It’s not every day that a sports story in ESPN magazine makes me teary. But on a recent Sunday, I read a column by Rick Reilly that put a lump in my throat.
Reilly writes about a high school football game in Grapevine, Texas, with a different spin on the notion of what it means to be a fan, to support not just your team, but your community. It started when Kris Hogan, coach of Grapevine Faith Christian School, learned that his team would be playing Gainesville State School. Gainesville State is not just a team with a losing record and old, worn-out equipment. It’s the school at the maximum-security correctional facility, filled with kids who have criminal convictions and, in many cases, little or no family support.
Hogan saw an opportunity to give the Gainesville State kids something they don’t see too often: a cheering section. Hogan convinced the fans of Grapevine Faith--his own team--that half of them ought to sit in the opposing side stands during the game with Gainesville State. Cheer for their players, give them a spirit line on the field to run through, the whole bit. As Reilly writes, Hogan inspired his team and their fans to send this message to the Gainesville kids: “You are just as valuable as any other person on planet Earth.”
You might think this would be a hard sell in a state that loves football as much as Texas. But Hogan pulled it off. As I read the story, I was blown away by the coach’s decision to ask his team’s fans to support the other team...but I was also blown away by the fans’ willingness to go along!
The story made me think about my work at entreQuest. As a partner, I am always focused on our vision for the future. A big part of getting there is being able to inspire greatness and to get other people on board, even when the idea seems ambitious or far-fetched. One of our tenets at entreQuest is that we set an example for making a difference in the world, measured by the companies we help to grow and by our contributions to the community.
Our team, for example, regularly spends a day together working at Habitat for Humanity or a soup kitchen. We encourage our clients to do the same, not only because this builds teamwork and it feels good, but because we believe that part of being a responsible business is putting a positive force in the community. When I help to inspire our team and our clients to get out there with a hammer and a nail or a bowl of food for a hungry person, we see inspiration in action.
To me, that was the real wisdom of Coach Hogan, what he asked of his fans and how they responded. It reminds me of the quote, “One man can’t move a mountain, but one man can convince the world to move a mountain.” What happened at that football game reminded me that hope is contagious, and there is power to be found in inspiring each other and ourselves, one person at a time.
Jeremy Steinberg is Partner and Outsourced VP of Sales at entreQuest and has led companies across the country to increases in revenue by driving the performance of their sales teams to unprecedented levels of achievement.
