the seduction of drugs and alcohol.  It appears great in the moment, but its long-lasting impacts are debilitating.  What do you say to a team when a key player gets suspended?  Or when the kid with the most talent misses practice or is chronically late?  Or when good kids quit the team because they are not treated with respect?  Kids with character are like magnets.  They are repelled by people who possess poor character and are drawn to each other as a means to reinforce their own strength.  A coach cannot build a positive environment for success without athletes who possess character.

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