Hazing, Shoulder Pads and a $54,000 Dinner

By Rick Van Arnam

Bagram, Afghanistan

The views and opinions are mine and mine alone and should not be interpreted as shared by others with whom I serve or the United States Army.

Roger Staubach was my first sports hero. He was the last service academy player to win the Heisman Trophy doing so in 1963 when Navy finished second in the country with a 9 – 1 record. I doubt that a service academy will ever again finish ranked so high or that a Heisman Trophy will ever again be awarded to a Cadet or Midshipman. Most all know that Staubach is a Hall of Famer and spent the 1970’s playing quarterback for the Dallas Cowboys. You may have guessed this introduction is really not about him, but rather an issue generated by current Cowboys who, in my opinion, are fostering a very un-Super Bowl like chemistry and reputation. I admit to being old school, but not to being old. So I won’t apologize for saying that the only thing large about Dez Bryant’s $54,000 dinner bill is the gap between the obvious athletic skill of the players involved and lack of collective wisdom in the recent decisions that could be characterized as hazing and described as gluttonous.

This whole fiasco started when rookie Dez Bryant refused to carry the veteran Roy Williams’ shoulder pads. That is one of the rights of passage by which a rookie apparently becomes a full-fledged member of the team. It is also called hazing even if, I admit, there is likely no physical or emotional harm for not doing it – only financial so it appears. The punishment for a rookie not carrying a veteran's shoulder pads was dinner and Bryant recently treated Williams and several teammates making up for his rookie oversight - the bill came to more than $54,000. Public reaction ensued, not surprisingly. Bryant termed the public disapproval over the $54,000 dinner as ‘funny’ further separating his understanding from reality.

Roy Williams, talking after the $54,000 dinner, hinted that he sort of gets it when he observed, “But he's still out there as a punt returner, catching balls and doing things he needs to do, and I'm doing things I need to do to make this team better.” I always thought that was the best way to become part of the team.

Soldiers are not in the entertainment business so I can’t admit to fully understanding the perspective of the two athletes seated at the center of a $54,000 dinner table. And neither have those athletes served overseas so it may be easy for them to dismiss my perspective, but here are three things to consider.

1. Privates and Lieutenants are not expected to carry body armor for First Sergeants and Lieutenant Colonels. If you visit any unit, you will find veteran soldiers not only carrying their own equipment, but taking full responsibility for cleaning personal weapons and maintaining their gear. It just works better that way.

2. $54,000 is about what an E5 (Sergeant) earns including base salary, housing allowances and other benefits. That is an annual amount. And the job can be dangerous. Very dangerous.

3. The best way to become part of a team is to work hard, do more than what is expected of you and always work to improve your skills. You could be really good at hazing others, or really good at being a hazed victim, and still be a non-factor on game day. Hazing does not improve anyone’s performance.

To be fair, I hope that something positive will emerge from all of this – for the players and fans. It is unlikely to occur until the players involved accept a timeless truth about a gap that exists between athletic skills and a fully mature character. The talent that enables a player to become a professional draft pick is likely more mature than the character necessary to handle the responsibility that comes with being a high performing and highly visible athlete. Closing that gap is where time, money and energy should be spent.

Update

In the days that have passed since I wrote my first draft, the Cowboys lost to the Tennessee Titans 34 – 27 dropping their record to 1 – 3.

Acknowledgements

Roy Williams pays back Dez Bryant

By Calvin Watkins

ESPNDallas.com
September 29, 2010

Dez Bryant: Dinner bill 'funny'

By Tim MacMahon
ESPNDallas.com

8 October 2010

Why Character, Why Now - The Adversity Principle

By RICK VAN ARNAM

Bagram, Afghanistan

About three years ago, I asked my daughter what her most painful memory was. I don’t recall much about the day – whether it was a sunny or rainy, warm or cold – the details escape me and will never be reclaimed, but I remember her answer. We were somewhere alone, likely driving. We were having a serious conversation absent an iPod or a texting cell phone. I thought she would reply recounting the story about her bike accident that happened on August 19, 2005. She was nine years old and riding down Turkey Hill Road on her way to the municipal pool. There is a stretch on our dirt road that gently slopes downward with a field on the right and woods on the left. Trailing her brother, she heard something down and to the left-rear of her bike, like something catching in the chain, and looked back to investigate. Her movement had the unintentional consequence of steering the bike to the left toward the woods. Her front tire fell off the road and into a ditch immediately stopping the bike and breaking her right wrist and her left upper arm as she launched forward, helmet and headfirst into a maturing maple tree. My cool-headed son, who was eleven at the time, provided comfort and aid and sped off on his bike to call me from our home. I arrived on the scene within minutes. The next couple of hours were scary. The helmet, now cracked, had done its job preventing serious injury, but she was broken, literally. Her wrist needed a cast and her upper arm needed a pin inserted surgically. It broke my heart to see her hurt, shaking and looking so frightened. So when I asked her about her most painful memory, like an attorney, I thought I knew the answer. But I was wrong. Her most painful memory, as it turned out, was watching me go to Afghanistan in 2003 – for the first time.

