Just over twelve years ago in Athens, Greece I
was chatting with Andrew Wingfield Digby of the United Kingdom about sports
chaplaincy and as we wrapped up our conversation, I asked, “Are there any other
pointers you would share with sports chaplains?” He looked me in the eye and
shook his index finger while saying, “Don’t act like a fan!” I have repeated this
advice on five continents since hearing it in 2003.
As I have contemplated Andrew’s statement
across the years and have sought to grasp its significance, I have arrived at
one value in particular. It is to value process over results in all
interactions with people of sport. No matter if it’s a twelve year old baseball
player or an eighty-five year old coach, my approach and my conversation is
always about process and never about results. Fans only care about results –
wins, losses, championships, pay raises, being fired, new contracts, or
resignations. To make matters worse, sports media members usually ask the same
sorts of results oriented questions, simply broadcasting the same attitude to thousands
or millions of listeners, viewers, or readers. The sportspeople are normally
either defensive to such conversation or they simply answer in a string of clichés
with little to no value or insight.
I prefer to engage sportspeople in terms of
process. I ask questions about practice, training, rehab sessions, weight
training, player development, personal development of the coaching staff, etc.
I ask questions like these: “How pleased are you with this week’s practices?
What does your upcoming opponent do well? How do your team match up with them?
How are things going for (player’s name)? What about this team pleases you
most? Who is leading well on the field/pitch/court/track? How is your team
developing?”
I never
ask questions like these: “Are you going to win tonight? Are we going all the
way this season? Will we be better than last year? Why didn’t you win
yesterday? Why are we losing so much? Should I bet on you or against you this
weekend? (Obvious, I hope.) Do you think my chapel talk today will lead to a
win? Are we going to be champions this season? Who is the best player in your
league? Why don’t you win championships anymore? Will we beat __________ (rival
team) this year? Is this year’s team as good as the ____ (great team from the
past) team?”
Sports fans see everything about sport in the
simplest form possible – results. Sportspeople, those engaged in the daily
processes of sport, understand their lives are much better understood and
experienced in terms of process. We will connect better with them, we will
understand them better, we will communicate with their hearts better if we lean
into chatting about process and run away from foolish discussion of results.
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