Cherries…

Back in October of 2025 during OSU WLAX practice ONE.34, Coach Mandy practiced 7 good minutes getting curious with me as her team of 40+ athletes and coaches listened in. We hadn’t prepared for this. I wasn’t so sure it was a good idea, in fact. Turns out this was a great idea!!

Here’s a CCD version of what went down. She asked me this question. 

“So, Chet, you’ve  worked with a lot of teams here at OSU over the years. Seen championships. Seen teams perform at the highest levels and seen those missing the mark. What’s the biggest indicator of teams that overachieved vs those that underachieve.” 

Great, freakin’ question, coach!

I answered with a question. What would you do if I gave you a beautiful bowl of cherries? Without so much as pausing, coach replied , “I would eat one.” What if I put one cockroach in the bowl of beautiful cherries. “Wouldn’t eat it at all. Would toss the bowl in the trash.” What if I gave you a bowl of cockroaches with one cherry on top, I asked as a follow-up. Coach said, Eww. No way. I asked the team what they thought is the moral of this story? Blank stares.

Let them think about it for a minute. Then told them a simple truth. The best teams are a bowl of cherries. If a cockroach gets in the bowl, the team throws ’em out. Quickly. This got their attention. They got really curious. One of the girls asked if a cockroach can become a cherry? I asked coach what she thought. Nope. Correct, was my reply. The questions kept coming. You could see the wheels turning. It was freakin’ magic. Here’s a snippet of what I told them.

Normal teams look away from their cockroaches. Normal teams even cover for them. Normal teams excuse away their cockroach behaviors. What happens as a result? More cockroaches in your bowl. The one, two, or few cherries? They leave. All it takes is one cockroach to kill the culture. If you and your team want to exceed expectations protect your bowl of cherries from any and every cockroach. This message stuck. I had no idea. 

Earlier this week we celebrated practice ONE.50 with this same team. Many of them have cherries on their fingernails. Lots of them have cherries on their Lacrosse sticks. Some of them, coach included, have cherries on their phone. The culture reflects accordingly. This team has become a bowl of cherries. They are attracting more cherries. This years freshmen? Cherries. Next years class? More cherries. Coaching staff? Cherries. 

Finally, the funniest thing about this story. Looking back on my notes from practice ONE.34, there’s not one mention of this story. I didn’t write one word about it. Didn’t sear me. Told it a million times. For whatever reason, this time, with this team, it stuck. The moral of that story? Keep pushing buttons leader. Keep trying to figure out what your team needs, make it sticky, and put it on repeat. You never know when you might stumble upon what sticks. Damn.

Live hard. Love ❤️ harder…

Thanks, Mandy, for transforming together. Always together.