Jeff Davis with Newtown High School Principal Dr. Rodrigue
I grew up on the Sandy Hook side of Newtown, Connecticut, a 5-minute walk from my old elementary school, Sandy Hook Elementary School, and right up the street from Newtown Middle School and Newtown High School (I went to Newtown Middle School but not Newtown High School, something we will touch on later in this post).
As an internationally-distributed author, I’m working hard on my next book Reach Your Mountaintop: 10 Keys to Finding the Hidden Opportunity in Your Setbacks, Flipping What You’ve Heard on Its Head, and Achieving Legendary Goals. I’ve lived and traveled around the world and I’m now back in Connecticut. I still travel all the time, but this is my home base – and it’s a wonderful state!
I wanted to connect with Newtown High School Principal Dr. Rodrigue to feature some of her insights in the book, as I continue making changes and tweaks to it. The manuscript is done, but as any author knows the editing process takes a long time. I also wanted to feature her in one of my blog posts. I took a three-month hiatus from blog writing because I’ve been so focused on perfecting my manuscript.
My conversation with Dr. Rodrigue was enlightening and insightful. My questions and comments are in regular font and hers are in italics:
Jeff: Do you think coaches could do a better job of helping their players keep the game in perspective and not get so caught up in it?
Dr. Rodrigue: We do support and guide coaches to downplay winning and support the other side of sports, like teamwork, cooperation, and things like that. We also help students to feel good about themselves; we want them to look back on their high school sports experience and feel good about it. It’s normal to be competitive and we can’t force it to not be that way, but we can let students know that sports is an opportunity for them beyond just winning and losing a game.
Jeff: That’s excellent. I wish someone would have sat me down and told me that when I was in high school. It took you less than a minute to tell me that, but no one sat me down and told me that sports was more than just wins and losses. I was told over and over again that my self-worth 100% depended on being on the team and doing well.
Dr. Rodrigue: Who told you that?
Jeff: My classmates told me that. So-called friends told me that. But it was beyond just my peers. It was also teachers and administrators who told me that. That’s where the situation became dysfunctional – I looked up to these people and took their word for what they were saying. It wasn’t a pleasant experience.
Dr. Rodrigue: I hear what you are saying. My thought is it really all depends on that specific time in your life and that moment in time. I’m sure there are lots of people in this school right now who love Newtown High School and the sports they’re playing, but there will also be a certain number who don’t like it. The feedback, experience, and circumstance will vary person to person.
Jeff: That’s a good point. Is it alright with you if I use Newtown High School as a case study in my book? You guys have a positive athletic program that focuses on the good aspects of sports and downplays the negative. More schools need to follow in Newtown High School’s footsteps.
Dr. Rodrigue: Absolutely, please do.
Key Insight Recap: Coaches can be supported and guided. Some schools separate out sports from the administration and school leadership, but the best schools out there – like Newtown High School, for example – integrate sports with the school administration and leadership.
Jeff: Beyond each person’s individual experience, sports don’t even matter. It’s ironic that I’m saying this because I was a big athlete in both high school and college. In high school I played three sports, football, ski team, and baseball. And I went on to play baseball in college in the Centennial Conference. In my experience I’ve found coaches to take sports WAY too seriously and in the grand scheme of things, sports mean nothing. Did you hear about the recent attacks in Brussels? Those are real problems. Not sports.
Dr. Rodrigue: Yes, I did hear of the recent attacks in Brussels, that was tragic and unexpected. It’s great to keep sports in perspective, but I wouldn’t say that sports don’t matter. Newtown High School Athletic Director Gregg Simon and I went to the Connecticut Association of Athletic Directors (CAAD) conference last night and it was fantastic. Eight students got up and shared how athletics positively influenced their lives – it really made a difference for them. Sports are a good thing and the majority of athletes have positive experiences. It all depends on certain moments and circumstances and you have to remember you are viewing this through your specific lens.
Jeff: That’s a great point, I’m happy to hear sports positively influenced their lives. And I agree with you, I am viewing this through my experience and lens. But do you get why I was feeling so down about this my senior year of high school? I was a college recruit athlete, recruited by seven universities to play at the collegiate level. I played on all the top Connecticut summer baseball teams and I was considered by many scouts and coaches to be one of the best players in the league. When I unexpectedly got cut from the team my senior year after expecting to be a starter, I thought my life was over. I mean I literally didn’t think I could go on with my life.
Dr. Rodrigue: Yes, I definitely get why you were feeling down about that. Remember that coaches are human too. Sometimes they make the wrong decision. Sometimes they cut the wrong person and end up regretting it. Coaches make mistakes.
