Life Lessons & Wisdom for Gold Medal Success

...

Herb Brooks would invite 68 amateur players from across the United States to participate in the 1980 US National team tryouts, held in Colorado Springs. Brooks had personally contacted each one of the invitees’ coaches, teachers and family to find out what type of person he was recruiting to his team. Brooks would implement both the physically difficult practices and training regimens that the Minnesota players invited were accustom to, as well as developed a psychological examination that would show him how each of the players would react to different situations and see their street smarts. Again Brooks was determined to find the right 26 guys that he felt could compete enough to push the Soviets to the brink. Most players took his 300 question exam, with the exception of one player, Jim Craig. Craig, the All-American goalie from Boston University, who Brooks had seen multiple times in the NCAA tournament had also played for him in the World Championships. Craig was one of the top goalies in the country and knew he deserved to be on the team, but did not feel it necessary to take Brooks’ “stupid test.” Herb was constantly doing things over the course of the two week tryout to keep the players on their toes and to throw many obstacles in their paths. Before the USOC could convene to meet with Herb and his staff to pick the roster, Brooks made the announcement at a late night meeting. At the meeting Brooks spoke from his heart to the entire group, thanked the men for their tireless work and said for those who made the roster, “get ready to work harder than you ever have in your entire life.”

With just less than 200 days to the games, Brooks and his new team of 26 had to get to work immediately to learn and perfect his open-style hybrid hockey. Brooks would become notorious for “Herbies” which are wind-sprints on ice. Players would skate from the goal-line to the blue-line and back, red-line and back, opposite blue-line and back and opposite goal-line and back. These “Herbies” would result in many of his players puking or ultimately wishing that they had. Brooks implemented this exercise because he had watched the Soviets do it time and time again with very little difficulty; he knew in order to beat them his team needed to be the best conditioned team in the tournament. Brooks would end up getting almost each one of his players to want to quit the team. He would get them to their breaking point, then back off, throw them a compliment, just to keep them confused. Herb and his team USA would compete in numerous international exhibition games in which they won some, lost some and tied Norway 4-4 which led to the infamous “Herbies” until the rink manager shut the lights off. With two weeks until opening ceremonies he threw one more hurdle at his team when he pulled newly named team captain Mike Eruzione aside and told him he was sending him home; he even went as far as brining in two new players to try out, one of which was the younger brother of a member of the team. Ultimately the team met with Brooks and told them “we’ve been through too much together and made too many sacrifices for you to bring in new players at this stage.” They told Brooks if he didn’t pick the final 20 from the current group they would all walk away from the team. This is exactly what Herb wanted, he got his guys to unify as one, look at the best interests of each other and the group. The last cut that Brooks had to make was defensemen Ralph Cox, a move that Brooks said was his most difficult ever. Cox, a true member who bought in to what Brooks was selling told him “that’s all right, coach, I understand. You guys are going to win the gold medal.”

The US team was seeded seventh in the twelve team tournament, many calling a bronze medal a long-shot opportunity for Brooks and his boys. The US would tie Sweden 2-2, upset Czechoslovakia 7-3, beat both Norway and Romania and knocked of West Germany 4-2 to advance to the medal round. During their run to the medal round, Brooks and his team began to rally the entire nation around their team; each one of the players as well as Brooks became household names across the country. Herb, sticking to his true colors, wouldn’t allow him or his team to buy into the fanfare and extensive media coverage and went as far as sending his assistant coach Craig Patrick out for all press conferences. Brooks said “I did not want a ‘I’, ‘Me’, ‘Myself’ organization, instead I wanted it all to be about ‘We’.” The reward for team USA getting to the medal round, a date with four time defending gold medalists, the Soviet Union, who had not lost an international game since 1960. The game against the Soviets took on bigger meaning than just hockey. At the time the Iranian hostage crisis was ongoing, the Soviets had invaded Afghanistan, the US economy was in dire straits and President Carter had announced a US boycott from the Summer Olympic Games to be held in Moscow. The entire nations pride was riding on this game, taking on an “us” vs “them” mentality and Brooks and his team knew it. Brooks told his players before the game “You were born to be a player. You were meant to be here. This moment is yours.” The moment was theirs, at the twelve minute mark of the third period the game was tied 3-3. Brooks knew that his team was ready for this moment. The expectancy theory of motivation played a huge role in the final minutes of the game. Brooks’ players saw that their desired goal was in reach and all of the work they put in along the way was going to allow them to cash in on this moment. The Captain he wanted to remove from the team, Mike Eruzione would come up huge with the “shot heard around the world” and beat the Soviet goalie to take a 4-3 lead with ten minutes to play. Jim Craig stood on his head and made countless saves and Brooks was astonished when his team was in better condition than the Soviets. As time ticked off Al Michaels shouted “Do you believe in miracles…Yes!” and the horn sounded. The US had done the improbable and knocked off the Soviets. Brooks and his boys would make all of their work pay off as they defeated Finland 4-2 in the gold medal game and captured the title on home ice. The “Miracle on Ice” is the term most fondly used for Brooks and his team at the 1980 Olympic Games.

Herb Brooks would become the first American head coach of the New York Rangers in 1981 and had coaching stints with the Minnesota North Stars, New Jersey Devils and the Pittsburgh Penguins. Brooks would take the St. Cloud State University hockey program from Division III to Division I from 1985-87, which was solely for the purpose of getting more Minnesota kids the opportunity to play Division I hockey. St. Cloud State is now a NCAA Division I powerhouse. He also would coach team France in the 1998 Olympic Games and team

...