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AFM Magazine


What Football Taught Me that the Classroom Rarely Did

by: Kyle Longley
Associate Professor of History, Arizona State University
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From the day I was born, football has been important in my life. My father, Joe, has coached more than forty years in Texas and my brother, Chad, has been in the profession for a decade. Most of my formative years were spent at the field house. I helped my father cut the grass on the fields and lay the boundary lines. By the time I was ten, I roamed the sidelines helping him chart plays. Thinking back, I cannot believe that there was a better childhood.

Because my father was a coach and a former athlete, I always drove myself to try to live up to his expectations. Fortunately, I had some talent, worked extremely hard, and became a student of the game, studying film and reading Texas Coach and other football books. When I entered junior high, I began playing. By my senior year at Midland Greenwood High School in 1982, I had emerged as a good quarterback, earning All District and All West Texas honors. In the same year, I won the Texas invitational decathlon championship. My talents earned me a full scholarship from Division II Howard Payne. I had achieved almost every athletic goal that I had set.

While I only played one year of football at Howard Payne, I continued to enjoy the game. I transferred to Angelo State University and concentrated on throwing the javelin, ultimately earning All Lone Star Conference and outstanding ASU student-athlete honors. However, during football season, I helped my father, working with him during two-a-days and returning every weekend to help in the press box. I continued to learn so much and planned to follow in his footsteps.

Somehow, fate intervened. I had studied mathematics my first three years at ASU and planned to become a math teacher and coach. However, one day, a schedule change occurred, forcing me to take a History of Mexico course. Afterwards, I decided to earn a doctorate in history. In December 1993, I received my Ph.D. and taught a year at The Citadel before coming to Arizona State University in 1995.

In my six years at ASU, I have earned tenure and taught courses on modern U.S. foreign relations and military history. I have worked in different capacities including a consultant to the Library of Congress, State Department, ABC News, Newsweek, and the Washington Post. It is a job that I truly love.

So, why emphasize the role of football when I never became a coach. This article stresses four life lessons that football taught me that the classroom rarely did. They are discipline, leadership skills, an ability to work with others, and a comprehension that life is not always fair. Many different factors helped shape me, but I look back on football as a substantial force in my development as a person.

One of the most important lessons taught by football that I did not really learn in the classroom was the need for intense mental and physical discipline. In my own case, the classroom never fully prepared me for some of the most difficult challenges in my life. A good example was when I took my qualifying exams in my second year of doctoral studies. They consisted of three written examinations followed by orals. For nearly two weeks, I took tests. My first lasted more than thirteen hours as I typed fifty-two pages on contemporary U.S. history. I had two exams in modern Latin America and Asia that lasted eight hours each. At the end was an oral exam in which four professors grilled me for nearly two hours. It was one of the most grueling experiences of my life.

What role did football play in my success? Anyone that has ever encountered two-a-days in August, in full pads under the burning West Texas sun, knows that it requires mental discipline. There is pain not only from dehydration, but the bumps and bruises. You learn early to concentrate because everyone depends on the other person. You learn to go beyond your own limits with support from coaches and teammates. When my exams came, I had the mental toughness as well as work ethic to deal with them. While the classroom provided me the information to respond, football taught me to cope.

The physical discipline learned in football can be also translated into everyday life. Our family's experiences this past year reinforced the idea as my father battled cancer. He has survived more two-a-days than almost anyone. His young colleagues will be the first to tell you that this sixty-four-year-old man can still work many of them into the ground. Football and athletics gave him the toughness to endure surgeries and radiation. Mentally fatigued and physically exhausted, he still emerged strong. As he returns for another year of coaching, I believe that football helped make his dealing with the deadly disease possible.

Another important attribute that football teaches you that the classroom often does not are leadership skills. In the classroom, most requirements stress the individual, not the team. However, coaches have taught me a lot about leadership. One lesson I assimilated was having a passion for whatever I choose to do. My coaches loved the game and in their players they created an infectious enthusiasm. While not everyone is a rah-rah type of person, coaching requires a commitment that everyone can see. This is why coaches often successfully push people to pass their self-imposed limits. This is a wonderful life lesson.

Furthermore, true leaders willingly sacrifice for the betterment of the overall good. With the exception of some college coaches who make millions, most coaches pass up more financially lucrative careers to work as teachers and coaches. These people set a great example of the value of giving more than you receive. That is why I constantly remind my father and brother of the many lives they touch, whether as a surrogate father or counselor. When he and my brother finish their careers, they will look back and clearly say that they helped shape people, a truly noble action.

