Knowing When To Quit

In the past month, two elite, national championship-winning college coaches have been forced to step down due to health reasons. In December, University of Florida football coach Urban Meyer announced he was going to quit citing health concerns and that he wanted to re-prioritize his faith and family, only to change his mind a day later and term his stepping down as only a temporary leave of absence. Last week, University of Connecticut basketball coach Jim Calhoun, a three-time survivor of cancer, announced that he too would be stepping down due to health concerns, but with the understanding that his hiatus would only be temporary.

Both men's decisions have been scrutinized and dissected by a number of sportswriters, with SI.com writer Seth Davis writing an editorial essentially begging Calhoun to retire because "the sideline is no place for a good man to die", while recognizing that the hyper-competitive nature of Calhoun and other sports coaches is a large impediment in walking away, even when it's painfully obvious that this is the right and logical decision. Or as Davis writes:

But the reason coaches have so many health issues isn't because the job itself is so stressful. It's because it attracts a certain type of animal who is so intensely driven that he puts his desire to vanquish his foes ahead of more important things like family and health. The only thing more common than coaches getting sick is coaches getting divorced. It's hard to be an attentive dad and husband when you're constantly on the road, watching game tape and fretting about getting fired. Coaching is the perfect vocation for the hypercompetitive man.

Urban Meyer's decision is just as mind-boggling. Did he simply decide to override his doctor's advice and rationalize away legitimate medical concerns that he would he would suffer a cardiac episode because his lifestyle was slowly but surely killing him? How about his professed desire to put "faith and family" first? Did he rationalize that, "Hey, I don't need to choose. I just need to tweak things here and there." Or as the parody sportsnews site SportsPickle observed, maybe Urban Meyer realized that his family is incredibly annoying.

For the pundits and fans that are saluting Calhoun and Meyer's decisions as somehow a triumph of honor and perseverance by "courageously" fighting through their ailments to lead their teams to victory, I'm wondering if too much credit is being given. Isn't it possible that both coaches are addicts unable to walk away from the thrill of the battle, and have essentially made the decision to (continue to) sacrifice their health and possibly their families to do so? That doesn't strike me as courageous at all. And if Calhoun or Meyer go the way of former Wake Forest coach and heart-attack victim Skip Prosser, there will be plenty of blame to go around, from Athletic Directors, friends and family members, who didn't do more to save these coaches from their own bad decisions.

I think there's a lesson in this for "average Joes" like me. When it comes to my career, who am I doing this for? The pressure of corporate America might not be nearly as magnified as it is in Division I sports, but the pressure to perform and the desire to succeed is still real. Advancing up the career ladder brings perks and failure brings hardship. People in the workforce who are parents can easily hide behind their family as they pursue their own career ambitions. "I'm working crazy hours so my family and my kids can enjoy a life that I never had," might be the refrain. But when that very job is either taking you away from your family, either by the deterioration of health or by make you and absentee parent, maybe true motives are being revealed.

I remember being at a parenting conference where the speaker shared how a father made a decision to ask for a demotion in order to spend more time with his family, an act which completely floored his boss, who had never seen such an act in his long career. The man who made that decision to step down in the career ladder many years later looked back at his decision with no regrets, stating, "My children have never once lamented how we couldn't afford fancy vacations, a bigger house or other things. What I do hear constantly from them is how glad they were that I was around while they grew up."

That's something for us to think about as we ask ourself the questions of "What comes first in our lives?" and "Do our decisions and investments in our time reflect that?"