He would like to be remembered for more than “getting after Tom Brady a couple of times.”

Those were the words uttered by New York Giants All-Pro defensive end Justin Tuck when he was honored a few months ago for his on-field performance and off-field philanthropy. He received the John V. Mara Sportsman of the Year Award at the 76th annual CYO Club of Champions Dinner in New York City.

Tuck and his wife, Lauran, are committed to improving the reading habits of children. His RUSH (Read, Understand, Succeed and Hope) to Literacy initiative is focused on raising funds to donate books and other materials to schools and communities throughout the New York metropolitan area and in his home state of Alabama. Tuck also recently published a children’s book – Home Field Advantage.

“It’s something that me and my wife are very passionate about, education and reading,” said Tuck at the CYO dinner. “And we want to leave a legacy for…our kids. And I think that book is going to go a long way to doing that.”

All athletes who shine in the spotlight should also consider their off-field legacies. Their careers provide them with unique opportunities to help others, and their contributions will deliver a lifetime of rewards.

In this instance, Justin Tuck is more than a champion football player. He is a star to many of the children he will help with his RUSH to Literacy program.

Jim

A couple of months ago, Meghan Vogel won a state title. Few people, though, consider it her greatest sports achievement. She did something else that same day that captured headlines and the accolades from coaches, parents and other participating student athletes.

The West Liberty-Salem High junior participated in the Ohio Division III track and field state meet. During the competition for the 3,200-meter final, Meghan stopped running. She decided to help another runner who had collapsed 20 feet from the finish line.

Meghan already had captured the state 1,600-meter title when she came upon Arlington High sophomore Arden McMath during the 3,200-meter race. Both runners were out of contention for medals in this event. Rather than just finish the race, Meghan decided to help Arden reach the finish line.

With each step they took together, the cheering crowd at Ohio State’s Jesse Owens Stadium seemed to get louder and louder. Arden crossed the finish line in front of Meghan. It was Meghan’s idea as Arden had been ahead when she collapsed.

“Helping her across the finish line was a lot more satisfying than winning the state championship,” Meghan later told a local newspaper reporter.

According to regulations, both runners should have been disqualified. But, with the spirit of Meghan’s actions before them, Ohio officials decided not to disqualify the runners. The final standings credited Arden with finishing in 14th place and Meghan right behind her in 15th place.

Every day, we witness outstanding competition on the sports field, in school, in business and in politics. Sometimes, though, people become overwhelmed and blinded by the emotion of competition or by the adrenalin to win at any cost. Yes, we might win the prize. But, at the same moment, we can loose a valuable part of our inner being.

Meghan’s support of another athlete so close to the finish line of the race was refreshing. No doubt she is competitive. But, at such a young age, Meghan already has found the true meaning of sportsmanship and she has taught all of us a lot about compassion.

Jim

Coach Bruce Weber had a simple message for the Illinois fan base that helped run him out of Champaign earlier this year. He was fired one day after Illinois was eliminated from the Big Ten tournament, causing the team to miss the NCAA basketball tournament for the third time during the past five seasons.

His message: “Thank you.”

Coach Weber has since been hired as head coach at Kansas State. But before he started his new job, he delivered a personal message to Illinois fans in a full-page advertisement in a Sunday edition of the Champaign News Gazette.

The ad featured the Illinois and Kansas State logos separated by a basketball. It also included his heartfelt words: “Thanks to everyone in the Illini Nation for a memorable nine years. GO ILLINI & GO CATS! Coach Bruce Weber.”

This advertisement showcases the character of Coach Weber. Not many coaches would have used personal finances to run this kind of ad after leaving a program on good terms. Coach Weber did it less than a month after he was fired.

During a long career in business, it is possible that a person will be embarrassed, disciplined, or even fired for a mistake, for failure to deliver results, or for poor judgment. Sometimes a person will be wrongly selected as a scapegoat.

While we can’t influence everything that occurs around us, we certainly can control our responses to negative news. In the case of Coach Weber, whether his firing was fair or not, he decided that his reaction would focus on the positive.

Should you find yourself in a similar situation, remember to thank the people who helped you along the way along with those who befriended you. Consider all that you learned, both the good and the bad. Find ways to land on your feet and showcase your new success, proving to those you left behind that they might have been wrong about you.

Most of all, be true to yourself. If you were wrong, learn from the mistakes. If not, be confident that you had it right all along and bring this spirit to your next opportunity.

Jim

College basketball has March Madness. Baseball’s final series is the Fall Classic. The NFL has its day-long Super Bowl. Nothing in pro sports, though, matches the wildness that occurs from the end of April until early May with the NHL Stanley Cup Playoffs.

Sixteen teams qualify at the end of a rugged 82-game season. It is not uncommon for an eighth seeded team in either conference to knock out a top seed in a grueling first round seven-game series.

