Who Are We?

I suffer my own sports-mania. I’ve seen all or parts of every playoff hockey game in this year’s quest for the Stanley Cup. I’m part of an extreme minority - at least, here in Texas. My mood can change depending on the performance of teams that I care about. Last night, I felt badly for Calgary - as they allowed the Sharks to blow them off the ice. I was pulling for the Flames. I felt worse when the Flyers eliminated one of the best - if not THE best - player in the league by knocking off the Washington Capitals. Like many hockey fans, I wanted to see Ovechkin play against Sidney Crosby. Well, it’s not going to happen. Two game sevens that didn’t quite turn out as I had hoped. But my vested interest, as a fan, is in the Dallas Stars. They’re a team I’m familiar with - a team I follow - and a team whose identity is clear to me. It wasn’t always so.

If you’re not a hockey fan, that’s okay. In fact, you don’t have to be a sports fan at all to understand how important identity is. Some teams are like companies, and individuals. They don’t know who they are.

Last night the TV remote barely left my hand. I was watching hockey and switching over to the Dallas Mavericks game, watching them get waxed by the New Orleans Hornets. Earlier in the day I had heard of the Texas Rangers getting their hides tanned soundly by Boston. In Dallas, the Cowboys are almost always in the news. So I began to consider the issue of two professional teams with a reasonably clear identity and two with no identity.

“Who are we?”

I think it’s an important question for people, companies, teams or groups of all sorts. I’ve spent a few years coaching amateur hockey. From pee-wees to college-aged guys. In some cases I was able to pick my team. In other cases, players were assigned to me. No matter, I still gave every team an identity. As the head coach I had a vision of the team that I began to impose at the first practice. Sometimes the identity was slightly altered by what the players could do - or what they could do best. I can honestly say that I never coached a team without any identity. I never have had a team that could not answer clearly, “Who are we?”

I’m puzzled how a team like the Dallas Mavericks or the Texas Rangers can be so lost - when it comes to knowing who they are. These organizations spend millions of dollars and months of preparation to find the athletes they want. They assemble their rosters with great care, and due diligence. How can they not know who they are? Or what they are?

I’m not a basketball expert, but I can see. Jason Kidd seems best when he’s pushing the ball up the court aggressively. That reckless abandon run and gun game seems to suit him, and a few other players, best. But not Dirk. It appears to me that the team has no idea of who they are - or what they’re supposed to be. And they’re now down 2 games to zero in the opening round of the playoffs. They’re on track to be one and done.

Coach Parcells used to say, “You are what you are.” I understood that to mean you can do what you can do and you can’t do what you can’t. I think that is always true. Basic and oversimplified perhaps - but true.

If you’re a professional basketball team that can’t play great defense, and you can’t run ‘n gun and you can’t play an inside game - that’s who you are. If you’re a team that can shoot (and risk going cold like all shooting teams), then that’s who you are. But what if you’re a composite of so many different things that no one thing properly identifies you? Then you’re the Dallas Mavericks. Or Texas Rangers.

It’s easy to see when a team is struggling with, “Who are we?”

The Dallas Stars, on the other hand, are a team that has become more clearly defined as the season has worn on. They struggled slightly at the trade deadline when they brought in a stud centerman, Brad Richards. Word was, they were looking for a scoring winger to hook up with Mike Modano. Something else happened on the way to the playoffs though. According to today’s Dallas Morning News, Mike Modano struggled in March with the changes made to his personal identity as a Dallas Star centerman. But today, he’s got his own identity straight - and so does the team. They just had their first successful round 1 of the playoffs in a few years. I feel good about this team because it’s easy to see - they feel good about themselves by knowing exactly who they are, and what they’re good at.

In spite of early playoff meltdowns, the Dallas Cowboys are coming around to answering more fully the question, “Who are we?” Owner Jerry Jones is as competitive as they come. That’s good for the Cowboys and for Dallas. He’ll do what he must to win. Few people doubt he’ll make a poor choice in Saturday’s NFL draft. The Dallas Cowboys know they have their quarterback, Tony Romo. Like every team they’ve got a few questions in specific areas - but over all, they know who they are, and what they are. They know and believe they are a team on the rise.

The Dallas business community is made up of many companies that have no idea of who they are, or what they are. The objective to make money isn’t enough. How will you do it? Who will people think you are if you don’t know yourself?

Careers work in the same way. Who are you? It doesn’t have to be - nor should it be - entirely defined by what you do. Teacher, architect, lawyer, businessman - those shouldn’t define you entirely. They can make up an element of who you are. But there must be more.

If you’re a teacher, what makes you different from other teachers? What makes you better?

And the bottom line is really a question of uniqueness (a word that I constantly find myself thinking about and using in conversation). What makes you unique - in a good way?

The Texas Rangers are unique in that they’re currently the second from the worst team in Major League Baseball. That’s unique, but it’s not good. The Dallas Mavericks blew a shot at the championship a few years ago by letting the Miami Heat come back and defeat them. That was unique. It was not good though.

The Dallas Cowboys have a unique quarterback, a unique owner, a unique coach and some other unique parts (think Terrell Owens).

The Dallas Stars have a unique group of young defensemen. They have a grittiness, a toughness and a resolve that is unique of good playoff teams. They have a unique goaltender. They have unique co-General Managers (interim co-General Managers at that). They have a unique work ethic typical of other playoff teams. They have a unique mix of veteran players and first year players. They have a unique captain who can score, defend, fight and go to the most dangerous areas of the ice. They have a uniquely pesky player. They have hungry old-timers and starving youngsters. They’ve been described by their coach, their GM’s and the media as a “committee.” They are 28 players (not all of them active or playing) who do things as a team. They know their place. They work hard to contribute to the team’s goal. They know who they are - individually and collectively. And it shows.