A Different Voice

A coach reaches out to at-risk youth.

- Keith Johnson

SATURDAY MORNING AT THE start of football season. I stood on a field in inner-city Los Angeles with a dozen eight- and nine-year-old boys. I was trying to get them to run as slowly as possible. That’s right. Slowly.

“We are going to do a slow lap around this field, staying together,” I said. “If someone lags, I want the fastest runners to stay with them. We run as a team. Got that? Now go.” The kids, brand-new recruits, took off. As I expected, the fastest kids streaked ahead, leaving slower runners behind. They returned sweating and out of breath.

“Okay,” I said. “We are going to do that again. And this time we are going to stay together. Understand?” Some uncertain nods. “Okay, go.”

“We can stay here all day until we get this right,” I said to the boys as they returned, stretched out in a straggly line. I motioned to the fastest runners. “You get in back and stay there. Now let’s get this right!” Faster nods. “Go.”

And this time they did it. I high-fived them and they high-fived each other. First practice of the season and we hadn’t even touched a football yet. But they’d learned the most important lesson on my team. “I don’t care how fast you run, how well you catch, how far you throw,” I said to the boys. “What I want from you is teamwork. To love and support each other. You give me that, and we’ve already won.”