We’ve been pretty deep around here lately.
We’ve talked about teammates and trust. Being underestimated. Coaches who push us. Learning that sometimes things simply aren’t about us.
Important stuff.
So this week, I think it’s time we turn our attention to an equally important issue. One that athletes everywhere have apparently accepted without question for generations.
Why are we always doing things on three?
Seriously.
Who picked three?
Why not two?
Four?
Seven?
And why, exactly, do we need to put our hands into a pile of other people’s sweaty hands before we do it?
If you’ve ever played a sport, you’ve participated in some version of this ritual approximately eleven million times.
Everybody huddles up.
Hands in.
Somebody says something motivational.
Or tries to.
Then comes the inevitable:
“On three!”
One.
Two.
Three.
TEAM!
Except there’s always that one person who doesn’t understand whether we’re saying TEAM on three or after three.
So while everybody else is yelling “TEAM!” Steve is yelling “THREE!”
Steve has ruined the huddle. Everybody out.
We’re clearly not emotionally prepared for competition.
And sometimes “TEAM” apparently isn’t inspirational enough, so somebody decides seventeen people should simultaneously yell an entire motivational sentence nobody discussed beforehand.
“WIN EVERY POSSESSION AND LEAVE IT ALL ON THE—”
Half the team is still yelling while the other half has already broken the huddle.
Very inspiring. No, really. Sigh.
But we do it. Every sport. Every level. Before games. After timeouts. At the end of practice. Sometimes before doing something that doesn’t require a huddle whatsoever.
We gather everybody together, pile our hands on top of one another and count.
Usually to three.
One of my favorite movies has absolutely nothing to do with sports but definitively drives home my point—Mr. Magorium’s Wonder Emporium. In one scene, Mr. Magorium questions the whole concept himself:
“Why do we do things on three?”
His solution involves triskaidekaphobia—the fear of the number thirteen—and a suggestion that perhaps we should do things on that instead.
I feel so seen every time I watch that scene. LOL
Because I honestly don’t think there’s anything particularly magical about the number three. Somebody probably just picked it. Although every overly superstitious athlete I know would have you burned at the stake for even suggesting we change this age-old tradition.
But I’ve been giving it some thought lately and maybe we’ve been concentrating on the wrong part.
Maybe it isn’t the three that matters.
Maybe it’s what happens before it.
The huddle.
Think about what we’re actually doing. A group of people who are about to run in completely different directions physically come together first. We close the space between us, heads come together, hands go in. And for just a few seconds, we gather our collective energy and become the Team. Nobody is running an offense or guarding anybody. Nobody is the point guard, the post player, the quarterback or the linebacker. Nobody is taking the shot. Nobody is sitting on the bench. Nobody is the star. Nobody is the role player.
We’re just the team.
Then somebody counts.
One.
Two.
Three.
Break.
And immediately everybody goes somewhere different and we take that collaborative energy and turn it into individual action. That’s the part I don’t think I appreciated enough when I was playing. We weren’t coming together because we all had the same job. We were coming together because we didn’t.
The point guard had one responsibility.
The post player had another.
Somebody needed to score.
Somebody needed to rebound.
Somebody needed to set the screen nobody in the stands would ever notice.
Somebody might spend most of the possession without touching the ball at all.
Different assignments. Different skills. Different responsibilities. Same purpose.
And maybe that’s what the huddle has been reminding us all along. Before we go do our individual jobs, we come together long enough to remember what we’re collectively trying to accomplish.
That’s sports.
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But, as usually happens around here, apparently I can’t leave a perfectly good sports ritual alone without turning it into a life lesson.
Sorry.
We’ve come too far now. Because adulthood is basically one giant exercise in everybody running in different directions.
Families do it.
Organizations do it.
Coworkers do it.
Friends do it.
Communities definitely do it.
