Several decades ago, I attended a coaching clinic in Nashville, Tennessee hosted by legendary coach Don Meyer at what was then David Libscomb University. I was still a college student-athlete at the time but went to the clinic in anticipation of one day embarking on a coaching career.
Coach Meyer was a pioneer in terms of providing professional development opportunities for coaches. He shared his knowledge generously, passionately, and creatively. If you’ll pardon the cliché, he put on a clinic on how to put on a clinic.
The car ride from my home to Nashville was fourteen hours each way. It wasn’t an easy trip to make. I didn’t have a lot money at the time, nor an especially reliable car. But I am glad I made that trip because it had a profound impact on my life.
While Coach Meyer’s clinic included the usual discussions about strategies, Xs and Os, and effective game management, he said something in between those discussions that resonated with me more than anything else: “Always be a quarter friend.”
Coach Meyer asked attendees to think about how they lived their lives and what kind of a friend they were to others. If someone was in trouble, would that individual use their last quarter to call you for help?
That question has never strayed far from my mind.
The evolution of technology dates the context of Coach Meyer’s words. We barely use coins anymore and payphones are practically extinct. Having to make a phone call by dropping a “quarter” into a metal box is beyond the comprehension of younger generations.
Although the context of being a quarter friend has become obsolete, the concept certainly has not. The deeper I explore the art of being a good teammate, the more truthful I find this statement to be.
Good teammates want to be quarter friends to their fellow teammates. They want to be the one you call in a crisis. They want to be the one you know will not let you down. They want to be the one you know will be relentless in helping you solve your problem.
And most of all, they will not object to you calling and entrusting them with this responsibility.
I’m not certain that a modern-day equivalent exists for the term quarter friend. I suppose the closest we can come is a 1% friend, or more applicably, a 1% teammate (i.e., if someone needed help and their cell phone battery was down to its last 1%, would that individual call you?).
I’ve discovered that the happiest people I know take genuine pride in being the type of teammate who embodies this concept. They choose to wear the responsibility like a badge of honor.
The problem with failing teams is often that they don’t have enough 1% teammates. Too many of their members resent being inconvenienced, aren’t invested in others, and make their reluctance to help anybody but themselves readily known.
Those teams’ fortunes would change, however, if they increased their percentage of 1% teammates.
As always…Good teammates care. Good teammates share. Good teammates listen. Go be a good teammate.
