When the chloroform began to wear off I was able to extract myself from the bonds and gag that were restricting me. I had no idea how long held captive in the back of the Mommamobile (an innocuous name for a far more sinister vehicle). I wasn't sure exactly how long I was out of commission, but during that time I discovered that I had 'collaborated' with Rebecca Rollett on three training camp articles. In one I apparently was positively gushing about Pittsburgh Pirate infielder Josh Harrison, a player I hadn't seen and had barely heard of before this particular trip to Pittsburgh. I've kept silent about this until now because Rebecca showed me a nondisclosure agreement that I 'signed', if you can call a crudely formed 'X' a signature, that promised unfortunate consequences if I blabbed about anything. So I waited until I was safely back in the Confederate territory.
Of course none of the preceding was true. Well, maybe the part about Harrison. The partnership worked pretty much the way that Rebecca described in that she typed in both her and my comments. Including a comment about Josh Harrison was my idea, and Rebecca dutifully typed "A final note from Ivan-", and then there was this passionate paragraph of prose transcribed directly from her heart that I had absolutely nothing to do with. The Pirates are a central part of the purpose of this piece, but let me step back briefly and do some proper framing.
I had a great time last week. I had a vague plan that involved traveling to Pittsburgh and catching at least one or maybe both of the joint practices involving the Steelers and the Buffalo Bills, something I thought would be worth witnessing first hand (I was right about that, btw). What resulted was more than I could have hoped for.
For a time Homer J and I toyed with the idea of taking a day trip to Latrobe, but we couldn't coordinate our schedules. We did get some face to face time which doesn't occur often enough. Earlier that same day I got a chance to visit with Hombre de Acero who resides in the southern hemisphere but who happened to be in town visiting family (I had fantasies about a trifecta involving PaVaSteelers but that didn't develop). I also had hopes of attaching names (Neal Coolong, Anthony Defeo and Rebecca) to faces once I arrived in Pittsburgh, though I wasn't terribly optimistic because all was occurring in the middle of the week. Rebecca embraced the idea to the point where my day trip morphed into a three day sleepover that included my first trip to PNC Park to watch a Pirates game and an unplanned reunion with one of my oldest friends, celebrating endings and beginnings.
I learned a great deal about the 2014 Pittsburgh Steelers, the purpose of the trip, most of which has already been shared via Rebecca's three posts and this week's Checkdown. But I would have to at least double the output to approach capturing the full value of my conversations with Hombre, Homer and, especially, Rebecca. Beyond the obvious we talked about writing and leadership (coaching), music and education and Pittsburgh, Squirrel Hill, Allderdice High School, all kinds of things. But the epiphany came for me at the Pirates game.
Steelers and Pirates fans share a lot of characteristics. There is a great deal of overlap. Most Steelers fans with any sort of Pittsburgh roots are likely to also be Pirates fans and vice versa. So the differences in their behaviors are really fascinating; the same people mostly, operating at different frequencies. Both groups are certainly passionate about their teams. But the Pirates fans have something in much greater abundance than that of most the Steelers fans I'm encountering these days.
Joy.
Lord knows the Pirates have their problems. Their best player Andrew McCutchen was on the disabled list, Pedro Alvarez was exhibiting Sweed-like symptoms, there are other injuries and concerns. Yet even the ushers were literally dancing in the aisles. The dynamics of the baseball season may have something to do with it. Few individual games have the potential to make or break a season, a certain level of pressure is off allowing for a simple level of enjoyment of the game. But there is something else as well. There is the humbling effect of twenty years of losing baseball. You have to be over the age of 40 to have any living memory of championship baseball coming from the Pirates. By contrast, you have to be over the age of 50 to have any living memory of the Steelers being really bad.
Contrast this with what we witnessed at Saint Vincent. On the positive side, great attendance for what is just practice. Folks are as decked out in their gear as they were for the game the previous night. But then people start getting upset because there is an errant throw ("C'mon Ben!"). Don't they understand that this is what practice is for? There is a lot of intent around seeking autographs, but to what extent that is adoration or merely commerce (get those signatures on Ebay) is less clear. We know that if the Steelers had the Pirates' problems (a seven game losing streak at this writing. I saw their last win. Must of jinxed them. Sorry.) we'd have to establish a suicide (or homicide) watch, lock up the liquor and the pharmaceuticals and hire extra anger management counselors.
