ANYTHING BUT ORDINARY
Chuck Noll knew a thing or two about winning. As the head coach of the Pittsburgh Steelers from 1969-1991, he led the franchise to four Super Bowl victories, trailing only Bill Belichick for the most by a coach in NFL history. Noll was a unique leader - quiet, humble, and more comfortable outside the spotlight than in it. He wasn’t loud or flashy or hungry for attention. In fact, for a big-time coach, he seemed rather...ordinary. But Chuck Noll’s competitive mindset and commitment to success were anything but ordinary, and his winning wisdom serves as a challenge, even today, to each of us striving for success.
“Champions are champions not because they do anything extraordinary,” Noll once said, “but because they do the ordinary things better than anyone else.” Champions do the ordinary things better than anyone else. This is a unique perspective that in many ways contradicts our typical vision of a champion. I think Noll knew from experience that those who want to win have a tendency to get caught up in the big moments - the loud, flashy, attention-grabbing opportunities that make the headlines and the highlights. In reality, that's not hard for any of us to do.
But in his mind, it’s not the headlines or the highlights that makes a champion a champion. It’s their approach to the small stuff, the simple stuff - the ordinary stuff - that sets the very best apart. His famous quote really speaks to the power of the process, that when we give our best to the little things, the big things have a way of taking care of themselves. That the headlines and the highlights are built on a foundation of fundamentals. That success requires us to do the basics better.
That’s important because for most of us, today - like most days - probably feels like just another ordinary day. Just another ordinary day at work. Just another ordinary day at practice. Just another ordinary day, doing a lot of the same things with a lot of the same people as always. It’s not that hard to diminish the value of days like these, to set our controls to autopilot, and to save our best for the bigger, more extraordinary days to come.
But Chuck Noll’s words challenge us to take a different approach. They challenge us to do what champions do. That starts with recognizing that today we have the power to do even ordinary things in an extraordinary way. Yes, the work we're doing might be routine or mundane, but it still serves as an opportunity to be taken advantage of. It’s a chance to validate once again who we are, and to separate ourselves a little more from all those who’ve chosen to diminish it.
Chuck Noll didn’t get the credit or the recognition he deserved during the Pittsburgh Steelers success in the 1970’s. His team won four Super Bowls in six years, yet he was never recognized as NFL Coach of the Year even once during that dominant stretch. It seems almost everyone minimized the quiet, humble leadership that built that dynasty and led to its dominance. It wasn’t until much later - looking back - that people realized just how important he was.
In that way, Chuck Noll personifies the work he challenged us to do in that quote many years ago. He knew that the headlines and highlights get the fanfare and the attention, but they don’t really make a champion a champion. He knew that the very best are defined by their commitment to doing the ordinary things better than everyone else. He knew that winning requires us to give our best to whatever’s in front of us today, even if it doesn’t seem all that exciting or important. He knew from experience that that kind of quiet, humble approach can lead to something extraordinary.
