Chapter 12
Hope
Hope . . . is not the same as joy that things are going well, or willingness to invest in enterprises that are obviously headed for early success, but rather, an ability to work for something because it is good, not just because it stands a chance to succeed.
Václav Havel, Disturbing the Peace
Live in your hopes and not in your fears.
Johnny Majors
There is no medicine like hope, no incentive so great, and no tonic so powerful as expectation of something tomorrow.
Orison Swett Marden (1850–1924)
I pray that God, the source of hope, will fill you completely with joy and peace because you trust in him. Then you will overflow with confident hope through the power of the Holy Spirit.
Romans 15:13
Teamwork is a constant balancing act between self-interest and group interest.
Susan M. Campbell
There are times in the game of life when it will seem as if things are not going very well. There are times when life departs from our familiar script and throws us something we had no idea was coming. It’s tempting in those circumstances to lose faith in ourselves, in the people around us, and even in God. But if we’ve been planting the seeds of hope in our hearts, we’ll be able to overcome the problems of life and use them not only to make ourselves stronger but also to produce something good for ourselves and those we love.
There’s an old story in the OSU Winners Manual that’s actually found in the section on Handling Adversity, but like many other stories, it could fit in multiple sections. It concerns a farmer whose mule fell into a dry well. The farmer heard the mule making noise and discovered the poor animal’s misfortune. After assessing the situation, the farmer decided the mule wasn’t worth the time and expense it would take to save it. Essentially, he lost hope in the old mule. So he called his neighbors together and asked them to help him haul dirt to bury the animal and put it out of its misery.
When the first shovelfuls of dirt came down, the mule became hysterical and began to kick. But as the dirt continued to hit his back, it dawned on the creature that he should shake it off each time and step up on the growing mound of dirt beneath him. Load after load of dirt hit him square in the back, but no matter how painful it was, he shook the dirt off and stepped on it.
Before long, the accumulation of dirt was such that the old mule, battered and exhausted, stepped triumphantly over the wall of the well. The dirt that had been meant to bury him had actually saved his life because of the manner in which he had responded to the situation.
When we possess the hope and belief that ultimately we’re going to be successful in our journeys, there’s not much of what comes our way on a daily basis that we can’t handle. When we see negative events as stepping-stones and have hope that our problems can actually propel us toward our goals rather than hinder us, then we are, of all people, truly blessed. If I could pass along one virtue to all of our players—and to every reader of this version of the Winners Manual—it would be the virtue of hope.
Hope Rallies the Troops
Life is a series of ups and downs, peaks and valleys, wins and losses. When the bad times come, and they inevitably will, the seeds we’ve sown in our lives—what we believe in and hang on to and what we know is true and right—will help us maintain the hope that whatever stands before us is not permanent but only a temporary obstacle.
In the course of any football game, there are moments when the contest feels as if it’s not going in the right direction. Someone makes a mental mistake or draws a penalty, the other team makes an incredible play, or we simply find ourselves on the wrong end of the score. By all objective standards—the score, the time remaining on the clock, the fact that the other team has the ball, or the yardage needed in order to score—the chances of pulling out a win seem pretty slim. That’s when hope can rally the troops, and the other fundamentals—such as attitude, discipline, love, and knowing how to handle adversity—come into play to keep the team pursuing victory.
One example that comes to mind is our game against Michigan in 2005. With 7:49 to play in the fourth quarter, we were trailing 21-12 and had the ball on our own 33 yard line. We had scored only twelve points the entire game and were down by nine, which meant we would have to score twice in order to win. It was a situation in which we might have been tempted to despair or simply to play for pride, but I’ll be honest: I really felt as if we still had genuine hope for a win. You could see it on our sideline. One look in our players’ eyes told me that they felt they could still win.
Here’s the reason for that hope: As a team, we had scrupulously prepared for that game. We had planted the seeds of physical training and had mentally worked through our opponent’s strengths and weaknesses, and we believed in the plan we had set forth to come away with a victory. It wasn’t a blind hope—one that simply believes the best and says, “Golly-gee, I hope this is going to come out okay.” No, we had put a lot of sweat equity into that season, and we weren’t about to let our opponent or ourselves off the hook by simply giving up.
As the clock continued to wind down, our quarterback, Troy Smith, took us down the field, hitting on a pass to Anthony Gonzalez, scrambling fourteen yards for a first down on a crucial third down play, and ultimately connecting with Santonio Holmes for a twenty-six-yard touchdown. All of a sudden the score was 21-19, and that nine-point deficit had been cut to two.
