In losing, Lions' Marinelli shows character
Lions coach, on brink of history, demonstrates power of positive thinking
 Carlos Osorio / AP How does Lions coach Rod Marinelli handle losing? "My will is outstanding," he says. |
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Do your best. Do the right thing. Don’t whine. Don’t blame. Be accountable. Treat other people well.
These are some of the things we are taught at a very young age to do and to avoid in life. Simple things to say. But sometimes hard to carry out.
The Detroit Lions are professional sports’ easiest punch line. Their head coach, Rod Marinelli, is the most obvious punching bag.
But Marinelli’s been heroic in 2008. Not for his head coaching acumen. Clearly, he’s been an utter disaster on the sidelines. But in the Lions locker room and in public, the 59-year-old has been a shining example of how to deal with defeat. After defeat. After defeat. And so on.
Four days before Christmas, Marinelli’s Lions lost to the New Orleans Saints 42-7 to become the first team to ever get to 0-15.
“No excuses,” he said without indignation. “I accept full responsibility for everything that’s gone on. I don’t point fingers. It’s on me, totally. My loyalty (to my team) is my strength.”
It’s been a helluva hard year for a lot of us. Jobs are going away. Everybody’s looking over their shoulders. It’s getting hard to keep your nose pressed to the grindstone when you’re not sure if the grindstone’s going to be taken away from you (along with the house and money you saved) at any moment.
A lot of people have reason to stare at their shoes and run their fingers through their hair and wonder what they will do next.
Maybe that’s you. Maybe it’s someone you know. If it is, it wouldn’t hurt to read or share these simple, impassioned words Marinelli uttered in a postgame press conference after yet another Lions loss.
Asked how he could remain optimistic while he and his team were making history as a symbol of failure, Marinelli said, “You’re in this dark tunnel and you’ve got no way out. You’re waiting for light, and you see that light. What do you do? What do you do? You start digging and getting out. …
"I’ve always believed you stay in the tunnel and you keep digging when you expect no light. You have the same faith when you expect no light. You have the same belief in what you’re doing when you expect no light. … It’s dark and I’m going to dig through. My shovel is sharp and my pick is sharp. And my will is outstanding.”
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