Sunday Inspiration -- Roger Bannister

"Failure is as exciting to watch as success, provided the effort is absolutely genuine and complete. But the spectators fail to understand -- and how can they know -- the mental agony through which an athlete must pass before he can give his maximum effort. An how rarely, if he is built as I am, he can give it." 

Roger Bannister from The First Four Minutes

For all sorts of reasons today, this quote is meaningful to me. The quote comes from Roger Bannister's book The First Four Minutes that I was hoping to finish over break. This morning I read the chapter about the day he first broke four. It seemed an appropriate chapter given the end of the year challenges ahead. This quote describes his mental preparation on that day. It resonated with me because every athlete I know who has been able to produce a great performance has gone through this. In the run up to the performance,  they truly go through "mental agony".

But besides the" mental agony" part, the quote also resonated with me because of the comparison between failure and success and how there is little difference when the effort is "genuine and complete."

Tomorrow we return from our two week spring break. Sunday before returning from break is not filled with mental agony for me but definitely a fair amount of worry. I have found returning from vacations much tougher as a teacher than as a student. The best teachers I know start having returning to school dreams a few days before the end of break where they are showing up unprepared on the first day back. That might surprise those of you who have never taught, but I believe it is related to the performance aspect of teaching. The dreams are a way to prepare you to give your maximum effort.

Effort is a hard thing to measure. I think only we know internally whether we give our best effort on any one day. Bannister on the day he broke four was torn about even making the attempt as the weather was not very good. It was cold, a bit wet and windy -- a typical day in May in England. One of the things that finally changed his mind was a discussion with Franz Stampfl on the train ride to Oxford. Bannister was mostly self-coached, but he turned to Stampfl at the end of his career for final preparation. As Bannister debated the weather, how he felt, whether he could produce the type of effort he wanted for that day, and whether that effort would even be worth it given the fractions of seconds between success and failure, Stampfl said "your mind can overcome any sort of adversity."

So today is a day of getting my mind prepared for the challenges of the last two months of the school year. Only 50 days until spring sports come to an end. I am hoping I can give an effort like Bannister's was 60 years ago "absolutely genuine and complete." That way the outcome will take care of itself.