Finding Inspiration from Some Ducks

Welcome you all in, into the village square. Where do you find your inspiration? What moves you? What drives you to make decisions that you've made in your life? Some of us look for inspirational quotes. Some of us. Look to our parents for inspiration, how they move and what they do me on the other hand. My motivation. My inspiration was. A movie. Yes. The movie was mighty ducks. I had this fascination with being the underdog. I felt like I've been an underdog all my life. I wanted to share a story on how I used. The motivation of Gordon Bombay. To become a better coach. Like those lanterns. Today's topic is how movies influence us. This topic I'm going to talk about mighty ducks, how mighty ducks,, the old nineties movie impacted my life If you're not familiar with mighty ducks early nineties movie, I believe late eighties, early nineties movie star in Emilio Estevez. He was a hotshot lawyer. Who gave up his dream to play hockey and became a big tie lawyer, always try to bend around the rules find loopholes, things like that thought he was invincible. And that all stemmed from a Ms shot. He had when he was in Pee-wee. He was a Pee-wee hockey Mr. Schott, disappointed his team disappointed his coach. He lived with that disappointment for ever for his whole life, all the way to adulthood. And you want to keep that in mind? So he became a hotshot lawyer. One of the best in the business thought he was invincible got caught drinking and the car tried to find a loophole, had do community service income, the mighty ducks to save the day. He takes over the team reluctantly because he hates hockey. Obviously he ain't hockey because of his past trauma. Oh, he's dealing with trauma. Look at that. And he takes on his team. He starts to find the love of hockey again through them. And. He sparks interest and the families see teaches them teamwork. He teaches them life skills. He teaches them leadership. He teaches them communication all the way they're showing him how to be human again. How to be whole, how to find his love for him. Within himself to the point where they start winning and now they get to the point where you got the championships against his old coach, the old coach, where he felt like that was the only year that they lost the championship. That was the only year. They didn't find a quote-unquote winning success. No, he's up against that coach and they found success He found his love for hockey again, and he, they made him whole through that. So that's my brief synopsis of the mighty ducks. fast forward to me and my experiences, about six years ago. I started a basketball team with 12 kids who just wanted to be in the afterschool program and not be on the streets and a parent who. Loved basketball, but didn't necessarily have the background for it. But just loved it and wanted to teach it loved to watch it. I was a division two coach for many years, and this was my opportunity to get into the grassroots. So I got 12 kids that mostly just has something to do but just, they really want to be there. They'd rather be home playing a video game or they were playing soccer. So taking on this experience, taking on these group of kids I sat in the living room of the coach the other coach at the time. And, he said the spurs weren't built in a day. The San Antonio spurs weren't built in a day. It takes hard work, dedication, all those things that we knew that when starting the program, we had my wife be the academic advisor and his wife was like the media coordinator for events and things like that. So we were really like hammering these things out. But in my mind, I said, one day, I never told anybody this, which just crazy. I've never told anybody this in my mind, I said, I'm going to be Gordon Bombay. I jumped about that moment, the whole time through I'm like, I'm going to, we're going to Winnie, I'm going to get these ragtag bunch of kids and I'm going to get them to love basketball. And then we're going to win the championships. And it's going to be just like going by base. You're going to be just like the movie. And I had that script playing over and over in my head and all the Follies happened, kids weren't showing up the practice. Kids didn't want to be there. But then a funny thing. Just like in a mighty ducks movie, if anything happened to me, I started to learn a lot about myself. I started to learn how to be more patient. I started to find alternate ways of communication. I started to trust in the kids a little bit more. I started to recognize their development. I started to have to recognize the development within. I had to change. I've been coaching college kids for eight years and you cannot coach a college kids the same way you coach a fourth and fifth grader. It's not possible. I remember one particular time I drew up this wonderful play on the board and I sent the kids out to go do it. And one of them looks at the other one, says, you know what coach talk about? And the other kids said, I have no idea what he is talking about. So I had to take in that moment and realize that I had to readjust myself completely relearn the game through their eyes. So I learned how to be more patient. I learned to be more of a uncle figure. Get a little bit closer to them because it wasn't just about basketball. We use basketball as a vehicle to teach life skills, communication, teamwork, learning