365 Days In a Year- You Are Going to Screw A Couple of Them Up

365 Days In A Year

You are going to screw a couple of them up

John Paul Derryberry

At the time, an 18-year-old John, still called J.P., had just watched my new teammates fumble a routine basketball drill. Then, our coach blew the whistle, and I prepared for the screaming session that was to follow. Outside of a couple of experiences, I was used to being screamed at when mistakes occurred in sports. Even if it wasn't my fault, an error had occurred and I somehow was caught up in the wash of it all. Finally, a whistle halted all the drills, and everyone focused on the coach. "Not good enough; rerun it. I feel like we are having an off day," he stated loud but by no means a yell. "Gotta fight through the off days. We are going to have them, and if an off day happens on game day, we are in trouble. So fight the off days."

Whatever state was "more than confused", that was the state I found myself in. An authority figure acknowledging an off day. Heck, I still vividly remember practicing through the possible death of a classmate one season. Why stop the practice? He wasn't a basketball player. Yet, here was an authority figure acknowledging that we all have off days; that we have to fight through them; and working with us to regain our focus. He was speaking a foreign language.

Our coach did yell, but only occasionally, and it was never demeaning. For anyone thinking this coaching style wasn't successful, we were the second-best team in the conference that year. We missed going to the national tournament that year by 2 points. Even in year two, which saw our best players graduate and our school announce it was closing after the spring semester, we were an average basketball team. Yet, somewhere in our culture, we learned that we can be on our best mental and emotional game 365 days a year. This became more than commonplace; it became expected.

That's why my interaction with this coach was so unique. It was as if, with the removal of the expectation of perfection and the pressure cooker released, we learned about screwing up but fixing it. We knew some days we didn't have it, and we should cheer for our teammates that did have it going that day. It's no coincidence that I played the best basketball of my life in year two. It's not some crime against humanity to have an off day, while parenting, working, heck, even having an off day while on vacation. We all have off days- we would be a better society if we communicated more openly about them.

We wind people up so tight, expecting perfection at every turn. As a result, we are always down on ourselves, disappointed in someone, and left feeling exhausted. Worse, we seem to be involved in a culture where people can never admit they were wrong. The pressure to be right at all costs is choking the life out of society. It no longer values the lessons that come from screwing up: the humbling of hubris, the reflection on mistakes, the resolve to learn from those mistakes, the desire to get better, and the reminder that we are human. There are 365 days in a year-- have some off days, have a bunch. Trust me; it's ok. You'll probably become a better person, which ironically is the goal of always preaching perfection. Who knew the road to becoming a better person was paved in off days, mistakes, and the vow to get better? Oh, we all knew that; we just need reminders every once in a while.