Tuesday, December 16, 2008

"You Keep Your Head High"

My first blog entry. Here we go. I'll never forget the day. Just over 15 months ago, my beloved Michigan Wolverines football team saw its preseason #4 ranking tumble to an 0-2 start including a loss to Appalachian State, and then a blowout loss at home to Oregon. Our legendary football coach Lloyd Carr took the podium after the game, ready to address a media that was ready to take his head off. During the postgame press conference, he was asked how he wanted to respond to a local Ann Arbor elementary school boy's concern for the old coach. Ever since he responded, I realize that football is just a game, but its lessons transcend the game.

"Not a loss to Appalachian State, not a loss to Oregon, not a hundred losses, and certainly not the loss of my job... nothing can keep me down. You're going to lose hundreds of times in life, but you keep your head high. If you work hard everyday, and do the things you are supposed to do, you have nothing to be ashamed of." (the quote is as accurate as I remember it)

Those words inspired me to the point where I promised to ace my next medical school exam, and I did. They showed me the meaning of leadership, too. Here was a man in his 60s that had won everything you can in his trade, yet the moment he slipped people were ready to pounce. He could have been unsure of himself or lost confidence. No. He rose up and brought people together and gave us all confidence in ourselves, even us dorky 25 year old sports junkies with nothing better to do on a Saturday night than to watch postgame press conferences online.

Coach Carr has always been a transcendant figure in my mind. Sure he knows football, but what he really gets is life. And while I believed that, I found out firsthand yesterday. Raza Zaidi and I made a spontaneous visit to Weidenbach Hall after a nice Ahmos lunch... next thing we knew, we were knocking on Coach Carr's door. His secretary stopped us and asked if we needed any assistance? As we nervously muttered our desire to say hi to the old coach, his door opened.

What followed were 5-10 of the most enjoyable minutes Raza or I have have ever had. The interesting part... we weren't the fawning fans asking him questions. He was genuinely curious about our lives... our school background, our career interests, our stories. And to be sure, he shared a couple of his own. i.e. who knew that his first coaching job was a one-year stint in 1968 at a Catholic League school that no longer exists? Raza and I do. We expressed our gratitude and on we went. But before he left, he commanded with that all-too familiar press conference voice: "Gentlemen, be great doctors."

What a man. What a teacher. What an inspiration. What a coach. I hope we all find meaning in what we do, so that we may also have passion for it... and that passion may be transmitted down generations... the way it just came from a 60+ retired coach to two aspiring physicians.

Go Blue. Salaam,
Baba