Jeff: And I know how small not making a team is, it’s not a big deal and something I can laugh at now. But at the time it seemed like the worst thing ever because I was so zoomed up on it.
Dr. Rodrigue: Yes, it must seem much smaller now than it did at the time.
Key Insight Recap: You see life through your own lens. I had a negative experience with high school sports and viewed it through that lens, but I realized there are many people out there who have had a positive experience with high school sports.
Jeff: Yes, well said. I must say, here we are sitting in your office chatting – I genuinely wish I went to Newtown High School. My little brother and sister both went here. I had a great experience at Newtown Middle School and had lots of good friends in town, but then I went to a private high school in Fairfield called Fairfield Prep instead of Newtown High School. I don’t mean for this to sound negative, but for the past nine years I’ve seriously and completely regretted going to Fairfield Prep. If I could do it all over again, I’d go to Newtown High School, not Prep.
Dr. Rodrigue: Fairfield Prep is a great school. I had cousins who went there. I think you made a great choice to go there.
Jeff: Really?
Dr. Rodrigue: Absolutely. Public school does have its benefits, but Prep is a very good place to be.
Jeff: That’s good to hear. I didn’t have a great experience there, but the enlightening thought you shared earlier about an experience being specific to a certain time in someone’s life makes a lot of sense. I was the quintessential late bloomer and didn’t grow until my sophomore and junior year of high school, later than all my friends. Perhaps Newtown High School would have been a better experience, but I would have had those same late bloomer challenges wherever I went to school.
Key Insight Recap: If you look for the good in a situation, you will find it. Getting unexpectedly cut from the baseball team spring of my senior year tainted my high school memories, but I realized there were good aspects to my high school experience I had forgotten about.
Jeff: I’d like to take back what I said earlier about sports not mattering. As a former high school and college athlete, I agree sports do matter. To clarify – and this ties specifically into the lessons I share with students around the world – players need to make sure their self-worth isn’t caught up in outcome. Make the team or get cut, win the game or lose the game, your self-worth does not depend on that. That’s what no one told me in my high school years.
Dr. Rodrigue: That I agree with completely. It is important players know not to tie their self-worth to the outcome of the tryout or game. And you did touch on part of society’s problem here. It’s about playing the game for fun. It’s about going out for a sport and knowing your life isn’t over if you don’t make it. You’re not always going to be on top and knowing that lesson will serve someone for the rest of their life. We need to make sure our kids have grit: they need to have the attitude if they don’t get it this time, they could get it next time.
Jeff: That’s awesome, very well said. And that’s what Newtown High School does well. Are there other factors that go into this as well?
Dr. Rodrigue: Yes. I do hear where you’re coming from with the self-worth thing. It’s very easy for a player to let their self-worth get wrapped up in it all. There are financial and all sorts of variables here that can leave kids devastated. There can also be pressure. That’s where parenting comes in. When my son was playing basketball, sometimes he would take it very seriously and be incredibly upset and devastated if things didn’t turn out the way he wanted them to. I would help him through that and explain that it’s not life or death. It takes a village to raise a child, so each player has other influences in their lives that can help them deal with challenges.
Jeff: Yes, that makes sense. I have two great parents, but I was around so many people in my high school who took sports as life and death that I became that way myself.
Key Insight Recap: Sports do matter and are a positive part of students lives. At the same time, athletes don’t have to let their self-worth get caught up in the outcome.
Dr. Rodrigue: It’s definitely important to remind the kids that it’s a game. There’s a health factor here too. If kids are basing their entire lives on one sport, that’s unhealthy. But if they can be taught to think of sports like every other extracurricular, they’ll benefit from participating in it. Sports are more positive than negative.
Jeff: This is great, love what you’re saying here. Once players are given the right framework to participate in them I can see how it can be very positive. I did make friends on the teams I played on, which was one positive aspect outside of the sport itself.
Dr. Rodrigue: Yes. Whether it’s a teacher, coach, parent, college scout, friend, or anyone else, we must ensure the message is this: win or lose, let’s have fun. Whatever you do, give it your best, but let’s have fun. There are positive experiences in everything – it’s all about how you handle setbacks. If players can learn how to handle things that didn’t go perfectly well, even unexpected things, then they will be developing grit, which is a crucial quality for success in life.
Key Insight Recap: Go after your sports goals with full preparation, effort, and to the best of your abilities. But always have fun with it and remember that it’s just a game.
Are you as amazed as I am with Dr. Rodrigue’s fantastic insights? If more and more athletic programs apply these enlightening insights, players can continue playing sports and give the game their all without tying their self-worth to the outcome of the tryout or game.
