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FIRST-PERSON: Re-measuring success by Brad Locke Date: Apr 7, 2005 |
TUPELO, Miss. (BP)--Measuring excellence requires an awfully long ruler these days. High standards are always good, but now anything short of success’ pinnacle is considered a failure. Second place is first loser, it’s been said.It’s understandable to be distraught when falling short of a momentous triumph. The anguished faces of Illinois’ players after the NCAA men’s basketball championship game revealed the pain losing brings when so much is physically, mentally and emotionally invested. Yet you can say the Illini failed only if you isolate this one game. Time is perspective’s best friend, so reflection on the season as a whole should produce a fulfilling feeling of accomplishment. Some may never feel that way, which is sad. The definition of excellence has been narrowed to the point that many people believe championships -– not merely league or conference championships, but national championships –- are the only accomplishments worthy of praise and pride. That’s why the Nets fired Byron Scott last year despite back-to-back Eastern Conference crowns. It’s why Ole Miss fired David Cutcliffe a season after the Rebels won an SEC Western Division co-championship and the Cotton Bowl. It’s why Nebraska fired Frank Solich following a 9-3 season a couple of years ago. What’s driving this impatient attitude is the desire for instant gratification, the same base urge that begets premarital sex, mountainous credit card debt and obesity. People have gotten confused, forgetting that it’s good to live in the now, as long as you’re not living for the now. For all the hindsight that points out the gross failures of our microwave society, our foresight is still blurry. So we’re left to despair when the immediate results don’t measure up to our ultimate expectations. Incremental improvement isn’t seen as building toward success, but rather as repeated failure. Even consistent success that flies just below the peaks of achievement -– a la the Atlanta Braves, who’ve won 13 straight division titles but “only” one World Series during that span -– is viewed as the inability to “get over the hump.” Why else were fans and the media so hard on the Philadelphia Eagles after three straight NFC Championship game losses? Or why was Phil Mickelson tagged as the “Best Never to Win a Major?” Or why was Roy Williams’ coaching career deemed short of brilliant before his Tar Heels’ victory? The Mickelsons and Williamses of the world should not be burdened with inaccurate labels. They instead should be lauded for their dogged pursuit of real excellence, for their perseverance, for their ability to shrug off the jeers of their shortsighted peers. Their accomplishments should be appropriately recognized, not cynically scrutinized. It’s somewhat a mystery why some would think this way. Such a distorted view of success is underscored by an acute Darwinism, if you will, much like what we see in the cutthroat business world. (If you’re vice-president of the company, you’re merely president of the rest.) It’s reinforced by individual insecurities and stunted emotional maturity, among other factors. In other words, folks who measure excellence as nothing but being first of the first are nothing more than sore losers. It’s an acerbity that is, quite frankly, immeasurable. --30--
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