And the Winner is…
I remember the year I got it right: Dallas by 17. I’m not sure where that number came from, but it seemed a reasonable guess at the time. The Cowboys were really good that year, and, since prevailing wisdom favored great defenses in championship games, this appeared to be a likely margin of victory. But for some reason I felt so good about it that I shared my prognostication with friends, and even included it in the church newsletter I published the week prior. So when the final gun sounded in New Orleans on that January Sunday in 1978, and the scoreboard read Dallas 27, Denver 10, my spur-of-the-moment hunch appeared prophetic.
It is at this point I should dispel any misconceptions about my football prescience or gambling intuition. I had never before hit it on the head as I did for that memorable game 44 years ago, nor have I repeated it since. In fact I’m wrong more often than not in any predictions when it comes to sports. And that’s probably as it should be, given the complexities of a professional contest that involves so many independent actors with such immense talents, all of them trying to do their best on these uniquely American fields of gridiron combat.
That didn’t stop me, however, from taking the risk of offering another prognostication, this one a few days before the Patriots were set to square off against the Atlanta Falcons in 2017. But on that occasion I decided to apply a different type of reasoning in making my guess as to who would win. In fact, I felt so confident about it that I went on record with some of my high school students, surprising them with their teacher’s unaccustomed venture onto a limb not likely to support the weight of his certainty.
“I know who is going to win this Sunday’s Super Bowl,” I announced with an air of surprising assurance. This unexpected revelation in a seminar on faith and philosophy got their attention, just as I had hoped. “What does he know about football?” many of them were likely thinking.
“The winner will be…” I hesitated for dramatic effect, “the team that is most prepared.” I don’t recall hearing audible groans from the class, but such a non-committal, committal certainly warranted a frown or too. Yet I had offered them a prediction that was consistent with what they had heard me proclaim many times before, in school assemblies and new student orientations, so it probably had the force of “same old, same old” to them. Sometimes old wisdom is worth repeating, however. And often it warrants taking to heart.
Life has taught me, both through lived experience and the careful observation of others, that winning and losing, success and failure are more about planning, striving, adjusting and enduring than they are about talent alone. And while I don’t rule out how chance and luck can factor into good fortune, depending on such unpredictable and happenstance quirks is equivalent to building one’s house on sand. And though the universe is a place where freedom and random circumstance seem to operate in every place and at every turn, I just never could bring myself to relying on either in planning or building dreams. But investing one’s time and effort in preparation never fails to lead to more favorable outcomes, whether you are a youthful scout or a Super Bowl gladiator. For even when they don’t lead to a victor’s crown, they nonetheless make us stronger and more ready to face the opponents, meet the challenges, and endure the crises that life has a way of putting in our path.
What I’ve just written, what I shared with my students, and what I believe at the core of my being about being prepared applies equally to students in school, to any one of us in our work, and to athletes competing at any level. The world is now witnessing how true this in its quadrennial celebration of skaters, skiiers, hockey players and curlers in Beijing. And it will be just as true when the Los Angeles Rams host the Cincinnati Bengals in this weekend’s Super Bowl, version LVI. The team that is most prepared will come out on top.
Now it goes without saying that both teams will be prepared, very well prepared. Each player has been at this business of learning how to play football since childhood, competing in youth, scholastic and collegiate leagues. When they assembled as teams at their respective training camps last summer, they began a lengthy and arduous process of learning how to play together. They made it through the exhibition season with its player cuts and injuries, survived the 17-game regular season and the pressures of a once-and-done playoff tournament. And now they face each other after two weeks of intense preparation to bump heads in LA before a stadium full of screaming fans while millions more watch at home and in neighborhood taverns.
How well they have prepared to win won’t become fully apparent until the contest has settled into its unique choreography. A quick review of the 50 contests that now reside in gridiron lore reveals that 22 turned out to be lopsided thrashings, while 15 of them kept owners, coaches, players and fans biting their nails and offering their prayers until the final seconds ticked off the clock. And it was in those see-saw battles and come-from behind victories that being prepared had its greatest impact. For those games were won by players and coaches who were better prepared to handle the obstacles that came in the form of dropped balls, momentum-killing penalties and game-changing mistakes. And what made them better prepared? Because those calling the shots for their team and making the plays that turned the tide had “been there, and done that” before. For the experience of facing, struggling with, and overcoming adversity can carry players and teams to destinations beyond where their talents and intentions alone can take them. In the long history of the Super Bowl this has become both gloriously, and painfully, evident.
In this year’s showdown between a flock of rams and an ambush of tigers there will be no lack of ability, grit and determination on display. Both teams have fought through disappointments and difficulties during the season; both have overcome long odds in making it to this game. One team is playing on its home turf. The other has proved itself an unlikely but inspirational Cinderella. So who is going to prevail over the 60 minutes of gridiron combat and two-plus hours of commercial interruption and over-the-top halftime festivities? That’s simple.
The winner of Super Bowl LVI will not only be the one best prepared to play this fast-moving, complicated game of 22 moving parts. And the victor will not only be the one who has out-prepared its opponent in diagnosing and exploiting their weakness and predictable tendencies. The team that will hoist the Lombardi Trophy this year will be the one best prepared for the unexpected, the one able to adjust to the bad bounces, drive-killing mistakes, and injuries that separate the great teams from those not yet ready to ascend that lofty pinnacle. Since the Rams and Bengals both have a few coaches and players who have been in this arena before; and since both teams have tasted victory along with defeat in getting here, this year’s game should live up to its hype. Should we expect any less whenever preparation for life meets such an opportunity of a lifetime?