reality testing

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The year was 1967 when the Saints Drum and Bugle Corps of Fords, New Jersey, held its first registration nights and rehearsals.  My sister Karen and I were among those 100+ kids who signed up as members right away.  One thing we all had in common?  None of us had ever marched before, and most of us had never even seen a corps in competition.  Yeah, I know - that's two things. 
As members, we really had no sense of the big picture when we started.  
Parades?  Yeah, we got that.  Field and floor competition?  No clue.  
While my memories of that first year are mostly pleasant, I can't imagine the challenges the instructors and Board of Directors faced.  How do you share the vision needed to get such an organization up and running?  How do you remain optimistic while doing so?  
I'm pretty confident that much of what happened back then was management by the seat of their pants.  Here we are, all these years later, and I discover that those wise parents and other adults were "balancing reality with vision," or the 4th Lens described by Jane A.G. Kise in Intentional Leadership.  
As the weeks and months progressed, we learned to be accountable to one another.  We understood the importance of every rehearsal, and how we couldn't march forward if there were holes in the ranks.  We purchased windbreakers with the corps' name and logo on the back, and proudly wore them to school (and every place else, truth be told!).  
We marched together in our first parade in April, some nine months after the first rehearsal.  We soon had the chance to see other color guards and corps in competition, filling out the vision of where we were heading.  
We stuck it out, and grew.  We learned how to march in drill patterns while playing drums and bugles, or twirling flags, rifles, and sabres.  It wasn't pretty in the beginning, but we held each other accountable to get better with every rehearsal and competition.
The loyalty, accountability, visioning, and optimism paid off.  Three Aprils after that first parade, our Saints Color Guard won its competitive season chapter championship.  Our guards and corps continued to rack up championships and awards after that - all made possible with that balance of vision and reality.
The first championship flag earned by the Saints Color Guard:
National Judges Junior Color Guard and Corps Association, Chapter 3 Champions, 1971
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For those of you who know me, it's probably not surprising that my blogging would stray onto the baseball field.  With Spring Training games underway, it seems as good a time as any.

Today's focus?  Looking at baseball through the lens of emotional intelligence in the face of concrete data.

Statistics are a method to quantify what happens during the 9 innings of play (more or less) each game.  The history of those statistics takes on special meaning, as it did during the Summer of '61 - the year of the M&M Boys.

Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris, both players for the New York Yankees that summer, were each having incredible offensive seasons.  As Mickey hit a home run, Roger matched or exceeded the total.  Great times, exciting times, except people started to take sides - and not in nice ways.  Newspapers (especially the NY Daily News) and local radio / television stations fanned the flames to encourage fans to support one player over the other.

Given my age at the time, I easily was swayed to love what Mickey was doing, and to despise Roger's attempt to break the season home run record.  My decision-making was all emotion-based:  How could someone who wasn't a "true" Yankee (Maris had played with the Kansas City Athletics before joining the Yankees the year before) become the heir apparent for a record set by another beloved Yankee (Babe Ruth)?

The lack of empathy (OK, I'm being polite - the hatred) from baseball fans for Roger Maris that season is well-documented.  The pressure caused him to suffer both physically and emotionally, right up to hitting his 61st, record-breaking home run as the season came to a close.

These days, I have a much better appreciation of what happened back then, and how easily I and so many others were swayed to be less than objective during the home run race.  It was all about failed reality testing, impulse control, and empathy among other components of emotional intelligence.

Roger, I'm sorry.

The stats?  Yeah, they're important, but they've gotten so complicated in this Information Age they're mostly beyond my waning math abilities.  Being able to still enjoy the efforts of each player on the field?  It's why I'll always be a fan of the game.

Roger Maris's Retired Uniform Number Plaque, Legends Field / Steinbrenner Stadium, Tampa FL

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