true. The two go hand in hand. The moment you’ve created that vision, you’re on your way, but
it’s the diligence with which you stick to that vision that allows you to get there.
Getting that across to players is a constant occupation.
I’d also watched Pete talk about grit and culture in his many interviews. In one, Pete is onstage in an
auditorium at the University of Southern California, returning as an honored guest to the school where
he’d coached the USC Trojans to a record six wins in seven championship games over nine years.
“What’s new? What are you learning?” Pete’s interviewer asked. Pete
recounted discovering my
research on grit and its resonance with his own decades-in-the-making approach to coaching. “In our
program,” Pete said, his coaching staff reinforces a culture of grit through innumerable “competitive
opportunities and moments and illustrations. . . . Really what we’re doing is we’re just trying to make
them more gritty. We’re trying to teach them how to persevere. We’re trying to illustrate to them how
they can demonstrate more passion.”
Then he gave an example. In practice, Seahawks play to win—offensive and defensive players
compete against each other with the full-throated aggression and destroy-the-enemy intensity of a real
game. The ritual of weekly
competition-level practice, dubbed Competition Wednesdays, can be
traced
back to Anson Dorrance, whose book on coaching Pete devoured when he was crafting his
own approach. “If you thought of it as who was winning and who was losing, you’d miss the whole
point. . . . It’s really the guy across from us that makes us who we are.” Our opponent, Pete explained,
creates challenges that help us become our best selves.
Outsiders to Seahawks culture easily miss that point. “Guys don’t understand it right away,” Pete
said. “They don’t get it, but in time we work our way through it.” For Pete, this means sharing—in the
most transparent way—everything that goes on in his own head, his objectives, the reasoning behind
his approach. “If I didn’t talk about it, they wouldn’t know that. They’d be thinking, ‘Am I going to
win or am I going to lose?’ But when we talk about it enough, they come to an appreciation of
why
they compete.”
Pete admitted that some players may have more to teach than they have to learn. Seahawk free
safety
Earl Thomas, for example, came to him as “the most competitive,
gritty guy you could ever
imagine. . . . He pushes and practices with marvelous intensity. He focuses, studies, does everything.”
But the magic of culture is that one person’s grit can provide a model for others. On a daily basis,
Earl “demonstrates in so many different ways what he’s all about.” If each person’s grit enhances grit
in others, then, over time, you might expect what social scientist Jim Flynn calls a “social multiplier”
effect. In a sense, it’s the motivational analogue of the infinity cube of
self-reflecting mirrors Jeff
Bezos built as a boy—one person’s grit enhances the grit of the others, which in turn inspires more
grit in that person, and so on, without end.
What does Earl Thomas have to say about being a Seahawk? “My teammates have been pushing
me since day one. They’re helping me to get better, and vice versa. You have to have a genuine
appreciation for teammates who are
willing to put in hard work, buy into the system, and never be
satisfied with anything but continuing to evolve. It’s incredible to see the heights we’re reaching from
that humble attitude.”
By the time I got around to visiting the Seahawks’ training facility, my curiosity had doubled. Making
it to the championship game in successive years is notoriously hard, but the Seahawks had defied the
odds and made it to the Super Bowl again that year. In sharp contrast to the prior year’s win, which
Seattle fans celebrated with a blue and green ticker-tape parade that was the largest public gathering
in Seattle’s history, this year’s
loss resulted in howling, weeping, and the gnashing of teeth—over
what sports commentators deemed “the worst call in NFL history.”
Here’s a recap: With twenty-six seconds on the clock, the Seahawks have possession of the ball
and are one yard away from a game-winning touchdown. Everyone expects Pete to call a running
play. It’s not just that the end zone is so close. It’s also because the Seahawks have Marshawn Lynch,
whose nickname is Beast Mode and who’s widely agreed to be the single best running back in the
entire NFL.
Instead, Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson throws a pass, the ball is intercepted, and the New
England Patriots take home the trophy.
Since Super Bowl XLIX was only the third football game I’d watched without interruption in my
entire life—the second being the NFC championship game the Seahawks had won the week before—I
can’t offer
an expert opinion on whether, indeed, passing instead of running was the epitome of
coaching misjudgment. What interested me more when I arrived in Seattle was Pete’s reaction and
that of the whole team.
Pete’s idol, basketball coach John Wooden, was fond of saying, “Success is never final; failure is
never fatal. It’s courage that counts.” What I wanted to know is how a culture of grit continues not just
in the afterglow of success, but in the aftermath of failure. What I wanted to know is how Pete and the
Seahawks found the courage to continue.
As I look back on it now, my visit has an “in the moment” feel:
My appointment begins with a meeting in Pete’s office—yes, it’s the corner office, but no, it’s not
huge or fancy, and the door is apparently
always
open, literally, allowing loud rock music to spill out
into the hallway. “Angela,” Pete leans in to ask, “how can this day be helpful to you?”
I explain my motive. Today I’m an anthropologist, here to take notes on Seahawks culture. If I had
a pith helmet, I’d be wearing it.
And that, of course, gets Pete all excited. He tells me that it’s not just one thing. It’s
a million
things. It’s a million details. It’s substance and it’s style.
After a day with the Seahawks, I have to agree. It’s countless small things, each doable—but each
so easy to botch, forget, or ignore. And though the details are countless, there are some themes.
The most obvious is language. One of Pete’s coaches once said, “I speak fluent Carroll.” And to
speak Carroll is to speak fluent Seahawk:
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