Empower Your Audience

The memory still makes Steve Brass squirm. Growing up in Yorkshire, England, where Brass says, “the humans were outnumbered by the sheep 2-to-1,” Brass was made captain of his school cricket team. Only 15 years old and having no experience with leadership to speak of, Brass assumed that the captain was supposed to play the lead role on the field, so he put himself in as a starter at all the most desirable positions. At one point in the match, an adult sidled up to Brass and suggested that, just perhaps, he ought to let some of his teammates “have a go.”

The next time you’re sitting in a meeting, and one of your ambitious colleagues throws out an idea that seems “out there”/unconventional/grandstanding, try to resist the temptation to roll your eyes. Yes, in all likelihood your colleague probably is grandstanding because that’s one of the ways ambitious people get heard. But that doesn’t mean he’s not on to something important.

One team’s epic collapse is another team’s come-from-behind victory. Or, to state the matter differently, the most underrated player on your team just might the sixth man or woman commonly known as “Big Mo,” or momentum. The weekend in hoops brought us some wonderful lessons on the role that Big Mo, and his wicked cousin, “Meltdown,” play in the game of basketball and life.

If playing soccer at Notre Dame taught Denise Karkos anything, it was that she always, always could find 10 more minutes to push herself further. After two hours of practice—and soccer consists mostly of running—her coach would line up the team for 30 minutes of sprints.

The world was focused on pop star Rihanna, and without question she offered one of the more extraordinary performances ever, one that was watched by millions around the world. But the halftime show I would have paid extra to watch wasn’t happening on the field. It was happening beneath the stadium in the Kansas City Chiefs locker room.

On Saturday, LeBron James moved within 36 points of breaking the NBA career scoring record in the Los Angeles Lakers’ 131-126 loss to the New Orleans Pelicans. He has every chance of finishing the job in one of two home games this week, and when he does he will receive an extended standing ovation and prolonged recognition from the home crowd. If the achievement coincides with a win, the mood will be merrier, but the Lakers aren’t having a very good season and James will have some mixed emotions about his achievement either way.

On Sunday, the Kansas City Chiefs did far, far more than win a conference championship and the right to go to the Super Bowl in two weeks. No, by beating the Cincinnati Bengals 23-20 on a last second field goal, they “won” back the right to naming their own home stadium. The victory pretty much shut up all the Bengals talk about “Burrowhead Stadium,” the nickname given to the Chiefs’ stadium by Bengals fans who were seeking a fun way to highlight the fact that Bengals quarterback Joe Burrows was 3-0 against the Chiefs’ superstar quarterback Patrick Mahomes.

Sunday’s game pitting the Buffalo Bills against the Cincinnati Bengals was supposed to be the game that banished all of the Bills’ ghosts past, present and future. It was going to expel the ghost of quarterback great Jim Kelly and other Buffalo greats who redefined “coming close but getting no cigar” by making eight playoff appearances in 11 years and enduring four consecutive Super Bowl losses from 1990 through 1993.

In a Tale of Two Cities, the great English novelist Charles Dickens wrote that “it was the best of times, it was the worst of times,” and his description of Victorian London could also have described Sunday’s NFL game featuring the Jacksonville Jaguars versus the Los Angeles Chargers.

Okay, so maybe this year’s College Football National Championship game wasn’t one for the ages. It certainly wasn’t if you felt no particular rooting interest for either the University of Georgia or Texas Christian University (TCU). And it certainly wouldn’t have kept you watching if you favor closely fought competitions, which Georgia’s 65-7 masterclass was never close to providing.