Boston Brandon Carlo, right, and and Jeremy Swayman stand on the ice after the Bruins’ Game 7 loss to the Panthers in their first-round series on Sunday in Boston. Michael Dwyer/Associated Press
So, are the Boston Bruins failures? Was their historic NHL season a failure because they were eliminated in the first round of the playoffs by a Florida Panthers team that finished 43 points behind them in the standings?
Absolutely not.
Disappointing? Yes. Surprising? For sure. But a failure? No.
Just ask Giannis Antetokounmpo. He knows exactly what the Bruins are going through. The Milwaukee Bucks were a No. 1 seed in the NBA playoffs after finishing the season with a league-best record. Everyone assumed they would contend for the title. They didn’t survive the first round, crashing out in five games at the hands of the eighth-seeded Miami Heat.
When a reporter asked the Bucks superstar whether he viewed this season as a failure, Antetokounmpo paused, took a deep breath, buried his head in his hands, and then delivered one of the most brilliant, insightful responses I have heard in 36 years as a sportswriter.
If you have not watched his two-minute answer, go watch the video right now. It is a must-see for every sports fan, sports journalist and parent of a kid playing sports.
“Do you get a promotion every year on your job?” Antetokounmpo responded. “No, right? So, every year you work is a failure … yes or no? No. Every year you work you work towards something, towards a goal, which is to get a promotion, to be able to take care of your family, to provide a house for them or take care of your parents. You work towards a goal. It’s not a failure. It’s steps to success.
“Michael Jordan played 15 years, won six championships,” he said. “The other nine years was a failure? That’s what you’re telling me?”
In a 1997 commercial for Nike, Jordan said: “I’ve missed more than 9,000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. Twenty-six times, I’ve been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why (dramatic pause) I succeed.”
That ad has come to be known as Jordan’s “Failure” commercial.
Every athlete – pro, college or high school – surely can relate.
“There’s no failure in sports,” Antetokounmpo went on. “There’s good days, bad days. Some days you are able to be successful, some days you’re not. Some days it’s your turn, some days it’s not your turn. That’s what sports are about. You don’t always win. Some other [team] is going to win. This year somebody else is going to win … simple as that. We’re going to come back next year, try to be better, try to build good habits, try to play better.”
That powerful message applies to non-athletes, as well.
On April 23, 1910, before a crowd of dignitaries in Paris, former U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt delivered a speech which would become one of the most widely quoted of his career. Its original title was “Citizenship in a Republic,” but it came to be known as “The Man in the Arena.”
He said: “It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds…
“who at the best knows in the end triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”
Throughout the next century, coaches and athletes have drawn inspiration from those words. Lines from that speech have been posted in locker rooms all over the country. Tom Brady, who first encountered the speech as a student-athlete at the University of Michigan, titled his documentary “Man in the Arena” and wrote: “I have quoted Theodore Roosevelt’s ‘Man in the Arena’ speech since I saw it painted on our weight room wall at UM in 1995. It’s a constant reminder to ignore the noise, buckle my chinstrap, and battle through whatever comes my way.”
LeBron James writes “Man in the Arena” on his sneakers before every game and uses that quote regularly when addressing critics.
It is easy for fans watching sports from their sofas to label teams “failures.” Easy for anonymous people on Twitter to rip athletes when they fall short of their goals. Next time you have that urge, remember the words of Antetokounmpo and President Roosevelt.
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