9

Victory—The One and Only End Game

If you lose this game, you will take it to your (expletive) grave.

—HERB BROOKS

Some may think it a bit ironic or curious after having come this far in the book that there would be a strategy titled “Victory—The One and Only End Game.” I guess people might consider it a given—right? You put in a lot of hard and smart work and you follow the game plan and then you are done. You're already a winner.

Not quite. Actually, not even close.

There is one thing that athletics teaches you: that life isn't fair—there are winners and losers, champions and runner-ups, those who snatch victory from defeat and those who crumble and choke and give up big leads in the third period.

I can go on and on how grown-ups are creating a defeatist culture in which no one wins and no one loses. The truth of the matter is, in that culture, everyone loses. If America stops keeping score and going head-to-head then we might as well resign now to second-tier status on the world stage.

We came to Lake Placid in optimum physical and mental condition. We had done everything that we needed to in practice and training. All those strategies that you read about and which were described earlier in the book, we had hewed to and followed them tightly. But here's the thing—they don't award gold medals for what you do in practice.

Gold medals are won in the arena—on game day.

Jim receives his gold medal from International Olympic Committee President Lord Killanin.

Credit: AP Images

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Great teams don't merely practice and train like champions—they also compete like champions.

I can't tell you how many exceptional and spirited practice players I have seen who can't produce when—for real—the puck is dropped, the ball is kicked off, or the starter's gun sounds. As well, there are some athletes who are good but not exceptional talents, but who are such intense competitors that you want them on the ice or court or field when it is crunch time.

Something parallel happens with teams. Some teams with the most talent simply don't play like champions. Or they have a wonderful run in the regular season and then can't get it together come tournament time.

While our epic upset victory over the Soviet Union justifiably receives the lion's share of interest and delivers the most goose bumps, we didn't win the gold medal by just beating the Soviet Union. We didn't win the gold medal for beating Finland. We won the gold medal for tying Sweden, and then beating Czechoslovakia, Norway, West Germany, Romania, the Soviet Union, and then Finland. A loss to any of these teams would have taken us out of the hunt for gold.

I go back to this over and over: Can you imagine if we had lost to Finland on Sunday after pulling off, arguably, the biggest upset win in sports history on Friday night? That loss to the Finns would be an eternal fount of head-shaking, soul-searching, and teeth-grinding for the team—and the American public would have had every right to feel let down.

Many don't know or don't remember that when we left the ice after the second period of the Finn game, and we were losing 2-1, there was booing coming from the crowd—and it wasn't directed at our opponents. If you didn't know this, you might be shocked. Perhaps you are even upset that Americans could boo us after what we had done in the tournament. I don't have a problem at all with the discontent of the fans. General George S. Patton had it right: “America loves a winner”—and as Herb told us after beating the Soviets—“You haven't won anything yet.” We weren't winners—yet.

The United States had been taking it on the chin for a decade; it was tired and dragging. When we knocked off the Soviet hockey team—exemplars of the mortal enemy of Uncle Sam—we plunged a syringe full of adrenaline and happy into the arm of a nation. To have brought America to such heights and not close the deal would have cheated a couple hundred million people.

We needed to beat Finland and close the deal.

Is the U.S. men's hockey team's victory over the Soviet Union at Lake Placid the biggest upset in sports history? I'm not sure. Have you ever heard of the “Miracle in the Grass”? That was the name of the crazy 1-0 upset authored by the U.S. men's soccer team over England in the first round of the 1950 World Cup played in Brazil. At the time, U.S. soccer was just in its infancy, and those early days were mostly a record of losing heavy; in its previous seven international matches prior to its World Cup meeting with the Brits, the U.S. national team had lost all its games by a combined score of 45-2. Britain was a world power and a 3-1 favorite to win the World Cup. The odds for the Americans to win were 500-1. Like the Soviet Union hockey squad we faced, the English team was for all intents and purposes a professional team. The U.S. team competing in Brazil was made up of guys who played soccer part-time and held day jobs, which included a high school teacher, a hearse driver, a dishwasher, and a mail carrier.

You think we faced long odds. That U.S. soccer team was a 100-1 underdog to England. But somehow … some way … the Americans won. Truly mind-boggling. So why is the “Miracle in the Grass” not that well known? One of the reasons, of course, is that it happened 30 years before the “Miracle on Ice.” As well, there was not the political and current events drama surrounding the soccer game that circulated around our game. Another big reason, though, is that the United States lost its next match, 5-2, to Chile and it did not make it out of the first round. No American men's team would qualify for the World Cup for another 40 years.

