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Quote of the Day: Greatness is a Decision
Everybody matters. Everything goes back to the people. I hire people first, coaches second. I recruit people first, players second.
But if you want to know what the biggest change in Clemson football is over the last 10 years, it’s this: it’s attitude. We control what goes in our heads. So many people let people walk through their heads with dirty feet. Greatness isn’t anybody’s destiny. It’s a decision.
–Clemson football coach, Dabo Swinney
Recently Coach Swinney gave a speech at a fundraiser for Southeastern University in Bartow, FL.
You can tell he’s one down-to-earth fellow and doesn’t mince words. (I love the image of people walking through the heads of others with their dirty feet.)
After all the controversy over people illegitimately trying to get into colleges, I very much liked his emphasis on the importance of people, not just the positions. Too often we look for “qualifications”: the highest grades, the best statistics, the most celebrated. Instead, Coach is saying that we also need to consider that to do a great job, a person has to have the right values, dedication to others, the vision and a willingness to give their all.
Thanks, Coach, for reminding us that it’s not just the numbers, but the people, who matter.
Published in General
Although there was more detail in the article I read about the Coach’s speech, I am assuming that the attributes I’ve listed are pretty close to his expectations. What do you think are the attributes he would be looking for? If you were a coach or a boss, what would be important to you in the people you brought to the school? How important would those be relative to the skills or experience they’d bring?
I think this is a great quote, and will think about what you’ve asked in comment #1.
However, I can’t but think that “we,” in scare quotes, live in a society where “we” have made it all but impossible to recruit and/or hire and/or promote, based on the qualities described. (You mention that in your post, but I think it’s extremely difficult, and sometimes legally compromising, to hire or recruit on any other basis these days.) Everything’s a matter of quantifiable, and obvious, and objective, boxes checked. Race? Sex? Age? And so on, down through the checklist. What sort of person one is, the work ethic or the moral compass one has, and the idea of finding the right ‘person’ versus the walking advertisement for how woke or intersectionally aware the recruiter or employer is, have sort of gone by the boards.
It would be nice to shift the balance a little the other way.
The “recruit the person” necessitates actually meeting the person. But before you meet the person they have to get through all the filters that prevent all but a few to be personally reviewed. As @she points out those filters are the very things that are problematic in our society and that people game to get through the filters.
So true, @she! Fortunately, I expect the coach gets many candidates to choose from. I expect he doesn’t ignore their qualifications, but refuses to ignore the other attributes important to the job. It’s got to be a very difficult tightrope to walk!
We can hope and pray that those who do the initial screening are in concert with the coach. After all, I suspect he’s the one who chooses the screeners!
I think I largely disagree with that statement, in that the “screening” for most anything these days seems to be dictated by the “inclusive” regulatory movement. As was mentioned earlier; race, sex, etc.
Isn’t it possible, @jimmcconnell, that as long as he has a winning team, people might leave him and his screeners alone? I guess we don’t have any way of knowing for sure, but he sure seems like he’s willing to buck the standards!
Well, remember the quote is from the football coach. So many of the candidates for football scholarships are going to check off criteria that meet the filters. The question isn’t how we get merit into football or even the other school’s competitive teams — it’s how we get merit into the broader job placements.
Beautiful post, Susan. I find it ironic that a football coach has this attitude. Most football players do not finish college and struggle to speak grammatical English. I suppose, however, that this does not matter much considering the brainwash that passes for college education and the worthlessness of a college degree (excepting STEM disciplines). At least in football and other sports there are still standards, there are winners and losers. Does socialism, a pillar of leftist and higher education ideology, leave any room for winners?
Even if you don’t aspire to greatness, “don’t let people walk through your head with dirty feet” is a great rule to live by.
Let’s pray we never, ever, find out. Thanks for the kind words, Yehoshua.
Yes, that we never find out. Too many people have already found out in Venezuela, Cuba, the Soviet Union and its satellite states, China, Vietnam, Cambodia, and elsewhere.
Let’s consider them our teachers, tragically.