Ollie the Outsider - 2b

Ollie has just joined your team this year and he is a good fielder at first base and terrific at bat. Early in the pre-season practices, however, you notice that the other players don't let him connect with them -- in fact, they seem to avoid him. When he makes a good defensive play or gets a hit, there are very few if any high fives.

It's time to do a Jessica Fletcher investigation. Who shall I talk to? Let's try Coach Ames. So you ask, “Say, Joe, what's with the guys' attitudes toward Ollie? Do you have a clue?”

“Well, Coach, Ollie's family just moved into the Maple Crest Apartments and he attends Madison School.” Oh, oh, Ollie lives on the East side of town in the government housing and attends that at-risk school in the neighborhood. He doesn't belong with the middle-class Falcons. I can see the signs now -- Ollie's shoes are too big for him, obviously hand-me-downs or purchased at the Goodwill Store, and his accent shows that “He's not from around here.”

What to do:

What to do is easy -- how to do it may be more difficult. If this were a fiction story, Ollie would have hit a home run in the bottom of the seventh to beat the Broncos and win the league championship. The players would carry him off the field without caring where he lives or what he wears or where he goes to school or how he talks.

You have held sessions on the Players' Rights and Responsibilities but something didn't take. O.K., it's time to call a special meeting -- right now.

It's better at this time to be general in your message -- you can get specific in individual cases if necessary. “Guys, we need to review one of your rights and responsibilities on this team. The fourth from the bottom says,

“The right to be a member of the team"

and the corresponding responsibility is:

“The responsibility to be a reliable, trust-worthy team member."

“This means that each and every one of you is a rightful, qualified member of this team -- you all belong here and there are no exceptions. Coach Long, Coach Ames, and I have no pets or favorites and we have nobody who is being treated as being less of a person than anyone else. This means that no one is treated poorly because he or she is a different color, comes from a different neighborhood, talks differently, dresses differently, or any other kind of comparison that you might want to make.

“I know that you may be tired of the Wolf and the Pack idea but you're going to hear it all season long. This team is a Pack and each of you is a Wolf who belongs to the Pack. Every person on this team is equal in our eyes, all our eyes -- not just the coaches.

“I want you to keep this message in your head -- Everyone belongs on this team simply because he or she is a member of this team. There is no other requirement -- and you're going to treat everyone on this team as your teammate."

There are no personal attributes that can or should keep us from building strong, caring individuals and a strong team that nurtures each of its players at the same level.

Ollie's Case -- Community/Belonging