Damon West - The Locker Room

The ideas discussed in this story can help anyone begin the conversation toward healing and unity.

We believe that the path to reach our full potential is by people gathering together in their own “Locker Rooms” and having hard, but fruitful conversations, with humility and grace.

The Locker Room is a story about building great culture: your team, organization, or business will be able to immediately apply these principles and grow as a result.

The Locker Room is a story about the importance of great character and a challenge to never let your talent outrun your character. But most of all, The Locker Room is a story about the power that each one of us has to make a difference in our own Locker Room, when we choose to give our best for the best of someone else.

Of course, you don't have to be an athlete, or former athlete, for this story to impact you. You just have to be willing to listen.

With humility and grace,

Damon West and Stephen Mackey

The banquet hall at the Berry Center was packed. Coaches, family, media, even the governor had gathered from across the state for the annual Hall of Honor Banquet. Jokingly called “The Ball Coaches’ Ball,” this was where the best of the best received the ultimate accolades each year. The highest honor, presented at the end, was the Award for Lifetime Achievement.

The winner this year was James Edward Smith.

Coach Smith, known to former players, fellow coaches, reporters, colleagues, and even his own wife as “Coach Smitty,” was an exceptional coach. For over 35 years he had served as the head coach of the Tigers of Northwest High School, one of the most successful football teams in the history of the state. It was a surprise to no one that Coach Smitty won this award. Aside from being one of the winningest coaches in the history of the state, his achievement was indeed for his lifetime as a coach: he had just retired after coaching his final season.

Tonight would be Coach Smitty's swan song.

Coach Smitty was a coach who had created a culture of success from his staff and his players. More than three decades earlier, he had written his Six Pillars core values for his team, but when those players graduated, they took the Pillars into other walks of life. Soon, Coach Smitty's tenets were studied by coaching staffs of every sport, at every level. Corporate CEOs would even travel to his annual coaching clinic at Northwest High School to learn from him and see if some of his “magic” would rub off on them.

But it was not magic or alchemy that made him one of the winningest coaches in history. It was his authentic vulnerability. “Authentic vulnerability,” he would tell anyone who would listen, “is a strength. By letting your guard down and exposing yourself—with all of your flaws—you can then become that servant leader whom others will want to follow.”

Over his storied career, Coach Smitty also endured controversy, especially when it came to his faith. To him, it was worth the flak to instill spiritual principles in the hearts and minds of the boys he would have for four years. Those principles helped ease their transition into becoming men, leaders in their own right. He would say to his assistant coaches, “Everything we are trying to do as coaches comes down to love. If you're not going to love them, you can't coach them!”

His players loved him and his staff in return, as evidenced by 35 years worth of boxes with Christmas cards received every year from the players, photos of children and grandchildren, handwritten letters, and a steady stream of invitations to weddings and christenings. It was evidenced in his career accomplishments and, tonight, in the Lifetime Achievement Award.

The time had come for Coach Smitty's award. The governor had already spoken for 15 minutes to the silent hall, listing first the championships, but dedicating the bulk of his speech to the lives Coach Smitty changed for the better, including his own. Finally, he boomed, “Ladies and gentlemen, it is my honor to present the Award for Lifetime Achievement to my dear friend, Coach James ‘Smitty’ Smith.”

A loud chorus of applause erupted from the audience. Coach Smitty made his way through the crowd, high-fiving and hugging his friends and peers. Once he was at the podium, everyone settled into their seats to hear this living legend speak. He brought no words on paper and spoke from his heart.

“Governor, thank you for that humbling introduction. You forgot the part about how you tried to convince me to quit coaching to run for office. Politics was never my calling, though. I told you my heart is with a less violent sport,” Coach Smitty quipped. “No, sir. I was fortunate to do what I love for more than half my life.

“All I've ever wanted to do in my life is be a coach. But, as every man or woman in coaching knows, you have to find the right partner in life if you want to be a coach and have a family. In this regard, I won the lottery with my wife.” Coach Smitty locked eyes across the room with his wife. “Elise, thank you for not only supporting my dreams but for also nurturing those dreams. You made me a better man so that I could create better men through sports. I love you.”

Coach Smitty paused to wipe the tears from his eyes. “I love football. But too many people think sports is just about scoring points. Sure, scoring points matters—if you don't want to win, why keep score? But there is so much more to sports than points on a board.”

Coaches around the room nodded in unison. He continued, “Sports teaches us about life, about being on a team to achieve a common goal. Sports teaches us about being a good teammate, which requires accountability—to yourself and to each other. A team that does not have personal accountability from every coach and player will not win on the field, in the office, in the classroom, or in life.

“In sports, as in life, there are challenges and there is competition; every endeavor requires preparation and sacrifice. I have loved that preparation, and I have even loved that sacrifice. But what I've always loved the most about coaching is the locker room. Not the smell, or the piles of laundry; no one can love that,” Coach Smitty laughed with the audience. “No, I love the unity of the locker room. In every locker room you'll find athletes from different backgrounds, diverse stories, all with hurts and hang-ups, hopes and dreams. The Locker Room is a place where all these kids, who are all kinds of different, come together around a common goal. They work together, sacrifice for each other, and use their diversity as a strength to make each other better. They enter the Locker Room as individuals but they leave as a team.

“As I look back on my coaching career, it won't be the records or the state championships that I will remember. I will remember the Locker Room—the place where we built relationships, dreamed dreams, had long conversations, grew, laughed, danced, celebrated, and cried. I will remember how special that place is, and I will forever believe that if more people in this great country got to experience their own Locker Rooms we wouldn't have the problems we have today.

“But America doesn't have a Locker Room—we lack a common goal. We want people to sacrifice for us, but we don't want to sacrifice for anyone else. That's why you see so much division and hate. That's why, when we disagree, we scream at each other instead of talking to each other. It's why, when we get hurt, we go and hurt someone else, just to try and make ourselves feel better. It's why we put people down, instead of helping others up.”

Coach Smitty paused, this time for his own emotional control. How to get across to this audience how much he believed in the sanctity of the Locker Room? How to communicate to them that the best of human beings comes out in the vulnerabilities shared in these spaces? How to share with an audience who admires and respects him that this is a lesson he himself had to learn?