Or you might take the most recent example. One of the more popular players in recent franchise history (Brett Keisel) is resigned. If you really want to experience something depressing, or merely funny, you can visit one of the current threads where you will discover that Keisel is old and washed up (really? Who knew?) and will be an impediment to the emerging Hall of Fame careers of, a) an undrafted free agent rookie who is alright, but nowhere close to riveting and, b) a few other players who might get cut as early as this Friday because they can't outperform said UDFA rookie. This is a position group that is wide open (only about sixteen starts with the Steelers combined among them), and their hating on Keisel because he may impede the progress of the bubble players. Talk about a group that could leech the joy out of Christmas morning.
The shadow side of 'the standard is the standard'
Properly understood and applied the 'Standard' is a great thing. For head coaches like Chuck Noll and Mike Tomlin, who are process oriented, the Standard is the guiding star to their efforts. It informs the players, owners, other areas of management and even the fans of a commitment, not to mere excellence, but greatness (being able to achieve excellence consistently). Noll and Tomlin (I'm a little, but just a little less certain of Cowher) are (were) both philosophically and temperamentally suited for the Standard. They both gained as much, maybe more satisfaction with the pursuit of the goal as they get from the achievement of the goal. They and those whom they lead understand that its the understanding and mastery of little things that lead to the opportunity to achieve big results. Noll in particular understood how precarious the pursuit was. If little things can make the difference in great results, little things can derail a great effort as well.
It is when you understand that the only path to consistently achieving the standard is when the joy of the pursuit equals or exceeds the joy of the result. Rebecca and I marveled that players who allegedly were attempting to fulfill a life's dream would exit the practice field at the first opportunity, not getting that the extra work that Antonio Brown and others were putting in was the difference in their success. The problem is you can't fake it. If you don't see the connection, if you don't understand it there can be no joy in the pursuit, just drudgery and pain. And this is where many fans are.
So for many of us the Standard morphs into, not a joyful pursuit of greatness, but an exercise in control and manipulation based in insecurities about the only thing we all understand: results. We all know of and maybe have, unfortunately experienced the parent, sibling, spouse, friend, employer or customer who is never satisfied. Dissatisfaction, whether they are consciously aware of it or not is their source of power. If they can get others to buy into the idea that what they are doing isn't good enough then they can gain a great deal of control. Of course anyone who has done any customer service work understands that the concept that the customer is always right is one of the biggest cons ever perpetrated. Customers are frequently wrong about a great many things. Its just a matter of how badly you want their business that you tolerate their ignorant behavior.
So my friend Ray and I are catching up at a restaurant in Squirrel Hill. We're grieving the loss of a mutual friend who died in his sleep two days earlier and celebrating Ray becoming a grandfather for the first time the previous weekend. Somewhere in the middle of a four hour conversation we get around to talking about this topic of the Standard and the lack of joy so evident with some. We talk about Super Bowl 43. We both remember communicating by phone during the course of the game, but we have other memories too. Ray remembers after James Harrison's interception return, as he describes it "The greatest defensive play in Super Bowl history". And not long afterward noticing his brother looking downcast as he obsessed about whether the 'line play' would hold up. I then related returning home after watching the game at a sports bar in DC about a couple of hours after the conclusion of the game, connecting to BTSC and watching in amazement a thread in real time where the discussion was about what players needed to be replaced and obtained for next year's run. We laughed a lot about that.
We are so fortunate. We're sitting in the stands of Chuck Noll Field and Rebecca is making note of the fact that the Steelers are a franchise that is both highly ethical AND highly competent. The team is competitive nearly every year, so much so, that some of us can feel as bad or worse about an 8-8 campaign, barely missing the playoffs as folks in Washington feeling about 3-13. But to really take that to heart, to be that person who probably will not even feel any joy when we get number seven, but just bitch about why it took so long, or how it could have been done better, or obsessing about whether next slogan should be Eight Would Be Great (I've got dibs), you really do kind of miss the point of the exercise. Decades from now, if the game of professional football is still relevant, people will envy us because we were able to see Ben and the Bus, Peezy and Deebo, Big Snack and (yes) the Beard, Hines, and Troy. Who knows, maybe Shazier as well. Great times. A pursuit that should be joyful. The results will take care of themselves.