The U.S. soccer victory over England in 1950 was big. But the team did not go far in the tournament. Herb Brooks might have said—and I know this seems harsh—that that team really didn't win anything.

Winning is everything, even if you do so by only three-hundredths of a second. Three-hundredths of a second was the margin of victory for American swimmer Michael Phelps in the 100-meter butterfly final at the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympic Games. In winning the event, Phelps tied Mark Spitz's record of seven gold medals in a single Olympics and kept alive Phelps's quest—ultimately a successful quest—to break the record in winning eight gold medals.

Who finished second in the 100-meter butterfly at the Beijing games? My point exactly.

What good is it when you build a sales force if you hire the smartest people, provide them with the best training, pump up their confidence, pay them handsomely, and treat them to pizza on Friday, if in a year's time neither profits or sales are up? Is it enough that you are running a nicely functioning ship?

There has to be a goal in front of you—an Everest-like summit that you need to reach. Dragons you need to slay. Enemies you have to thump. Critics you need to silence.

Then you need to actually reach and slay and thump and silence.

This book didn't discuss and teach the components and qualities of just being competitive, or being good, or very good—but about being great. In teaching and coaching greatness, I used an overachieving hockey team as the foundation curriculum and syllabus. And I paired those lessons and examples with achievement inside and outside of athletics.

I do believe, though, that among the most sublime and inspirational—and instructive—examples of team greatness is the one on which I played. None of us were great unto ourselves. As I have said and written, Lake Placid and 1980 were not wanting for individual greatness; there was a guy named Eric Heiden who made sure of that. We needed each other for greatness. We reached greatness as a team. Self-evident you say? I don't think so. To those who have their values and priorities in order, yes. But far too many coaches and athletes don't appreciate the essence of teamwork—relying on and being there for one another.

Really.

After the Miami Heat succeeded in bringing LeBron James and Chris Bosh on board to join Dwayne Wade—this following the nauseating and protracted media spectacle of Lebron and “The Decision”—sports fans were treated to that “Welcome Party” circus of James, Bosh, and Wade dancing and prancing amid pulsating lights, smoke, and noise. I had questions when watching this impressive, if off-putting, show: Where was the rest of the team? Is the Miami Heat going to put just three players on the court?

I know … I know … money and media dictate everything. Yet even if the Miami Heat manages to win it all in 2011, I am not sure it will learn much about optimum teamwork.

Compare the party in Miami to what I make sure everyone knows was my favorite memory of the 1980 Winter Olympics—the podium, the awards ceremony. After the Star Spangled Banner was finished playing, we—all 20 of us—watched Old Glory get raised a little bit higher than the flag of the Soviet Union.

Each step of the podium is designed to accommodate one person—either the individual who won, or in the case of team, the one person representing the team. Our one person was our captain, Mike Eruzione. As the national anthem played, Mike stood at rapt and respectful attention with his hand over his heart. We did the same standing shoulder to shoulder and behind him. When our national anthem concluded, Mike did a double fist clench and arm-raise in jubilation, and then he turned to us. He looked at us—and we looked at him. And it was something cosmic, psychic, and emotional all at once. He then did something that isn't done in team awards ceremonies in the Olympics: He waved us all toward him, and pointed to the small area around him. We kind of started walking toward the podium—and then we started running. We were going to get on that top step—all of us—at once. We'd come that far together and we needed to be on that podium together.

I know that other winning teams don't do this in the Olympic medal ceremony—but we weren't just any team.

ABC TV sportscaster Al Michaels said that in looking at us, he wondered how we all got on to that little platform. “Maybe that was a miracle too,” said Michaels. “They had become so close, and bonded so tightly.”

Herb Brooks said of the scene—“That was the final verse, chapter—end of the story right there. It was a love affair.”

It sure was.

February 22, 1980. Lake Placid, N.Y. The clock strikes 00:00. We beat the Soviets.

Credit: Photographer: Focus on Sport/Getty Images

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I think this is why our version of “Victory—the One and Only End Game,” continues to inspire so many people and so many teams. Our team truly exemplified what it meant to rely on and need every single player—and to have every single player doing his job expertly with optimum passion—and then to commit that expertise and passion to a seamless and coordinated delivery.

Of course, our team was fortunate that many exceptional and gifted storytellers took our team as their subject.

The 2004 Boston Red Sox watched Miracle in the clubhouse prior to their historic seventh game of the American League Championship Series against the New York Yankees. University of Alabama football coach Nick Saban had his Crimson Tide watch Miracle the night before its national 2010 BCS National Championship game against Texas.

Brandi Chastain said it was when watching our Olympic victory as a young girl that she became inspired to chase greatness in soccer.

