Charlie Burd

Charlie Burd

From the Burd’s Nest: But Desire...Will Be the Difference

It was the last football game of the 1970 high school season, and one for which we had prepared since that first conditioning practice in the August heat. It was against our cross-county rival. It was for all the marbles, for bragging rights forever!! On that Friday morning when I got off the bus and went directly to the locker room as I did every morning, there is was on the wall above the mirror. It caught my eye immediately. It had not been there the afternoon before when I walked out to leave after that final practice.

It was a huge sign, painted in Warren Warrior “blue” on white paper. It had been placed there by Coach Jerry Kelican, a leader, a role model, and a man who commanded the respect of our entire team. To this very day, I have never forgotten his words: “But Desire….Will Be The Difference.” As I recall, it had to have been three feet high and at least fifteen feet long. What it said summed up what every player on the team knew had to happen to win on this fateful night. It would take more than being in shape, more than being bigger or faster, and even more than acquiring some sheer luck…it would in the end, boil down to desire. The desire to work together as offensive and defensive units and as a team; the desire to compete and the desire to do our best to honor our coach, to represent our class, our 700 student school, and our individual communities. We were a team.

A team is a group of individuals with a common goal or purpose. Teams are special things, starting out many times as a group of strangers that, over time, get to know and Executive Director, IOGA respect one another. That respect acknowledges diversity and builds on that diversity of individual knowledge and skills. The great teams embrace the ideas that all the team members bring different tools and as such, create that needed camaraderie among its members. A characteristic commonly seen in high-performance teams is cohesiveness, or the measure of the attraction of the group to its member and a resistance to leaving it.

There are certain steps individuals within the team must take if their team is to be the best. First, members must communicate, have an open dialogue, truly listen to opposite points of view, and focus on the solution to problems or issues. Second, members must collaborate--that means putting the team goals above your own, be proactive in the approach to finding solutions that best fit the desire outcome, and the team’s success is your success. Third, and maybe most importantly, individual team members must trust each other. Trust means being supportive of your teammates, willingly acknowledge their skill sets and embrace their expertise, maintain confidentiality, share responsibility and take responsibility for your actions, give and take constructive feedback, admit if your wrong or make a mistake; and finally, you must respect your opponent in victory and in defeat.

Those main factors that determine team cohesion: similarity between members, seeking shared successes that benefit the masses, and thwarting the threat from external competitors, seems to have been somehow been removed from the playbook. There seems to be little desire to peaceably resolving differences and disputes, and in placing value on all opinions and offered contributions. Just nineteen short years ago, we placed our heads on our pillows on September 11, 2001 in a world that was forever changed. That next day, no matter where you looked or to whom you spoke, there seemed to be the very common goal of being but one United States, to have but one common vision, and to have but one desire to love and protect ourselves and our neighbors from tyranny.

Regardless of political affiliation, is it not in our collective TEAM interests to return to the root concepts of communication, collaboration, and trust?

As I look to Washington, D.C. and apply these very basic concepts of TEAM…I see little to nothing to make me get excited. This great Republic has 435 House of Representative members and 100 Senators. The ideas of communication, collaboration and trust stand huddled together on the sidelines trying to stay warm while the playing field is strewn with those who mistrust, who only promote individualism and those that champion divisiveness. They do not play like a team. Of these 535 individuals I wonder, where is their desire to work together as a TEAM for the common goals so important to our Republic; where is their desire to do their best to honor their constituents, their individual state, and our Nation as a whole?

Coach Jerry Kelican is no longer with us, but the lessons I learned Burd’s Nest Continued on page 21