Last week, I saw a film called 'Miracle.' It was shown in one of our leadership classes. For those who haven't seen the movie, it's about the 1980 U.S. men's ice hockey team led by an overbearing coach who eventually led them to an Olympic gold medal. A question was asked by our professor about whether we would like to work under someone like Coach Brooks. After giving it a lot of thought, this is my answer.
For
me, I would love to work with someone like Coach Herb Brooks. In my opinion, he
had the perfect ability to push people to their limits and make them work the
hardest they've ever done. There is a book I read called ‘Battle Hymn of the
Tiger Mother’ and it talks about the extreme parenting of a Chinese woman. She
pushed her daughters to study extremely hard, and it got to the point where her
daughters would be screaming ‘I hate you!’ at her. However, their hard work paid
off since both her daughters became accomplished musicians and ended up going
to prestigious schools. I saw a bit of tiger parenting in Coach Brooks. Now,
some people might think that his coaching method was too extreme, but I beg to
disagree. His coaching method was exactly right. We all know that his primary
temperament is a doer, and in the end, his goals were what drove him to be
quite harsh. He was driven to win, to beat the Russians and to be the best. He
merely strived to invoke all of that to the guys in his team.
Coach
Brooks was a great coach. As a leader, he probably wasn’t the best; he was too
insensitive, too harsh, too demanding, etc. but sports is different. Nobody
goes to participate in the Olympics just for fun or for experience. No, if they
were to compete, it was because they wanted to win. They wanted to stand on a
podium in front of thousands of people wearing a gold medal around their necks.
If you had that dream, or simply any dream that you are simply just dying to
achieve, Coach Brooks was the right coach. I have a dream for myself. I want to
accomplish something, but I admit that at times I am too laissez-faire. I know
I can do something, so I don’t work hard for it. In the end, my accomplished
work is not of a good quality, I’m being surpassed by others who have simply
worked harder. I want to push myself, so I would want to work under Coach
Brooks. I know for a fact that if he was coaching me, I would be successful. At
times, I may hate him, but in the end, he will get me to a place where I had
only dreamed of going. He had his severe methods that pressed his players to be
the best they can be. He had wise lessons to teach them, and he was persistent
in making them accomplish the goals that they may not know that want to achieve
yet. Coach Brooks had passion, strength and courage to undertake the difficult
and triumph in it. In my opinion, he is the epitome of a truly great coach,
which is why I would love to work under somebody like him.
