Jim White was originally a football coach at a high school in Boise, Idaho, but his life forced his family to come to McFarlane, California.
Jim White and McFarlane's environment are incompatible. Their family is white, and McFarlane is a poor small village dominated by Mexicans (one of the poorest villages in the United States). Everyone speaks Spanish. There are no burgers in the restaurant but tacos and Mexican sandwiches. The environment is not safe. People rest assured.
His teaching positions at McFarlane High School are life science teacher, physical education teacher and football assistant coach. One person and three jobs are enough to see the faculty and education level of McMullan Middle School.
White's major is rugby, but he soon realized that the children here are not suitable for the sport. They are relatively short and not strong enough (you can imagine a typical Mexican figure), and they often fail miserably in competitions. But White found that the children here run very fast, faster than cars. Although they have no physical advantage and do not grow long arms and legs, they are not afraid of high temperatures and have excellent endurance.
Through observation, he found the reason: the children get up every day before dawn, help their parents pick fruits in the orchard to earn money, then run from the orchard to school for class, and then run back to the orchard to pick fruits after school. Especially a student named Thomas Valles, before receiving formal training, he can run at a speed of 12 miles per hour (19 kilometers per hour), an average of 5 minutes and 1 mile (1.6 kilometers). I checked, the marathon record holder's speed is about 20.6 kilometers per hour (average of 1.7 kilometers in 5 minutes).
You know, these children run on dusty dirt roads every day, and they don't even have a pair of formal running shoes.
White had the idea of forming a trail running team. In order to convince the principal, he studied the data. A few children who have not received any training and no formal equipment can already rank in the top ten running speeds in the state; the establishment of a trail running team can also obtain funds to improve the school's hardware facilities.
In this way, a 7-man cross-country running team was organized. The players were Thomas Valles, Damacio Diaz, Danny Diaz and David Diaz, Johnny Sameniego, Victor Puentes and Jose Cardenas.
The competition rule of trail running is the points system, the first one finishes 1 point, the second finishes 2 points, and so on, each team has 7 players, the first 6 people's scores are added together, the one with the lowest points The team wins.
They participated in the invitational tournament for the first time on October 6, 1987, and ranked first among the four teams. Less than a month later, on November 2nd, he had already won a one-on-one match against another team. Later, after defeating several teams in a dark horse posture, it attracted the attention of the outside world. The residents of McFarland also began to give great support to the trail running team. On November 26th, he entered the top four in the Stallion oak state qualifiers and qualified for the California state game. Of course, there have been many twists and turns in the middle, and finally won the championship in the California state final on December 12, and in the following 14 years, won the state championship title nine times.
Although this story is not thrilling, but it contains a lot of profound truth.
Know yourself, understand yourself, find your strength
The first sport that appeared in the film was rugby, the most popular and watched sport in the United States. McFarlane’s children also played rugby, but they failed miserably in the game.
It's not that the popular and most high-profile success is worthy of everyone's rush. Many frustrations in life come from working in the wrong direction.
Knowing yourself, knowing yourself, and finding your own talent is the first priority in life. "Strength" refers to talent. With less effort than others, you can get better performance and faster progress than others.
In the film, if the children continue to play rugby and continue to be at the bottom, it is meaningless. Fortunately, they found their own strengths under the exploration of Coach White, and the continuous victory experience accumulated stronger psychological motivation, thus reshaping their lives.
More importantly, find a suitable track
As a coach, Jim White found a suitable track-trail running for the children. Children can run because they have good endurance, high temperature resistance, and are very adaptable to difficult environments. If it is a traditional form of running, because it does not have innate body shape conditions, it is very likely that there will not be any outstanding performance, but trail running can give full play to their advantages.
Personal ability is a basic item, but choosing the right track is more critical. Coach White’s brilliance is also that he understands that trail running is one of the new sports pre-approved by the California public education system a few years ago, and can receive funding, which means that this is a highly valued sport that will receive the media. Reports. If it is a fringe sport, then he and the players will not get the opportunity and attention.
