Football is full of platitudes and pronouncements, as is business, as is life. I find the vast majority of them annoying:
We have to take it one game at a time.
We just have to play our game.
It’s not a sprint, it’s a marathon.
He’s a guy.
He’s just a guy.
We have to play within ourselves.
He plays the game the right way.
He’s a character guy.
He’s a class guy.
We have to take it to another level.
We’re going to do things the right way.
We’re going to be built on toughness.
We’re going to attack in all three phases of the game.
We just have to do a few things.
We did a few things.
We’re going to play for 60 minutes.
We’re going to give 100 percent.
There is one pronouncement I heard time and again throughout my career that I find particularly annoying: No one understands how hard it is.
I heard this countless times from umpteen coaches and many others in the industry over the course of my career. I heard this each year during training camp and I heard this throughout the season. No one understands how hard it is or, alternatively, You just don’t understand how hard this is.
When I heard this during training camp, I was bemused. Okay, you’re standing on a football field, in the warmth of the afternoon sun, in the Napa Valley, telling me that no one understands how hard it is. You are staying in a nice hotel, your every need is handled, your clothing is provided to you and then washed for you, your meals are provided, almost anything you request will be delivered to you, and you’re telling me that no one understands how hard it is. I had similar thoughts when I heard this during the season. Okay, you’re earning millions of dollars and you’re telling me that no one understands how hard it is. A car is provided for you and gassed and washed for you, your clothing is provided to you and then washed for you, your meals are provided to you, your dry cleaning picked up and delivered, almost any convenience will be provided and you’re telling me that no one understands how hard it is.
This mentality – that it’s so hard – is prevalent in the NFL. This refrain is repeated over and over – people really believe that everything is “so hard” and that they work harder than anyone else in the whole world. Al said to me on many occasions that “being a head coach in the NFL is the hardest job in the world.” Occasionally, he’d add, “Except maybe for being the president of the United States.” He said that very sincerely – he really wasn’t sure that being president of the United States was as hard as being a head coach, but he was willing to concede that it might be.
I was there; I know how hard coaches worked, and in some cases, did not work. I know about the coaches and others who claimed that they worked almost 24 hours a day and did not.
I’m not suggesting that the job is not hard – it is. I’m not suggesting that coaches don’t work hard – they do. I’m not suggesting that the job is not stressful – it is. I’m not suggesting that the public scrutiny and second-guessing isn’t hard on coaches and their families – they are. The job is full of pressure and stress and, at times, long hours. Coaches are questioned and second-guessed by ownership, the media, and fans. Coaches and their families are subjected to all kinds of invective.
But coaches and others in the NFL earn a lot of money for their work and for this stress. And while they do work long hours on many days during the season, they do not work long hours every day. They also get a lot of time off after the end of one season and before the start of the next. I’m certainly not aware of many jobs in which people have that amount of time off.
It always struck me that some perspective was (and is) needed. Working in a coal mine is hard and not as lucrative. Working as an air traffic controller at a busy airport is stressful and not as lucrative. Working three jobs at minimum wage to feed a family is hard and stressful and not as lucrative. Serving the country in a hostile environment is beyond compare.
I don’t want to minimize the hard work and stress associated with coaching or working in football, but from a cost-benefit perspective, one must recognize the benefits, as well as the costs.
I have discussed this topic with a number of current and former coaches for whom I have tremendous respect and admiration. Some acknowledged that the points I raised were fair; others disagreed. Some offered additional factors for me to consider.
They noted that the anger that fans direct at coaches and their families when things are not going well is unlike anything employees in most other industries experience. They are right. The children of coaches are hassled – often mercilessly – when the team their father coaches is not doing well. Their wives are confronted and subjected to invective when running errands. Coaches really can’t go anywhere without receiving input, scrutiny, and often scorn. Even when stopped at a red light, one noted, he was subjected to vitriol.
It is obviously and of course unconscionable for anyone to yell at a child when a team coached by his or her father is doing poorly. There is just no scenario in which that is remotely acceptable – it defies logic and reason that this occurs.
The coaches who shared these thoughts with me are correct. My point is, though, that other jobs are also hard and stressful but don’t come with any of the benefits that football provides. With benefits come burdens.