Our hope increased as our defense took the field. After a first down by the Wolverines, we forced them to punt and got the ball back on our own 12 yard line. We were eighty-eight yards from another score that could possibly win the game, but time was now definitely a factor, with just over four minutes to play. But you could feel the hope and the anticipation among our guys. If you see the video of that game, you’ll see how alive our sideline was that day in Ann Arbor. Our players really believed that the problems of the first three quarters weren’t permanent. They believed in one another. They held on to hope, because we still had four minutes on the clock, we still had all the preparation we’d gone through, and we still had belief in the team.
With less than a minute to go in the game, and after a series of great throws by Troy Smith and an unbelievable catch by Anthony Gonzalez, we scored the winning touchdown and went on to capture a share of the Big Ten championship for 2005.
Hope was an integral part of that game. Hope was the unseen factor that kept us believing in ourselves and in our mission. And that kind of hope isn’t just for the football field; it’s for every day of our lives.
Hope Puts Faith to Work
I once read an interesting statement by psychiatrist Fritz Perls, who said, “Learning is discovering that something is possible.” Every time I read that quote, I think about the young men and women who come to Ohio State and about the learning that takes place in their lives. But learning is not only for the young. People of any age can learn and grow if they’ll stay focused and open to what’s going on around them. As we learn and understand what it takes to achieve our goals—whether it’s in our spiritual lives, our family lives, our other relationships, or any of the other components of the Block O of Life—academics or athletics—there’s no doubt that our hope will grow stronger.
Knowledge is a wonderful thing. But learning means we take that raw knowledge and put it to work. When we learn and mature in knowledge, something takes place inside us that opens us up to a world of new possibilities.
There are scientists right now at The Ohio State University who believe they are on the right track to find a cure for some diseases that have killed hundreds of thousands of people. They base their belief on the evidence they see—the hard work they’ve done with state-of-the-art equipment. But all the best equipment in the world can’t motivate a person to push forward through all the false starts, blind alleys, and other obstacles that stand between them and an eventual cure. Hope is an unseen ingredient in any successful endeavor.
As we go through the phases of our lives, we all need the kind of hope that puts faith to work. It’s sometimes easier to doubt ourselves and not move forward. Others will question the goals of the group, their roles in the group, or their direction in life.
When we’re tackling all the components of the Block O of Life, hope is a vital commodity. When hope is in place and is aligned with correct beliefs about ourselves, our team, and the plan, we are able to move ahead with confidence in whatever endeavor we’re undertaking. We can go all the way around the Block O and see how hope affects each component.
For example, in our academic lives, if we’re faced with a course that really challenges us and taxes our ability to comprehend, we have to have hope deep within that we’re going to find the answers and get the job done. It will take preparation, diligence, the utilization of support systems, and the opportunity to ask questions to help us through the class, but at the core of it, we have to believe that the mission we’re on will succeed. Hope is the by-product of acting on that belief.
Hope Is a Constant Belief
When I was coaching Youngstown State in Division I-AA, if we were still close enough to the top sixteen teams that there was a chance we could still make the play-offs, you saw one group of players. Our teams had been to the play-offs a number of times, and we knew what it was like. But if we had a down season and had reached the point in the year where it was clear we weren’t going to advance, you saw an entirely different group. You saw players who had less enthusiasm because they knew they weren’t moving on. They had lost hope.
The type of hope I want to instill in my players is proactive and is based on reality, not on fantasy or wishful thinking. It’s not the kind of hope a person might have when buying a lottery ticket with the last of the grocery money. Instead, it’s a constant belief in the work that’s already been done, the planning that’s in place, and the potential that lies ahead.
We live in a skeptical world. News reporters are always looking for “change,” and most of the time things change for the worse rather than for the better. But the constant negative drumbeat we hear about things not going well and people not doing the right things can wear us down as individuals and as a society. We tend to focus on the gloom and doom rather than on the wonderful things happening in our lives.
The quotation by Andrew Fuller—“Hope is one of the principal springs that keeps mankind in motion”—tells me that if I choose, I can be a carrier of hope. Leaders do that. They take hope with them and pass it on to others. We have to make sure that in everything we do, we exemplify hope with our lives—especially on those days when things aren’t going well. Others should be able to look at our lives and see the guiding light of hope within us that turns into outward action. It’s important for others to see that there’s a different way to live.
When people are devoid of hope, they’re vulnerable to the traps of naysayers who think things can’t be done and look at the world through negative lenses. A person who hopes says, “Sure, there are problems; yes, there are obstacles; but the future is bright—and with hard work, we can accomplish some great things.”