Surprised by her reply, I quizzed her. “Elana,” I asked, “how come your bike accident isn’t your most painful memory.” Her insightful answer was without pause as she explained, “The bike accident hurt, but only for a little while…it was just physical pain. But watching you deploy hurt my heart and lasted much longer.”

What these two experiences do not have in common is the type of pain – physical versus emotional – and where the pain was felt – upper arms versus the lower heart (ache). But what the two experiences do have in common is that neither was chosen. If you ask yourself, “What is the most painful thing that has happened to me?” chances are good that you will arrive at something that you did not choose. In these answers, and reflection, is the inspiration for my second of eleven character principles titled, The Adversity Principle, and states that, “Sometimes you choose adversity, but more often adversity picks you.” More important than the principle is the accompanying question, “How will you respond?”

Appreciating the onset of adversity is not an instinct that comes naturally, but could become the start of an opportunistic response if thought of as the first-step in a character shaping process. The Roman poet Horace suggested that in one of his reflections on life, “Adversity has the effect of eliciting talents, which, in prosperous circumstances, would have laid dormant.”

Chuck Swindoll, in his famous quote sometimes attributed to Lou Holtz, made it even easier – he simply called adversity ‘life’ saying, “Life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you respond to it.” Sandwiched between Horace and Holtz is Paul writing to the Romans nearly two thousand years ago that we “should rejoice in our sufferings,” which is not a conversational phrase often heard over coffee at a Starbucks or Dunkin’ Donuts. But it is true – adversity has a way of shaping our character, for better or for worse, based primarily on our first response. The character developing steps that follow – to persevere, the formation of specific character traits and the confidence found in true hope – lay out the entire process.

The 10% of things that happen in life are not age discriminatory. Jackie Robinson, for example, experienced a lifetime’s worth of adversity in 1968 and none was chosen. Approaching fifty years old, 1968 was a year likely more difficult for Robinson than a year two decades earlier in which he broke Major League Baseball’s color barrier. I was a little too young to remember the details of 1968, but it was a year set apart from 1946 – the first full year of peace following WWII and a year that John Updike once suggested was the best year of the 20th century. If 1968 was difficult for our country, it was more so for Jackie Robinson. In that year, his eldest son, Jackie Jr., was arrested – twice. A Vietnam veteran, he led a wandering life upon his return fighting war demons by indulging in drugs and getting to know the police for all the wrong reasons. Also that year, both Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr and Robert F. Kennedy were assassinated. If Robinson’s impact on Civil Rights is best contained in the history of baseball, King’s impact on Civil Rights is best expanded upon in the history of mankind. Robinson and King were dogged in their purpose and shared a special camaraderie. And although he sparred with Senator Kennedy, Robinson was growing warmer to the former Attorney General, whose Civil Rights record was noteworthy. The tragic death of mainstream leaders was hard on Jackie Robinson, like losing teammates while in pursuit of a championship. 1968 was also the year in which Jackie Robinson’s mother passed and his only daughter was married despite her father’s reservations (it would later end in divorce). And if he did not suffer enough heartache in 1968, Robinson also learned that he had real heart issues signaling the start of his final, three year decline. For an exceptional athlete who once persevered through adversity reliant in large part on physical giftedness, it was faith and hope that carried him through 1968 when his physical condition could no longer keep up.

In sixty or so days, I’ll be home from my second deployment to Afghanistan and at some point will find myself again alone and in serious conversation with my daughter. I’ll likely ask her about this period of voluntold* adversity curious to determine its impact. I won’t, though, assume to know her answer as I did a few years ago. She is fourteen now and a veteran of seeing me go away. Somehow, I suspect her positive response to my first deployment shaped character traits in her that made this deployment less painful. But I’ll let you know what she tells me.

RVA

* Vol·un·told
 –adjective
Asked without the ability to say no. An Army word frequently used to describe a Soldier’s notification of deployment.

Acknowledgements
Jackie Robinson: A Biography, By Arnold Rampersad