In his book Maintenance of Everything: Part One, Stewart Brand opens with the story of the 1968 Golden Globe Race. The more I sit with it, the more it feels like a parable for Coaching.
In 1968, the Sunday Times of London sponsored a race for the first solo, nonstop circumnavigation of the world. Roughly 30,000 miles. The winner would receive £5,000 ($150,000 in today’s American dollars).
The conditions were simple. No outside assistance, and nothing could be brought aboard after the start.
Nine men entered. Only one finished.
Robin Knox-Johnston
Knox-Johnston was the youngest at 29. He could not afford to build the boat he wanted, so he sailed the one he had. Suhaili was a 32-foot ketch nobody gave a chance. It leaked from the start. His self-steering broke early and he sailed without it for most of the trip. He capsized and spent days putting the boat back together.
His approach throughout was the same: make do and mend. Whatever broke, he fixed with what he had. He wrote in his diary about how much he was enjoying the work and vising things.
Knox-Johnston was the only competitor to finish. 312 days at sea.
Donald Crowhurst
Crowhurst was a 36-year-old electronics inventor with a failing business and growing debt. He entered to save himself financially and to make a name. Within weeks he realized the boat could not survive the Southern Ocean. Rather than retire and face ruin, he began faking his position reports, drifting in the South Atlantic while broadcasting record progress.
Eventually he stopped reporting, wrote a long final entry in his log, and committed suicide at sea. His boat was found drifting and empty.
Bernard Moitessier
Moitessier was 43 and the most experienced of the three. His boat was simple and built for the mission. He believed the way to survive was to keep maintenance minimal and easy. He took less, not more. He believed that the less he had, the less there was to fix.
Moitessier had the fastest pace in the race and almost certainly would have won the cash prize. But somewhere in the South Atlantic, on his way home, he changed his mind. He did not want to come back to fame. He was content at sea. So, he turned around and kept sailing.
He covered 37,455 nautical miles in 10 months, setting the record at the time for the longest nonstop passage by a yacht.
Three Styles
Brand sums up the three styles like this:
Knox-Johnston: whatever comes, deal with it. And he did.
Crowhurst: hope for the best. And it killed him.
Moitessier: prepare for the worst. And it freed him.
What This Has to Do with Coaching
I have been thinking about this in terms of how coaches handle the hard moments. Every coach knows these moments are coming.
The conflict with a player. The roster decision that is going to be hard. The talented kid who is undermining the standard. The season that does not go the way you needed it to. None of that should a surprise to a coach. The question is what kind of coach you are when the moments arrive.
Some coaches are Crowhursts. They hope. They tell themselves the problem will work itself out, the talented player will come around, the conflict will fade, the standard does not need to be enforced right now. It always catches up. And when it does, the response is often to cover it up rather than address it.
Some coaches are Knox-Johnstons. They are built for the work. Whatever breaks, they fix. They do not have the perfect program or the perfect roster, but they show up every day with the tools they have and make it work. Coaches like this finish the job but not in the most effective of ideal way.
Some coaches are Moitessiers. They have built something simple and durable. Clear philosophy, predetermined decisions, systems that do not require insane energy 365 days a year to maintain. They prepared for the worst, so when it arrives, they do not panic. They have already decided.
Most of us are some mix of all three depending on the moment. The work is being honest about which one you tend to be when the pressure is on, and which one you want to become.
All three sailors made the start line. All three had achieved enough to be there. The difference was not talent or effort although all had different levels of those. It was the preparedness underneath. What you build before the storm is what you have when it hits.
Check out our book!
Things That Are Making Us Think
