The Inside Veer - Teamwork

I may have mentioned in a previous column or two that I am often a walking contradiction.

I’m an inherently lazy person who is almost always working. I like clarity, predictability and no drama, but my job is all about deadlines, breaking news and late nights. I crave quiet, but I work in noise. I’m a creature of routine but so disorganized I can’t even create one. I feel rooted and restless at the same time.

I also prefer to work alone, but sometimes solitude leaves me feeling isolated.

I much more comfortable helping others than I am when others help me. I hate to ask for help, although it’s probably more that I hate to admit that I need help. Too often, I turn down an offer of help. I say I’ve got it, even when I don’t.

I guess that’s where teamwork comes in. You don’t need to ask teammate to help, they just do it.

Like players in a good jazz band, teammates don’t wait for someone to raise a hand, they hear the empty space, feel the drift and just fill it.

I was watching video highlights of a running back a few days ago when I noticed on one of the clips that at the end of one of his long runs, one of the other guys in the view was a lot bigger than everyone else.

I rewatched it, focused not on the running back, but on that big guy. It turned out to be an offensive lineman who knocked a defender to the ground at the line of scrimmage. But he didn’t stop there. He followed all the other smaller and much faster guys about 60 yards down the field, and for his effort, he got to drill a little guy on the defense.

I love stuff like that, so I watched it again. That time I noticed that if the lineman hadn’t gotten that first defender out of the way, the running back probably would not have even gotten past the line of scrimmage, much less gained 60 yards.

That’s teamwork.