It isn't just internationally-known sports teams and individual superstars who receive inspiration and motivation from our team.

A few years ago, the boys’ basketball team for the high school I attended, Oliver Ames High School, entered the season without high hopes. The Oliver Ames Tigers squad, which was coached by my childhood friend, did not have the talent of many of the teams in its own league. But the team had something going for it in the way of chemistry, commitment, and passion. It won games over teams with more talent. It won the league crown that season. In the locker room prior to the game in which it would clinch the league title, a fan who had graduated from our school 15 years earlier spoke to the team in the locker room, and he told the Tigers that it was like the 1980 U.S. Olympic hockey team—and that maybe it didn't “have the best players, but it had the right ones.”

It is not just in sports that our victory offers a helping hand.

I received an e-mail from a successful businessman in the San Francisco area who told me that, as a young man, he had been down on his luck with a wife and two kids and he was barely making enough to support his family. He was hurting. He told me how he followed our team and with each victory he secured new hope—and that the victories over the Soviet Union and Finland invested in him all sorts of hope and belief in new possibilities. Soon after the Olympics, he was hired as an entry-level employee at a telecommunications firm. It would be the start of a highly successful career in the industry for this gentleman—and today he is a senior executive, still in telecom.

It was May 2008 and I was up in Syracuse, New York, to deliver a speech to Aspen Dental, a large multistate network of dental offices and dental services. After the speech, a dentist introduced himself. He was born and lived in Lebanon until his family moved to the United States, the Houston area, in the summer of 1979 when he was about to begin seventh grade. Within a few months, U.S. citizens were taken hostage in Iran. He told me that, while there was nothing particularly hostile from his classmates—after the hostage-taking he was asked if he was an Iranian—he dealt with a little coldness from the other kids. He felt somewhat isolated.

Then came the 1980 Olympics—as he recalled and talked about this with me, tears came to his eyes—and he and his classmates, together, watched and followed our team and its victories and our winning of the gold.

“It was during the 1980 Olympics and what you guys did that I became an American,” he said.

Victory is not everything. But it is essential to greatness.

I think when victory is achieved—when it is attained honorably and fairly—it is one of the most noble and enriching and important experiences.

I would like to leave you with some final thoughts on victory—the one and only end game.

Define Victory

In the early part of this chapter I may have seemed a bit harsh and unsympathetic, and not open to other forms of victory than that recorded by who wins on the scoreboard or who is the fastest and strongest. I know, of course, that victory can be defined and measured in many different ways. But it is also true that in the case of the 1980 U.S. Olympic hockey team, the only acceptable victory was a gold medal.

Someone who suffers a terrible injury and is told she will never walk again—and manages to put aside the crutches and step out of a wheelchair—is as great and accomplished a champion as any Olympic gold medalist. Someone who had battled the bottle and is successful staying sober is a champion. Every mother and father who works hard and brings up a family and imparts to his or her children sound morals and values is a victor.

I remember how scary it was when I first tried to earn money as a public speaker. I was terrified. But I got in front of a crowd. Just making it to that podium was a victory for me.

Everyone who faces their fears and stands them down is a winner—and achieves victory.

Everyone who fights valiantly to overcome physical and mental suffering achieves victory.

In this book I tried to teach and prescribe lessons and strategies for team greatness. I believe you need to set the bar very high and to work smart and hard in order to achieve greatness.

There are many forms of victories. The thing, though, is to get your team together and to establish a lofty goal and to deal honestly with one another in striving for that goal. You need to get a buy-in from everyone. What good is going for victory if victory means something different to different people?

I love that saying—“If you don't know where you are going, any path will get you there.”

You need to set a timeline and yard marks to achieve on your quest. You can celebrate making it to the yard marks—but the ultimate goal always needs to be in mind. What represents the end zone? You can't rest until you reach it; you can't resign yourself to good enough.

About three years ago, a gentleman interviewed me for a book he was writing on successful people, about what they considered were the building blocks and important elements to success. He was a driven person, an achiever: he was a CPA who then tackled law school in his early 40s and earned his law degree. He was energetic too—traveling around the country to interview people.

While he was interviewing me he told me that he had a goal to lose weight.

“How much weight?” I asked him.

He really wasn't sure.

“When will you lose this weight by?” I asked.

Not sure about that either.

What I'm saying here is if someone as accomplished and hard-working as this gentleman doesn't establish concrete goals and measures for something as important as weight loss and his health—then how easy is it for anyone to get off track in pursuing victory?