Former Disney CEO Robert IGER mentioned in his "Journey of a Lifetime": "Being in the business of manufacturing trumpet oil (oil for musical instrument trumpets), you may become the best manufacturer of trumpet oil in the world, but In the final analysis, the world consumes only a few liters of oil every year. ” This explains the truth from another angle.
Deliberate practice
In the first game, the McFarlane team ranked first among the four teams from the bottom. Coach White told the players that it was his fault because he didn't explore the track in advance and didn't know that there would be a mountain run uphill in the end.
McFarlane had no mountains, Coach White asked the children to run the almond shells hundreds of times.
When the children encounter difficulties and want to give up, White said: " Do you find it difficult? I will tell you what the real difficulty is. The real difficulty is (in the game) watching others surpass you at the last mountain. The real difficulty is when you know that you have lost because you didn’t try your best. We have to train until we see the mountain, the happier, the higher the mountain, the better. Now we know what we didn’t know before, right? Today is the beginning , Let's run again. "
Deliberate practice is purposeful training, allowing one's actions and results to experience high-quality and efficient feedback, and then continuous training and improvement. I think this is why the McFarland team was dragged by coach Whilte to participate in a friendly game within a few days of training. Although they were ranked first from the bottom, this experience made them aware of their gaps and made rapid progress in adjusting training content.
team cooperation
Coach White once said to the players: " It doesn't matter what I think. I can't play for you. I think you already know that it is difficult to win the game. But if you believe in yourself, it is more important that you trust each other and your teammates. It doesn't matter what other people think. This is the charm of sports. "
After all, a person's energy is limited, but the energy that can be generated by teamwork can be infinite. The tactical arrangement of the McFarlane cross-country running team is actually very simple. Thomas Valles ran first, and the other 5 players were able to run in the middle and front stages with normal performance. The 6th player, Danny Diaz, was mainly responsible for stabilizing the team instead of running results. But in the first state finals, Jose Cardenas disrupted his running rhythm because of his eagerness to win, resulting in lack of energy and falling out of the team. The little fat guy Danny Diaz saw Jose Cardenas's situation, knew that his team was on the verge of danger, and tried his best to make up for Jose Cardenas' position. In the end, the McFarlane team won the championship for the first time in the state finals.
Find meaning
Trail running, let the children experience the taste of victory. Running and winning may be the best thing that happened in their lives, and it is also an opportunity for them to change their lives.
After qualifying for the state finals, Coach White took the children to the sea, who had never seen the sea. This implies that a whole new world is spreading out in the lives of children.
Player Jose Cardenas wrote in the composition: I
We fly like backboards through the orange groves
Floating on a warm wind
When we run, we own the earth
The land is ours. We speak the birds' language
Not immigrants no more
Not stupid Mexicans
When we run, our spirits fly
We speak to the gods
When we run, we are the gods
The film is adapted from a real story. The protagonist in the film, the members of the team in 1987, are the only children in the family who have finished ninth grade. Thomas Valles and Damacio Diaz became Sequoia College athletes; Danny Diaz and David Diaz graduated from Snow State University; Johnny Sameniego became Bakersfield University athletes; Victor Puentes received a scholarship and entered California State Polytechnic University; Jose Cardenas became The writer of the "Los Angeles Times".
These children were originally looked down upon, and their lives seemed to have been finalized. They either worked as pickers for a lifetime or went to jail as criminals, just like their parents.
Trail running changed their destiny, allowing them to find purpose and meaning. The constant experience of victory has strengthened their psychological motivation, and because of the increased knowledge they have different expectations of themselves, and their lives have really been different from then on.
In the end, it ended with what Coach White said to the players before the state finals: " When you feel painful running on that mountain, I want you to remember that the people around you are also the people in front of you. It depends on who can bear the pain, so I want you to look at them, look at each other, and ask yourself, who is stronger? I believe it is you. "
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