The Locker Room Playbook

12Team Meeting

For Everyone

Core Lessons

• Leaders step up to do what is right even when they're scared.
• Everyone deserves to have their voice heard, even if you disagree with what they have to say.

Chapter Summary

Coach Smitty informs the team that they will be “practicing” in the locker room. He goes on to say that he mishandled the Davey situation, and he apologizes to the team. He also apologizes to Coach Washington for ignoring his advice to handle the matter openly. He reiterates his apology to Marcellus so the entire team knows that he recognizes he treated him badly. The football becomes a microphone for everyone to have their turn to speak so that the team can begin to heal the hurts of the broken locker room.

Deep Dive Teaching

At its simplest, integrity is calling right, right and wrong, wrong.

At the beginning of this story, Marcellus did what Coach Smitty had trained his team to do: he saw wrong and he called it out. But Coach Smitty was not able to accept that at the time. Over the course of the story, Coach Smitty comes to see the error he made. He did not act with the same integrity that Marcellus showed. But in this chapter he has seen the error and is, himself, using his integrity to call wrong, wrong.

It's not easy to call out others when they are wrong. It's not easy to be the only one standing up saying “This is not right,” when everyone else is just going with the flow. When push comes to shove, it's not easy to demonstrate integrity.

And sometimes, ...