Everybody has a different assignment. Different responsibilities. Different strengths. Different things demanding their attention. And somewhere along the way, it’s really easy to start believing that everybody should be running the same play we’re running.
Why aren’t they doing this?
Why don’t they care about that?
Why can’t they see what I see?
Why aren’t they helping the way I’m helping?
The most obvious answer…maybe because that’s not their assignment.
A basketball team with five people trying to play point guard isn’t a particularly good basketball team. And it wouldn’t have been very pretty had that been my particular assignment, if I’m being honest! I knew my strengths—and my not-so-strengths—about as well then as I do now.
Neither is a family, organization or community where everybody believes their particular job is the only one that matters.
We don’t need everybody doing the same thing. We need everybody to remember why we’re doing it. And maybe that’s why teams keep coming back to the huddle.
Not because the huddle fixes everything. It doesn’t.
But sometimes when everybody has been running different directions for too long, you need to just hunker down together, summon that collective energy, and then hit the court running again recharged and ready to take on whatever comes next.
Look around. Remember who’s standing beside you. Remember the plan. Remember the purpose. Remember whose team you’re on. Then break again.
I have lots of memorable huddles from my playing days, but let’s talk specifically about my time as a Sugarbear at UCA. I don’t remember where we were, but I remember the game was on the line. My teammates, coaches and I were all at our wits’ end when Coach Marvel called a timeout.
We gathered on the court expecting a full-blown Ron Marvel “get out there and get ’em” speech.
That’s not what we got.
Instead—and I wish I could remember exactly what he said—he started telling us some nonsense story about something silly his grandkids had done that week.
It stopped every single one of us in our tracks.
Then we busted out laughing.
And just like that, the tension broke.
He reminded us that, yes, we were there to win—but we were also supposed to have fun doing it. For those few seconds, he completely reset the energy of that team.
Coach Marvel won the huddle.
We won the game.
And all these years later, I still believe one had an awful lot to do with the other.
Last week, we talked about learning that sometimes it’s not about you. Maybe there’s a pretty natural follow-up to that.
Sometimes…it’s about us.
Not in the everybody-needs-to-do-things-my-way sense.
Quite the opposite.
It’s understanding that being part of something bigger doesn’t require everybody to be the same. It requires everybody to understand the purpose.
Sometimes you call the huddle.
Sometimes somebody else does.
Sometimes you’re the loudest voice in it.
Sometimes your only job is to put your hand in the middle and listen.
Sometimes you’re taking the last shot.
Sometimes you’re setting the screen.
All of those people belong to the team.
And maybe that’s what I’ve decided about our obsession with doing everything on three. The number? Still seems pretty arbitrary.
Honestly, I’m open to suggestions. Maybe Mr. Magorium was onto something.
But the huddle?
I think we’ve kept that part for a reason.
Because before everybody runs toward their own assignment, there’s value in coming together long enough to remember that we’re not running alone.
Different jobs.
Different directions.
Same purpose.
So…
Hands in.
And since apparently civilization has already settled this…
On three.
One.
Two.
Three.
And that’s how the ball really bounces.
Read more from How the Ball Bounces with Bekka in the archives at www.mysaline.com/bounces.
About the author: Bekka Wilkerson is a lifelong lover of all things sports. Raised in a super athletic household it was no surprise when she too began to love sports at a young age. It seems like from the time she could walk she had a softball bat in her hands, but her true athletic passion came from all things Basketball. That love served her well as a Bryant High School Lady Hornet and ultimately earned her a full scholarship to play at the University of Central Arkansas – among many other adventures.
These days Bekka can be found running around Saline County with her husband, Speedy, or chasing one of her grandsons. She is also the Executive Director of The EMpact One Foundation, a Saline County Nonprofit Organization that helps young people stay connected to extracurricular activities through tuition assistance and equipment provisions.
Reach out to Bekka with questions and/or ideas about things you want to see in this column at [email protected] and learn more about The EMpact One Foundation at www.empactone.org.