This year’s ice path to the cup has been one of the wildest skates in recent memory. The top team in the league was knocked out in the first round. Teams with stars such as Sidney Crosby and Patrick Sharp faltered in the first or second rounds. The game’s top referees, who called games “tight” all season long, all of a sudden decided en masse to “let them play.” This resulted in a first round filled with snarl that included many fights, illegal hits, checks that were legal but still were disciplined by the league and several highly questionable suspensions.

Through it all, fans repeatedly have been yanked from their seats by outstanding stick handling, unbelievable speed, wild shooting, surprising breakaways, incomprehensible saves by goaltenders and countless overtime periods. Each round and each series in each round have been nerve-racking and thrilling. Even popular television play-by-play announcer Mike Emrick remarked several times that only viewers who didn’t a vested team interest in a particular game could enjoy all the action while sitting comfortably in their seats.

An NHL season, from training camp to the raising of the Stanley Cup, requires a lot of heavy lifting by players, coaches, trainers and equipment managers. Their collective focus is to grab the top prize, and it is similar to what we do every day on the job with our colleagues.

We concentrate on preparation. We continue to refine our talents. We review our game plan. Each day, we are ready to face new opponents and unforeseen obstacles. Sometimes we play a starring role and at other times we provide the goal scorer with a valuable assist.

If you are prepared every day, you never will slide aimlessly on the ice. You will meet deadlines, you will win the respect of co-workers, you will obtain the confidence of clients and you will get to celebrate many rewards at center ice.

Jim

In New York, hockey always gets the short stick among sports fans and the media.  But hockey shouldn’t be dismissed simply as “that game from Canada.” Hockey is so different from the other sports—a composite of strategy, positioning, quick reactions and hard hitting at high speed—with teamwork a critical component for success.

After the 1994 Stanley Cup win, the New York Rangers enjoyed several additional successful years before collapsing as quickly as a frozen puck can shatter the glass that surrounds a rink. Then the NHL lockout season came along, forcing all teams to scramble to develop new competitive strategies under a new league salary cap.

Up to this time, the Rangers liked to sign aging stars for big bucks, only to have many of them flounder on the Madison Square Garden ice. But, just before the lockout, when Ranger management anticipated that a shutdown of the league would occur, they developed a strategy that has reaped rewards this season.

The Rangers began to concentrate more on the draft, selecting talented players with much upside from colleges and the junior leagues. They also started to mold these players at the minor league level at the AHL’s Hartford Wolf Pack (now known as the Connecticut Whale). Management and coaches instituted a team concept that had to be followed by every skater in the organization. Each group of skaters—three forwards and two defensemen—now functions as a “core unit of five.” From the first line through the fourth line, from the first defensive pair to the third pair, a skater in each core unit must support the others in the unit on offense and defense.

After the lockout, the new system became a key component of the next training camp. The “core unit of five” continues to be stressed daily with the Rangers and with its AHL affiliate.

The success of this strategy is evident on the ice. The AHL team, which has been one of the top-tier franchises in its conference for 10 years, has become even more successful during recent years. Its players easily transition into the Rangers’ on-ice style of play when they are called up to the NHL. After a long drought, the Rangers have made the playoffs during the last several years. This season, with the team clinching first place in the NHL Eastern Conference, the Rangers again are a serious contender for the coveted Stanley Cup.

The core unit philosophy instituted by the Rangers can be adapted for business. By strategically creating core units among your employees, you can empower your people to cover for each other, communicate clearly with each other and advance, or defend, the business together. Properly coached, the core units in your business, similar to those the Rangers place on the ice, will remain focused on game-day objectives and will keep the ultimate prize clearly in sight.

JCM

This was supposed to be a breakout season for the New York Knicks. But, things started slow, and the complaints against the new players and the coach became deafening after only a handful of games.

By chance, due to an injury to one player and a family issue affecting another, a player at the end of the Knicks bench was pushed into the starting lineup. Overnight, Jeremy Lin became a fan favorite and a worldwide attraction. He is a Linsation!

Raised and educated here, Lin traces his family roots to Taiwan. After starring in only a few games as the newest member of the starting lineup, the public demand skyrocketed for Jeremy Lin. He was watched around the world and Knicks games became must-see TV throughout Taiwan.

Lin became a hot topic of conversation on every sports talk radio show in New York, and his name also made the rounds on many non-sports talk programs and television newscasts around the country. Newspaper headlines continue to scream his name and he is appearing on the covers of sports and non-sports magazines. He even contributes directly to game attendance. In Toronto, which normally draws about 10,000 fans, 20,000 people filled the seats for a recent Knicks-Raptors game.

Sometimes it takes an injury (a headache forced Wally Pipp from the Yankees lineup and he was replaced, permanently, by Lou Gehrig) or some other unforeseen matter to allow another player, who is sitting quietly at the end of the bench, to jump in and contribute to a team’s success. Expectations usually are low for most replacements, but hopes always are high that less-skilled bench players will not hurt their teams.

The lesson here is that to ensure success, whether in sports or business, an organization always needs to have a strong bench with solid role players. Sometimes management may not appreciate all the capabilities of that person sitting at the end of the bench. The ability to contribute, though, should never be a surprise to the team.

