Toughness

by Ryan Krzykowski

In the fall of 1993, I headed off to college to study Economics and join the football team.  As an undersized and only marginally athletic freshman, I found myself on the scout team that competed each day to help prepare our starting defense for their upcoming games.  And that’s when I met Carl Ricci.  Carl was two years ahead of me at Yale, and was coming off a sophomore season that saw him earn 1st team all-conference recognition.  He was a middle linebacker — a 225 pound wrecking machine that my buddies and I were more than happy to stay away from.  As wide receivers, we spent most of our time running pass routes and blocking defensive backs.  Rarely did we encounter a linebacker on the field.  That is, until we got to a week whose opponent would often have its receivers crack block on the middle backer.  That week, we would cringe inwardly when Coach Burrell would hold up a card that showed a slot receiver going in to block the “mike”.  It happened over and over, and everyone was scared of Carl.  I was right there with the others, dreading the moment when I would be called upon to crack block on Carl, worried about keeping my head attached to my body.  It was all we were thinking about — can we please get to next week with no more crack blocks?  But after a couple days, something inside me flipped.  I was tired of being afraid.

I wasn’t going to fear Carl anymore.  I decided the next time I was assigned to crack block on Carl, I was going to summon all the courage I had, bring every bit of strength I could muster, and knock that dude into next week.  I wasn’t out to hurt Carl, but I was done being scared and was ready to make a statement to myself and everyone on that field.  The opportunity came — Coach showed us the play, and I saw the slot receiver was to crack on the middle backer.  I lined up, watched the snap, took off and made a beeline for Carl Ricci.  With his eyes in the backfield, he never saw me coming as I lit into him with everything I had.  I could feel the crunch of the collision and heard the sound of pads popping as I hurled my body into Carl.  I was kind of proud of myself for conquering my fear, and although I ended up on the ground, I figured Carl must be on the ground somewhere also.  The play now over, I looked around for a second to see where Carl ended up, or if anyone was coming to either congratulate me or holler at me for putting such a big hit on our star player.

When no one seemed to have anything to say to me, I jogged back toward our huddle.  Still feeling good after my big block, I ran into my buddy Drew, who had a big smile on his face.  I figured he saw what I did, was proud of me too, and that he thoroughly enjoyed watching the play unfold.  Turns out we hit two out of three.  Drew saw what I did, and he definitely enjoyed the play.  I don’t know how proud of me he was though, because when I asked, “Did you see that?  What happened to Carl?”, Drew just laughed.  He said something like, “Man you flew into him and then just bounced off him as he ran through you like you weren’t even there.  I don’t think you even slowed him down, and he ran outside and was in on the tackle.”

I learned a couple things that day — first, I was a way below average college football player.  And, even though I didn’t end up making a great block, there was still something satisfying about throwing my body into Carl’s as I faced my fear.  I realized that being tough can be a conscious choice — that at some level, toughness is a decision I can make.  I definitely haven’t displayed toughness perfectly in every facet of life, but over the past 30 years, I have seen what it is to be tough, both in myself and others.  In our society, perhaps especially in a sports context, we recognize “mental toughness” as a positive trait.  We want to overcome challenges, persevere through adversity and ultimately, conquer fear and display endurance when circumstances are difficult.  In last week’s Coaching Life Group meeting I heard a coach say something about mental toughness that maybe seems obvious, and maybe we could pick apart semantically.  But regardless of what you think of the statement, I don’t know if I’ve ever heard it put quite this way: “Mental toughness…I don’t really think there’s any other kind of toughness.”

In my story, even though it didn’t turn out amazing, I was able to launch my body into a linebacker only when I made up my mind to stop being controlled by fear.  If I’d been more physically equipped for that collision it might have turned out better for me, but I don’t know how much that even matters.  I faced my fear and did my best, even though it was hard.  No doubt there are billions of people on the planet who face larger and more significant challenges than having to block Carl Ricci, and no one would suggest toughness is easy, or that on our own we can push through anything that comes at us.  But I’m in a season of pondering what it means to be tough and how much of that toughness is connected to making decisions that we have control over.

Let’s Coach With Purpose…