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Dr. Rodrigue is featured in chapter one of the award-winning book Reach Your Mountaintop. Jeff Davis is a world-renowned author, traveler, YouTube creator, and philanthropist.
Jeff,
Your outlook on sports and this interview is very interesting. I want to comment on the topic of “Winning”, but first a little background.
I coach basketball at the scholastic level and the first thing I teach my players, before we talk about winning or losing, is a framework for how our team will approach the season. (You might notice that the ideas are also useful for life after sports.)
Here is the framework I lay out with my team: 1) We never quit, 2) We control our minds and 3) We overcome challenges. Nothing in there about winning but my teams tend to win. My point of view is that “winning is a byproduct of proper preparation and mindset”… definitely something I wish someone had told me growing up.
re: your interview & “Winning”… I am disappointed when school administrators downplay winning without giving their student athletes the opportunity to truly compete and learn the important life lessons that sports can instill. Saying it is “OK to lose” lets them off the hook. Overcoming athletic challenges builds true self worth and empowerment versus the fake “everybody gets a trophy” approach that is so prevalent nowadays but sets young people up for disappointment and frustration when they enter “the real world”.
My philosophy is that Winning is about effort. Your absolute best effort, both in preparation & during the game, is a win regardless of the final score. There are many things that can influence the final score in scholastic sporting events… age differences, genetics (height/strength), coaching, to name a few. The key is to “Win … or Learn”. It is only a Loss if you give up or don’t give your best. The good news is that, in life, there is always another game, another opportunity to test yourself, as you demonstrated by going on to play baseball in college.
Since I coach AAU basketball as well, they introduced me to another way of looking at winning through the Positive Coaching Alliance and their Double-Goal Coaching concept. A “Double-Goal Coach” has two goals: winning and the even more important goal of teaching life lessons through sports.
Here is a link in case you want to read more …
https://www.aausports.org/Resource-Articles/ArtMID/1403/ArticleID/665
I look forward to your book and I hope that your concept of “winning” continues to develop. I know you have lots of great stories and it is important to find the positive lesson in each one !
Dave Wheeler
Head Coach, Boys Basketball
The Marlborough School
Dave,
Thank you for your awesome comments and enlightening insights. I hear you on what you’re saying here.
I agree with you 100% that the fake “everybody gets a trophy” is no good. I’ve always thought as well that throughout my life. I did not mean to convey in this post that winning doesn’t mean anything. Yes, you can go after the win with full effort and determination, knowing that there are both winners and losers. What I meant to get across is that coaches (and administrators and school faculty in general) do not often take the time to convey to their students and players that their self-worth doesn’t depend on the outcome – especially before/during the tryout, knowing that some kids are not going to make the team.
The way you do it yourself is fantastic and more coaches could learn from the way you give your players the right outlook on preparation and mindset. I speak from my experience of unexpectedly not making the high school baseball team, not as much about the skills it takes to coach and motivate players once they are on the team. Here’s a heartfelt article about what I’m referencing: http://tinybuddha.com/blog/how-to-move-forward-when-you-feel-like-your-life-is-over/
Do you think there’s a better way for coaches and schools to conduct tryouts, in the sense of letting the students who are trying out know that their self-worth doesn’t depend on the outcome of the tryout?
I understand where you are coming from in not wanting school administrators to let the athletes off the hook. With that said, if they don’t tell players in tryouts that everything is going to be fine for them whether they make the team or not, my concern is someone will go to the extreme like I did if they don’t make the team. A possible win-win solution that comes to mind is that perhaps during tryouts, a coach of some sort can briefly give the players some perspective (this is what was never given to me). Then they will have that filed in the back of their minds. Of course they are all going to want to make the team, but that way they at least they know their life isn’t over if they don’t make the team.
I also agree that the lessons learned in sports are incredibly beneficial in life. What you’re doing with your coaching is fantastic. I’m a competitive person and I’ve been an athlete my whole life – I just feel like something is missing in the tryout process as far as giving the kids proper perspective and outlook (not necessarily about winning or losing so much as the concept of self-worth and teaching kids how to stay detached from the outcome).
Love the framework you laid out with your team and also that winning is about effort, regardless of the final score. These are indeed lessons that prove to be very beneficial in the “real world”. I read the link you included in your comment involving the AAU basketball you coach, great stuff.
I did not intend to make this particular article a commentary on winning; what I wanted to convey was an awareness of the need to provide kids support – whether they make the team or not, whether they win the game or not.
Please check out more of my blog posts in the future; I enjoy reading your insights.
Jeff Davis