Dr. Karl Menninger refers to hope as “an adventure, a going forward, a confident search for a rewarding life.” I believe that every person needs to discover that perspective. We’re all on an adventure, but some of us haven’t fully embraced it. For example, it’s been a lot of fun setting out on the adventure of putting together this book. Creating our Winners Manual years ago was a similar experience—it took a lot of work to put down a blueprint that would help us move forward and search for the rewarding life, but coming up with that game plan has helped thousands of players and coaches over the years, and now I hope this book will expand that number.
The Confident Search for a Rewarding Life
I have great hopes that the end result of your reading this book will be a boost in the direction of the adventure, the confident search for a rewarding life. The power is not in my words or in the principles we’ve discovered; the power is in the opportunity you have to reflect on your life and evaluate your own purpose and goals. I’ve often said of our goal sheets that it’s the thought process they provoke that makes the difference.
Hope is the feeling you have that the feeling you have isn’t permanent.
Jean Kerr
Moving forward and gaining confidence in our search for true success will be a lifelong endeavor. If we begin when we’re young, we’ll be able to see the changes we consciously make over the years, and we’ll be better equipped to evaluate our progress. But even if we’re not so young anymore, we can begin today to develop our purpose and set our goals for the years still to come.
After the players finish their goal sheets, I photocopy them and give them back their originals, telling the guys to put them in a place where they might bump into them occasionally. I don’t want them to keep their goal sheets out in the open—on an end table or in their cars for public consumption—but maybe in their sock drawer or some other secluded place where they will likely be the only ones to encounter them every once in a while. I hope the goals and dreams the players write down will be part of them for the rest of their lives. I trust they will be reminders that the quest for a rewarding life is a daily process they need to pursue.
When Hope Is Tested
When I read Dr. Menninger’s quote about the search for a rewarding life, one experience I think about is the relationship between Ohio State football and former player Maurice Clarett. If you follow Ohio State football, you may recall that Maurice was an outstanding football player and an integral part of our national-championship team in 2002. He had a fantastic season, and his future looked bright.
Maurice’s story is complicated, and it would probably take an entire book to detail all the hardships he’s been through, but the bottom line is that he made some poor decisions along the way and is now paying the consequences. He is currently serving a prison sentence in Ohio.
Maurice was a great kid with a wonderful sense of humor. He came to Ohio State after graduating from Warren G. Harding High School in Warren, Ohio. I remember that when he first filled out his goal sheet, he said that he liked football a lot but what he really wanted to do was become a minister. As I did with the other players, I told him to put that on his goal sheet and we’d talk about how we might help him reach that goal.
The human body experiences a powerful gravitational pull in the direction of hope.
Norman Cousins
After he distinguished himself in the first couple of games, I called him into my office and showed him a list of about fifteen things that I knew would happen to him as a result of his visibility on the team. I said, “Just so you know and can be prepared, these are some things that are going to happen.”
I told him that women would be knocking on his apartment door. Gamblers would try to get next to him. The media were going to focus on him. The students in every class were going to watch his every move and tell everyone they knew everything he did, good or bad. I listed all the things I’d seen happen to other players in his situation and warned him that he needed to be prepared to handle himself properly.
He looked over the list and then looked back at me. I could see the wheels turning in his head.
After one season at Ohio State, Maurice left the team and tried to gain early entry into the NFL draft—an endeavor that didn’t work out for him. Eventually, he got into some real trouble and wound up in prison. So why am I including his story in this book, and specifically in this chapter about hope? I’m still hoping that Maurice’s story will have a happy ending and that what has happened to him will serve a good purpose in his life and result in a greater good for him and for others. I believe he still may become the person we talked about when he wrote his first set of goals as a college freshman.
Now, I wouldn’t be talking about Maurice if I hadn’t heard from him over the past few years. His senior season would have been 2005, so all those players who were drafted in the first round by the NFL—A. J. Hawk, Donte Whitner, Bobby Carpenter, Santonio Holmes, and Nick Mangold—were guys Maurice came in with. I got a long letter from Maurice about how proud he was of them and about the things he was learning—and learning the hard way.
Learning is discovering that something is possible.
Fritz Perls
I think it’s healthy to talk about Maurice to Ohio State fans, as well. Many of our fans have a great deal of bitterness about what Maurice put the school through. They’ll never forgive him for the way he mistreated the university and abused the privilege of being a player here. My perspective is that Maurice was a young man when he came to us. He was a kid. He made some bad decisions because he was acting like a kid. It doesn’t excuse what he did, but it does put things in perspective. And I’m still hopeful that Maurice will be able to turn things around in his life.
