Brian Johnson watches his son win at chess, then sees Toronto FC's goalie make a last-second mistake that costs them the match. Coach John Herdman's response is immediate: he supports the shaken player instead of blaming him. Johnson calls it heroically compassionate leadership.
Chapters
Hi, this is Brian. Welcome back to another heroic plus one. I'm typing this from a bathroom in a hotel in Dallas. It's 7:21am Emerson is still asleep in the king size bed we shared last night. I'm his wingman for the boys only chess tournament weekend, and making sure he gets a great night of sleep before his Sunday games is my number one job right now. So here I am. Now he's 3. 0 so far in the tournament. Those three wins have come in the form of one win against a kid whose rating was a couple hundred points lower than his, and a couple learning wins via a couple of kids whose ratings were a couple hundred points higher than his. It's been another awesome weekend. I love my boy and I love these trips. Now, he played three games yesterday. One at 9am, one at 2pm and one at 7pm the first two took three hours each. The last one only took an hour. On our way to the 7pm game, we were watching the Toronto FC Major League Soccer game, cheering on. My friend John Herdman and his team has become a tradition for us. We basically watched every game this year when I've been in town. Now, Emerson's game last night was so short that he got back in time to watch some of the second half. His favorite player, Federico Bernadeschi, scored an awesome goal and the score was 1:1. With only seconds in the extra time of the second half, the Toronto FC goalie played a great game and made a nice save on what should have been the last shot. Then, not knowing one of the players on the other team was very cleverly sneaking around behind him. He dropped the ball and got ready to kick it and my heart breaks and I get goosebumps saying this. The other player was able to rush in, get the ball and score a goal. Everything happened so fast that at first Emerson and I didn't know what happened. He was truly a crazy play and unlikely to ever happen in Major League Soccer again. Now, if I was rooting for Atlanta fc, I would have been thrilled, but I wasn't. So I felt the pain of the team and especially the pain of the goalie. Then right after the final whistle, the camera crew cuts to the Toronto FC goalie. He's visibly shaken. You can tell he's just so bummed that he let his team down then. And I got tears in my eyes typing this. You see John Herdman rushing up to put his arm around him and assure him he's got his back. The announcer says something like, I really like that move by John Herdman. Then you see all the other Toronto FC players offering the same great support. It was a really powerful scene, and again, I got tears in my eyes. I reread this as I was proofreading it, feeling into the palpable love and embodiment of the team's commitment to one of their core pillars, the brotherhood. Now, of course, I used all of this as a teaching moment for Emerson me, hey buddy, one day you're going to be a leader. Actually, you already are. Emerson was looking at me intently. Then I said, you know what? When something like that happens with the team you're leading, what will you do? Nemerson says, I'll do what John did. I said, exactly. And the certainty with which he made that declaration that he do what John did gives me goosebumps when I typed it right now. And that's today's plus one. When someone on your team does their best and makes a mistake, what will you do? I'll strive to remember what John did and embody his heroically compassionate leadership. Let's do that today. Little P.S. when I googled the game the following morning, I found a little video of the play I described. The Atlanta FCX post had one word preceding the video. They said legendary. All caps. You can check out the video I linked to it in the plus one. Now, I saw that and thought to myself, no. How John and his team responded to the mistake by one of their brothers. They now that was legendary. You want to see that video? Check that out too. Now I texted that to John, that video, the second after I filmed it, letting him know how much I admired his legendary leadership.