how to work with other people we don't necessarily want to work with. Okay. That's where we use it for. But we can't just use it just to win and lose games because if that's the case, I think my record overall in the last eight years is below 500, to be honest at the middle school level. But I can not measure success like that. We go through all the years, starts out with 12 kids. We finish up with 90 kids before the pandemic hit. We have four basketball teams. We have women's weightlifting. We have a running club, we've got step, all these different activities develop their success. No. I didn't get carried off, like going Bombay at the end of the game. We did our last season for the pandemic, those original groups of kids. They became eighth graders. We went to the playoffs for the first time. We had a winning record for the first time. Second best team in our conference went to the playoffs fell just short, unfortunately. And I didn't get that. Quote-unquote Gordon Bombay. from the movies. But what I did was I got so much more, which was more effective. I got the Disney plus version of the Gordon Bombay story, when he was able to sit down with the group, his group of kids that he had originally, and they all came back to sit down for dinner and they had a conversation about what was going on in their life. Success is that the kids come back and they share their stories with you. The kids come back and they share their stories with the other kids come through the program. You taught them well. If they're able to take your lessons and teach other children, they come back and run clinics themselves. They come back and try to give life advice and life skills. That's what I consider success. So everybody in their mind has their own version of success, wins and losses, but you can't just count the wins and losses. You have to account for the foundation of whatever you're building, you have to account for the kids coming back and sharing their stories, all the positive things that have happened just from the little life lessons that you've taught them. You have to be appreciative of those moments. Now I'm not going to sit up and say, I got kids that are going to the NBA. They may not go to the NBA, but guess what? I've got one. Who's playing in who's going to be playing a college. I got one who's playing football in college. I have one who is the student body president at their college. I have one, who's a master trumpet player at her college. I have 5, 6, 7, 8 case we played in high school. So those are the victories. That means I prepared them for that. And those are the victories that I hang my hat on. Those are the success stories have one kid who's going to go run track down in Florida, asked me for a recommendation. I said, no problem had spoke to him in years, but they need to reach us out. See, that's what you want. You want them to come back and reach out and let you know how they're doing. That means you had an impact on their lives. And at the end of the day, that's what it should be. And so I say just again, where I did have my Gordon Bob bay moment, where I'm lifted off and I got the championship and they're like, ah quit, quit. But man one of my, one of my fondest memories, my recent memories is that I was able to pick up the phone and tell some of my former players that, Hey, listen, I'm going to be at the park at 10 o'clock. If you guys want to come out and bowl, I'll be at the park. And they all showed up. I put it in a group chat and they all showed up. No, that lets me know I had an impact. They beat up on me cause I'm a little slow, but now, the jump shot don't work. Like it used to a God low, got tricky knees, you know what I'm saying? But the fact that they came out to see how it was doing, just to reminisce a little bit, talk about what's going on in their lives, reach out for advice. That stuff is. So me wanting my mighty duck moment, allowed me to have an impact on other people's lives. That I'm very proud of. Now, my record, like I said, my win-loss record is probably below 500. It has to be because we didn't win many games until later in, in the years when the programs got going, but they always were United across the nation. They do these things effectively. They do what they say wonderfully. They do these things without any inhibition. And that's what I love. So that's how the movie, a movie impacted my life. That's how mighty ducks impacted my life and how I see the world. Just building something where kids can enjoy themselves and feel like they belong somewhere because they can always come back. I told them if you play for me, you always play for me. You always want of my kids. I'm always your coach.

I would like to thank everybody who joined me in the village square. I want to thank you for listening to our village stories, parenting through passion and grit. Make sure you subscribe on YouTube. Apple pie, Caz, Spotify, wherever you get your podcasts. Also rate and review. I always look to be the best version of myself, make improvements to the show. Anything I've missed. Or if he didn't like the edits, how everything sounded, please leave a comment. I love feedback. Any feedback is good feedback. Remember any and everything you do you do with passion and grit. Find your passion. And get to it. It's a coach cancer loop. Catch you on the flip side. Per hours. Wow.