I had a chance to speak with him recently, and I told him I wanted to include his story in this version of the Winners Manual. I let him know first and foremost that we’re still thinking about him. I still pray for him. There’s an ache in my heart every time I think about him and all that’s happened. I wish I could have done more to help turn the situation around. But just as God forgives us every day for the things we’ve done and the mistakes we’ve made, it’s our responsibility to forgive others.
In talking with Maurice recently, it was neat to hear about the exercises he’s taken during his incarceration. He really is seeking a rewarding life. He carries hope that things are going to be different, and I pray that he carries the hope we have for him as well.
He mentioned to me that he’s used the tools of Proverbs and the Psalms. He’s done extensive reading about positive living and about other topics, such as integrity, character, having a conscience, and all those buzzwords we use to remind ourselves about what it takes to go forward and what it takes to have a rewarding life. He said, “I may not ever be able to give Ohio State another yard—but if possible, maybe I can create an avenue where I can share some of the wisdom I have gained.”
I have great hope for former Buckeye Maurice Clarett. It’s not a blind hope; it’s a hope built on a firm foundation that says with God, it’s never too late to start over and head in a new direction. It’s never too late to seek and find that rewarding life. Maybe you, too, have gone in a direction that was destructive to you for years. Maybe someone you love is going in that direction now. You can change. Your loved one can change. There is hope.
Becoming Dealers of Hope
Hope is putting faith to work when doubting would be easier.
Author Unknown
I think Jeremiah 29:11 is relevant to all of us: “I know the plans I have for you. . . . Plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope.” That’s certainly relevant to Maurice Clarett. It’s relevant to me. God has plans for all of us that are good plans, not plans for disaster; and as long as we search for that rewarding life and carry that hope with us, we have a chance to end up leading winning lives.
Recently, I was speaking at a YMCA fundraiser in Ohio, and Gene Smith, who now runs the largest and most comprehensive athletic program in the country at Ohio State, gave what is probably the most rewarding introduction I’ve ever had. When he introduced me, he didn’t rattle off statistics about how many games we’ve won; he didn’t talk about coaching awards, national championships, or any of those fleeting things. He simply said, “Coach Tressel is a dealer of hope. He’s creating the atmosphere and the culture of hope among student-athletes.”
I like that phrase, a dealer of hope. I think it sums up the fundamentals we’ve been talking about. It’s more meaningful than any statistic, any award, or any earthly accolade. And if we can grasp the power of hope and then give that hope to those around us, we will see great things happen in our lives and in the lives of people we touch.
Questions for Reflection
1. Do you see yourself as a hopeful person, or do you tend to rely more on dogged persistence? How have you seen hope at work in your life—either in a positive sense, when you had hope, or in a negative sense, when you lost hope?
2. How did you relate to the story about the mule that had fallen into the well? Would you say that you allow your troubles to bury you, or do you look for ways they can become stepping-stones that help you to move closer to where you want to be in life?
3. What are the characteristics of a person who has hope and one who does not?
4. How do you respond to the promise of Jeremiah 29:11 that God has a future and a hope for you?
Hope is one of the principal springs that keeps mankind in motion.
Andrew Fuller
Your Personal Game Plan
1. Personal/Family: There is perhaps no more powerful force in a person’s life than hope. Maybe someone you know has chosen a “hopeless” path. What can you do today to help him or her choose hope?
Hope is an adventure, a going forward, a confident search for a rewarding life.
Karl Menninger
2. Spiritual/Moral: If God has a plan for your future and wants to give you hope, do you feel as if you’re part of that plan or working against him? Spend some time today asking God to show you his plan and to give you the strength to embrace it.
3. Caring/Giving: Being a “dealer of hope” is one of the most life-changing things one person can do for another. What would it take for you to become a dealer of hope?
4. Health/Fitness: Hope can help change a person’s outlook on life. Do you live a hopeful life in regards to your health? If not, what can you do to change that?
If there were not hope, the heart would break.
Ancrene Wisse (ca. 1250)
5. Your Team: Is there someone on your team who needs a bit of hope today? Reach out and give them some encouragement today.
I know the plans I have for you. . . . They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope.
Jeremiah 29:11
6. Academics/Career: How have you seen hope at work in your career? Would you be able to accomplish your goals without it?