I was in the airport in San Diego and I saw a young man, a U.S. Marine, the best and bravest of this nation. He looked a bit in distress. He was juggling his ticket and some other papers. I walked over to him and I asked if I could help. Here was a young man to whom I would cling to save me in a life or death situation, and he was out of his element and having problems. He thought he was going to miss his flight and he wasn't sure about his gate and all that. I calmed him down and I helped him get things in order. He thanked my profusely. He made that flight—and he got in touch with me via e-mail a few days later to thank me again. We have stayed in touch.

You take care of things one step at a time. Get things in order. Plan your next step. Then follow the plan.

These elements are essential to victories—great and small.

It's just the magnitude and dimensions that are different.

What Will You Do with Your Victory?

I had a speech for John Hancock back in 2007. After the speech, as is my custom, I took questions from the audience. Someone asked what Ralph Cox, the final person cut from the team, did after hockey. I was happy to tell the questioner that Ralph has done incredibly well in business—indeed his net worth might he higher than anyone else on the team. I also said that everyone on the team has gone on to be successful outside of hockey. I added with a smile, “No one is resting on his laurels on what he did 30 years ago. Only Mike Eruzione and I do that.”

In truth—in one way or another—the victory of the 1980 U.S. Olympic team has had an impact and benefitted every player in many different ways. It is encouraging that all the players recognize they are custodians of a wonderful legacy and they enjoy sharing that legacy with others. Yes, I make a very good living speaking—with a considerable amount of the material I deliver being “Miracle on Ice”-focused—but I also make sure to donate and volunteer to causes in which the miracle and the telling of the miracle can enhance lives.

What I have done with my role in our victory is make a living and support my family by helping people and organizations reach their potential. I am beyond blessed and fortunate.

What will you do with your victory? If you achieve greatness—what then?

Share your success with others. Teach others the key to victory and to securing greatness. I believe one of the most telling barometers of how exceptional an athletic coach is, is how many of his or her players go on to teach and coach. Their mentor has inspired them to pay it forward.

Did you know that when Bill Belichick gets done with the Patriots and pro football he might go and take over a small college football program? Bill is a man driven to win and achieve greatness. He also is someone who will not leave this earth—and I think his father will continue to inspire him in this quest—without establishing himself as a master teacher for all time.

Bill Gates founded and oversaw the greatest software company on earth. Still only in his 50s, he and his wife are using the money and influence that greatness produced to donate billions to improving the lives of the less fortunate.

My good friend Jon Luther led and coached great teams at Popeye's Chicken & Biscuits and then Dunkin’ Brands. Jon always made sure that his winning teams were more than just delivering value to customers and making money for the corporation. Jon always wanted his winning and great teams to give back and do well.

You can do well by doing good.

Doing good works completes your life.

I experienced first-hand the strength and fulfillment one receives from giving and helping when I participated in a fundraiser for my nephew, Craig Charron, who was 42 when he was diagnosed with stomach cancer in January 2010. He was living in Rochester, NY, with his wife and four children, including a newborn.

Craig was a fixture in the Rochester area, active and involved in several civic causes. Craig had been a standout scorer in the American hockey league, playing for the Rochester Americans, commonly called the Amerks. When he was just a kid, he became like a son to me when his mother, my older sister, died from cancer when she was only 40.

When word got out that Craig was sick, the Amerks and Rochester area rallied to support him and his family. Among the benefits the Amerks and people of the area organized and got behind was one held the summer following his diagnosis; the event included a golf outing, hockey game, and an autograph signing session. I participated in the benefit, as did Mike Eruzione and other Olympians, present and past NHL players, and business people I have met and with whom I have worked through my speaking and appearances.

The benefit was a success and provided much needed assistance to the Charrons.

Craig fought hard before succumbing to the disease on October 19, 2010, about a month prior to his 43rd birthday. He left his wife, Wendy, and four children, ages 13, 12, 9, and 11 months.

Many good and hard-working people are continuing to give tremendously of themselves to help Craig's family. I will continue to be involved in these efforts.

There are those great teams—like medical and scientific research teams—whose greatness would, unto itself, be all the good a team could hope to achieve. Yet even in these cases we see doctors and scientists who seek to share their wisdom and the lessons from their victories so that more great teams can be built. They intend to pull greatness out of others.

It all goes back to legacy.

Why does your victory matter?

When you think bigger and you live a life that has positive consequences for others, then greatness becomes more of a possibility.

The journey of the 1980 U.S. Olympic hockey team and its victory at the 1980 U.S. Winter Olympics at Lake Placid, NY is a testament, playbook, tutorial, and inspiration for all who seriously desire to win and be victorious.

I hope this book and our example will help you find and achieve greatness.

Victory—The One and Only End Game—Chapter Recap