THOSE WHO STAY…
As another year of college basketball comes to a close, it’s time to kick off the sport’s second season: transfer season. In recent years, changes to what were formerly pretty strict NCAA rules around leaving one school to play for another have been relaxed. Now, the transfer portal - an online database of college athletes who have put themselves on the open market for a different place to play - is a necessary tool for keeping track of who’s searching for a new home. While basketball’s transfer portal garners the most attention, this year tens of thousands of college athletes across all sports will choose to leave the place they only recently decided they were fully committed to.
There are a variety of reasons why an athlete would choose to transfer, and some of them are of course valid. But a decision that used to be a rarity has become increasingly and somewhat alarmingly common. A growing number of athletes now feel - despite their previous commitment - that they’ve been unfairly wronged or victimized, and that something else, somewhere else seems better or easier. It’s not all that surprising, really. In many ways, the athletic transfer epidemic, which has now filtered its way down into high school and youth sports, is the reflection of a larger societal issue. We live in a transfer culture these days where people are increasingly emboldened in every area of life to solve their problems with a simple solution: leave.
If you aren’t happy? Leave. If you feel you’ve been treated unfairly? Leave. If you didn’t get something you thought you deserved or were entitled to? Leave. If this thing is harder or is taking longer or isn’t going the way you expected it would? Leave. What used to be viewed as a challenging but accepted part of the success process has now become a justifiable excuse to bail. It’s the way of college athletics, but let’s be honest. These days it’s the way of the world. In just about every area of commitment, the bar for leaving has never been lower.
And the truth is, no matter how committed we may be ourselves, this increasingly common societal trend tempts everyone. As bailing on a tough situation becomes a more accepted cultural practice, it challenges each of us to consider the threshold for making that decision in the important areas of our own lives. It’s worth considering here today, if you aren’t happy. If you feel you’ve been treated unfairly. If you haven’t gotten something you thought you deserved or were entitled to, or if this thing is harder or is taking longer or isn’t going the way you expected it would...is leaving the right answer?
Leaving is typically the easy answer, but I hope you can see that it might not be the right answer. That’s because while the desire to avoid struggle and adversity in our experience is natural, those things often serve as necessary prerequisites for success. The legendary football coach Bo Schembechler took over the University of Michigan job in 1969 and immediately posted a sign in the players’ locker room with a simple message: “Those who stay will be champions.” Schembechler was a hard-driving coach who knew he was going to push his players farther than they’d ever been pushed. He knew some of them would be tempted to quit, to leave, or to bail on that challenging experience. But he also knew that experience had the potential to make his players worthy of achieving the success they said they were after...if they persevered.
It’s important to note that Bo Schembechler didn’t say, “Those who stay will win championships.” He probably knew that the decision to stay in and of itself didn’t guarantee a particular outcome. To Schembechler, staying was more about the process of who he believed persevering would help his players become, what lessons it would help them to learn, and what character it would help them to build. The winning outcome, he trusted, was a by-product of the commitment their perseverance produced. He knew struggle and adversity were a prerequisite for his team’s success.
I can’t guarantee you here today that choosing to stay where you are promises you the winning outcome you want, but I can guarantee that if you use it the right way, there is value in who persevering will help you become, what lessons it will help you to learn, and what character it will help you to build. In today’s transfer culture, it’s easier than ever to justify that you deserve to leave and that you’re entitled to find something better or easier. But Bo Schembechler was right all those years ago, and I believe he’s still right here today. It’s not easy to stay, but those who stay will be champions.