Another good lesson I learned from coaches was a willingness to lead by example. Coaches should be good role models. Again, my father served as a good example. When he told his players not to drink, use drugs, or put themselves in compromising positions, he walked the talk. A lot of the wives of my father's colleagues told their husbands to room with Joe, because they knew he avoided trouble. He always tried to do the right thing, never teaching illegal blocks, or turning a blind eye to his players using drugs. Throughout his career, he constantly preached the virtues of doing things the right way, rather than the easy way.

I have tried to incorporate these elements of leadership into my own personal and professional life. For instance, I am a much better classroom teacher because I have an enthusiasm for my work.

On the personal level, the ethical positions taken by my father and many other coaches have taken root. I try very much to follow their guidelines of learning that life, like football, is determined not only by the outcome, but how you play the game. It is important as community and school leaders that we have role models and in turn become one. I try to help my students and others with whom I interact by providing counsel on what I have learned in life. For me, coaches always helped in this area, and I am often simply passing along their wisdom.

While discipline and leadership are important lessons, one of the greatest that I learned from football was the ability to work with others from different cultural and socioeconomic backgrounds. Today, much of our society remains segregated in suburbs, private schools, and gated communities. In most schools, even multiethnic ones, the separation between honor's, regular, and remedial classes has significant racial and class components. Our society, while changing some in the last forty years, remains very divided. In this environment, fear and prejudice thrive when there is no interaction, leading to conflict and isolation.

I learned early that one of the few places in life where race and class do not matter is on the playing field. This is especially true in football, and I think particularly on the college team where people come from everywhere to form a team. A great movie such as Remember the Titans very much highlights that on the field you cannot see color or class. If you are to succeed, you must band together and put prejudices behind you. More important, by working together, you move beyond your narrow world view and learn to respect differences. Once people break the barriers down, friendships and cooperation occur.

Coaches understand this as much as anyone. They are hired and fired on their records. Very few will let their prejudices affect them. They will play the best player, regardless of where they live or the color of their skin.

For many former players, the lessons learned on the football field make them better leaders. Most athletes of all classes and races have learned that they can work together. When they go into the world of business, education, or anywhere, they have a better chance to succeed in a multicultural world. While many problems exist, at least in a small way, athletics and particularly sports such as football have helped break down many barriers.

In my own case, the interaction helps at several levels. First, on an everyday basis, I feel I am better able to try to see beyond differences, and view people first and foremost as people. Narrow mindedness and ignorance cause misunderstanding. It is important to move out of the box, both in an intellectual and personal way. Football helped me learn a lot in this area because of the intimacy created, one that rarely arises in the classroom. I know it helps me in everyday life whether at home, church, or everyday life.

A final area where I think that football has helped me prepare for life is that I learned early on that life was not always fair. This may sound like a strange lesson, but it was a wonderfully important one. The realization came early. While I excelled academically, the athletic field always challenged me. I played at Andrews (Tex.) High School through my junior year, and I had the opportunity to be in the same grade with an excellent athlete, Keith Brooks. He was an All-American football player, All-State basketball player and talented high jumper and quarter miler. I spent hours in the weight room and put in extra practice time trying to compete. On the other hand, he rarely did anything extra other than what was required. Yet, he was such an amazing natural athlete that no amount of hard work and dedication would overcome his abilities.

From this understanding that has developed over time, I have become more content. Everyday, I run into people who are unhappy, whether with their job, the size of their home, or the car they drive. They believe that if they will only put it more hours at work that they will achieve goals. I am not criticizing ambition, but these people make themselves unhappy believing that life is fair. For coaches, there have been only four head coaches in the history of the Dallas Cowboys in forty years. If that is a dream that is fine, but if you are coaching in a small town in West Texas and enjoying it, then relish the moment.

A final part is that understanding that life is not fair makes it possible to avoid ethical lapses. Early on, some people learn that taking shortcuts helps them. I know everyone likes to quote Vince Lombardi about "winning isn't everything. It the only thing." Yet, people also should remember that he later wished he had not made that statement. When unrealistic expectations arise, the willingness to surrender to dark urges has consequences. Understanding that life is not fair helps a person make more rational and ethical choices.

While life is not always fair, it does not detract from the great many joys of life. I learned that I would never be Bruce Jenner or Roger Staubach because I lacked the ability. Yet, it has not made many any less of a person, and actually helped me learn many lessons. Part of the great elements of life is the journey, and football provided me a better understanding of many parts of it.

As the four ideas that I have outlined regarding what football have taught me in life that the classroom rarely did, I know I am better person for having participated. I was extremely blessed to have in most cases wonderful coaches to teach me these lessons and equally as important to let me learn many of them on my own. I was doubly blessed in that my life on the football field and the lessons taught were many of the same ones taught to me by my father, the football coach. They say you do not get to pick your parents, but in my case, I would not have picked anyone else other than my father: "Coach" Longley.


Many different factors helped shape me, but I look back on football as a substantial force in my development as a person.






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