That sort of harassment is not limited to coaches and their families. Anyone who was known to work for the organization was fair game for criticism when getting coffee, running errands, dining out, or attending public events.
Coaches and their families were also not the only ones associated with the team who were subject to vitriol on game day. I recall stopping by to see my then roughly 75-year-old father in his seat at halftime of a game and hearing an angry fan loudly express his displeasure with me by using a word that rhymes with front. My dad looked at me and I quickly said: “He said punt, Dad; he was angry that we had to punt before halftime.” While others in the organization experienced this sort of thing, coaches certainly experienced it more.
Perspective is important.
No matter how hard we worked, our jobs were exciting and often fun, they came with tremendous benefits, and we were privileged to hold them. Certainly, not every moment was fun and circumstances and situations could be tremendously difficult, challenging, and stressful, but we were fortunate to be doing what we did.
* * *
I emphasized the concept of perspective the night the league announced it was locking out the players in March 2011.
This was a time of tremendous uncertainty in the industry. We didn’t know if the season would be truncated or if there would be a season at all. Employees were concerned about job security and compensation. There had been rumblings for months that if there was a lockout, clubs would institute layoffs or pay cuts for the duration of it, and the moment the lockout was announced, some clubs did just that. Employees who had relied on each paycheck to handle financial obligations (rent, food, childcare) feared that we too might institute pay cuts or layoffs.
In the moments immediately after the lockout was announced, I called a staff meeting for all employees of the organization and explained four things.
One: I didn’t know how long the lockout would last or what would transpire, but I would share everything I knew and learned as I learned it. My door would be, as always, open, and everyone was, as always, encouraged to ask me anything they wished.
Two: We would approach and surmount this challenge together.
Three: In lieu of layoffs or salary reductions designed to address the challenges presented by the lockout, we would instead institute a plan that I believed was exciting and would be fun. This plan, I explained, was designed to be productive rather than confiscatory and would apply to every employee in the organization – the head coach, me, every employee – we would do this together. Each of us would be required to sell an amount of seating product equal to ten percent of our salary for each month of the lockout. Employees would not, however, be required to complete those sales until the start of the season. This program (the ten percent threshold, the date by which sales were required) was designed with this goal in mind: that everyone succeed. I also wanted everyone to have fun. I explained that employees could collaborate with one another and pool their talents and strengths. Of course, if they preferred, they could work individually. No matter whether they chose to work alone or in groups, I emphasized that our entire ticket team would be delighted to help everyone achieve their goals.
To the annoyance of many of the club’s longest-tenured employees, I had for decades advanced the notion that we were all representatives of the organization, and thus had a responsibility to engage in community activities as Raiders, to promote the organization, and to help fill the stadium, sell our products, and to further all of our goals.
In this instance, even those employees who had for decades objected to those views and refused to do those things embraced this opportunity to promote and market the organization and the plan was well received.
Some employees shared with me that they were ecstatic. Many had been extremely worried about what would happen to them in a lockout and feared that we might do what other clubs were doing. Some employees shared with me that they were relieved, but that they had trepidation as they had never tried to sell and were nervous about the prospect of so doing. I reminded them that our goal was, and the plan was designed, to best enable everyone to succeed.
It should always be the goal of every business that every employee succeed and businesses should best position employees to do so, just as coaches should best position players to succeed.
I was thrilled with our plan to address the challenges presented by the lockout and I was proud of the way our employees responded to it.
Many employees of other clubs told me that they wished that their employer had implemented a plan like ours. Owners of several other clubs told me that they loved the plan and wished their clubs had also implemented a creative approach to the challenges which might be presented by a lockout.
I also heard from executives of clubs which had instituted what I referred to as confiscatory plans who told me quite pointedly that they didn’t appreciate my using the word confiscatory to describe plans such as the ones they put in effect.
Four: Perspective is important. To illustrate this point, I shared a story about Lloyd Blankfein, the CEO of Goldman Sachs. As he and a Goldman employee were emerging from cars to head into the New York Federal Reserve for one of many meetings about the 2008 financial crisis, the employee groaned to Blankfein that he didn’t think that he could take another day of hearings. Blankfein responded, “You’re getting out of a Mercedes to go to the New York Federal Reserve; you’re not getting out of a Higgins boat on Omaha Beach.”
Those words are among the wisest I have ever heard uttered in a business – no, in any – context. In an absolutely spectacular, sensational manner, Blankfein reminded or taught this employee to keep things in perspective.
Exactly. Perspective. You’re working for a football team involved in a labor dispute; you’re not getting out of a Higgins boat on Omaha Beach.
When I shared the story, I told everyone assembled that if they didn’t know what a Higgins boat was, they should Google it. Perhaps I should have said “oogle,” as Al did to me.
One employee shared with me a few days later that when she got home that night, she told her husband about the staff meeting and the Blankfein story I had shared as her young son listened. The next morning, as she expressed some trepidation, her son said, “Mommy, don’t worry; you told us you’re not getting out of a Higgis [sic] boat.”
I sent a note to Lloyd explaining that his words were among the most profound and powerful I had ever heard, that I had shared them with the entire Raiders staff, and that they were being shared across multiple generations.
When we learned that the lockout was over and that the season would not be truncated, I again gathered everyone together and explained that since no games would be missed, our program would be modified. Now, no one would be required to make any sales and those who had already done so would be paid the standard commission in place at all times for our commissioned sales staff. I thought that was fair – those employees who had already started to fulfill (or in some cases, completely fulfilled) their sales requirement should be rewarded. It would not have been right to treat those who had already performed – in whole or in part – the same as those who had not yet performed. I was touched when some employees told me that they appreciated our approach to the lockout and that they planned to perform even though they were no longer required to do so and I was touched when some employees requested that I direct commissions they had already earned to our tickets for kids and tickets for troops programs instead.
* * *
Back to platitudes and pronouncements.
Although I don’t like platitudes and often make fun of them, I acknowledge that on occasion I used them, too. When standing on the practice field at training camp, fielding questions from people with whom I was guarded – people with whom I didn’t have a relationship of trust – it was easier to speak in platitudes, and I did.
“He’s a guy,” I might say about a particular player.
“That’s why we play the games,” might be my response if asked whether we would beat a particular team.
Platitudes aside, I loved training camp. While the team was in Los Angeles, training camp was a bit up the coast in Oxnard and when the team moved back to Oakland, it was in the Napa Valley. Whether I attended to entertain business partners, to meet with Al or other owners, to entertain community groups, or to meet with others in the organization or league executives, we stood outside and watched practice.
We stood immediately on the sideline when watching practice and sometimes, play would come quickly toward us. On one of my first visits to camp, I committed to myself that I would never flinch when the action came toward me. I also decided on one of those early visits that it was not a good idea to run on the field to break up a fight.
As to my no-flinch policy, after a play once came directly toward me at a very high rate of speed and I didn’t budge, Tim Brown took a moment to walk toward me and to say, while shaking his head, “Amy, back up so you don’t get killed.” I still never flinched.
We drafted Tim in the first draft after I joined the organization on a full-time basis. At one point, I told Al that Tim and I were in the same draft class, to which he dryly responded: “Tim was a first-round pick; you were a street free agent.” He was right on both counts.
There are occasional fights at every training camp throughout the league. On one of my first visits to camp, a fight broke out fairly close to me. I immediately thought of the prospect of injury to our players and my instinctive reaction was to run on to the field to try to separate them. As I started toward the fight, someone grabbed me from behind and stopped me dead in my tracks. As I struggled to run toward the fight, he held firmly, laughing as he said, “Whoa girl, don’t do that.” It was Willie Brown, who looked after me throughout my career. He was right. They had helmets – I did not.
Another defensive back once had some fun at camp at my expense. As I stood on the sideline with our guests watching defensive-back drills, I decided to explain some techniques and coverage schemes. As I spoke, I noticed that they were looking at me intently, wide eyed. Boy, I must be doing a good job, I thought. They’re captivated. So, emboldened, I continued on at some length. Only after a few more moments went by did I sense a presence behind me and turn to find George Atkinson. George had a large grin on his face and was pretending to take notes as I offered these insights.
Although I loved camp, there were challenges. I hated having to dance around the issue of why Al would not spend time with our sponsors, broadcast partners, business partners, and others. I don’t know of another club owner who does not spend time with these constituents. Al did not do so, whether at camp or otherwise.
But that aside, I loved training camp.