While Knicks fans are astonished at what was found at the end of the team bench, Lin’s contributions were not unexpected by his coaches and teammates. They knew all along who was backing up the starting five, and that is why he already was wearing a Knicks uniform and waiting for his chance to contribute.

Do you know who is on your back-up team? My suggestion is that you shouldn’t wait for an emergency to find out if your bench players can contribute to your success.

Jim

If Yogi Berra watched Super Bowl XLVI he certainly would have stated that it was déjà vu all over again.

This month’s game was almost a replay of 2008’s Super Bowl XLII.

• Both games involved the same teams – New York Giants and New England Patriots.
• Both games had the same head coaches – Tom Coughlin for the Giants and Bill Belichick for the Patriots.
• The same player was name most valuable player for both games – Giants quarterback Eli Manning.
• Both games had the same starting quarterbacks – Manning and Tom Brady of the Patriots.
• Both games were low scoring and close until the end – Giants beat the Patriots 17-14 in Super Bowl XLII and the Giants beat the Patriots 21-17 in Super Bowl XLVI.
• The outcome of both games hinged on key plays during the last quarter.
• Both games turned quickly on outstanding catches – David Tyree’s center of the field grab during Super Bowl XLII and Mario Manningham’s sideline catch during Super Bowl XLVI.

The success these franchises enjoy on the field begins with ownership. The management style and the winning attitude begin with the leadership projected by the Mara family for the Giants and the Kraft family for the Patriots.

Their commitment to success, along with the predetermined goals, objectives and implementation of best practices, has become part of the corporate culture practiced by each franchise. The ownership of both teams constantly reinforce their respective philosophies for success and they ensure that these philosophies are weaved through the entire organizations, guiding office management, player development, the coaches, the players and even the on-field and locker room support staffs.

As with any business, some of the players may change each year and even some of the tactics might need to be altered to address emerging market conditions. But the game plan for success always remains constant, and it always begins with ownership.

Jim

He has to adjust his footwork. He needs to work on his passing. He is too heavy. His body is too thick. These are just some of criticisms, without even making a reference to his on-field praying, that were heard about and by Tim Tebow during the football season.

As a former athlete, I can understand all the questions and doubts that Tebow has faced during his first season in the NFL. Opinions and advice have come at him from every possible direction. So has the in-your-face media attention at such an early age, which is something I am glad that I did not have to face while concentrating on my game during college.

After leaving the lacrosse field and starting my career in the insurance field 30 years ago, I received a lot of valuable advice and countless suggestions from many people. I wrapped all of this into a neat package tied together with solid experience. Before venturing off to start my own firm, I made sure that I had built a strong foundation of knowledge, contacts and experts beneath my feet to give my business the chance at survival during the trying start-up years.

I did not focus on just one part of the insurance business. My game plan was diversification into personal, commercial and health insurance. As with any athlete, when one area of my game required a bit more coaching or practice, another strength in my arsenal continued to carry me down field to score the early points needed to build a winning business.

Tebow’s strength is his diversity. He is a fullback, a halfback and a quarterback all in one. He can throw, he can run and he is difficult to bring down. He can take a hit. To avoid a serious injury, he knows how to hit the ground. Understanding how to take the hit and how to fall in sports and business is as important as planning the game-day winning strategy. Whenever you are knocked off balance or whenever you fall — and you will fall — proper preparation will lift you for the next challenge.

Tebow has tasted success early during his brief football life. He won the Heisman Trophy during his sophomore year at Florida. After a 1-4 won-loss record this season for the Denver Broncos, he became the starting quarterback and helped put the team in the playoffs. As part of his experience, he now has a playoff game victory and a defeat in his arsenal. Both will prepare him for his next challenge.

Tebow already has gathered many fans and followers. He has garnered much attention in the regular media, along with the social media, for his play and his prayer. His name even has become part of the lexicon – “tebowing” quickly became the definition for a person bending on one knee in prayer.

He came to the NFL with a solid athletic and personal foundation that he attributes to his faith. He will continue to refine his football talents during these next several years. While criticized by some and mimicked by others for publically portraying his faith in God, he has used this to his advantage to build upon his successes and quickly recover from any failures.

My prediction is that people will be “tebowing” again as soon as he gets back on the field for his first pre-season game for the 2012-2013 season. I can’t wait to see what comes next.

Jim

I graduated from Half Hollow Hills High School East in Dix Hills during 1977. My only thoughts at that time probably were about playing lacrosse in college, having the grades and talent to receive a scholarship, and yes, girls. It was the simple life of a teenager on Long Island!

I returned to Half Hollow Hills a few months ago. Older, wiser and now able to share my success with today’s local teens, I was honored to present the inaugural James C. Metzger Outstanding Player Award.

The first recipient, Matt Graziano, is exceptional. Matt is a six-foot-three-inch midfielder from Melville who now will play lacrosse at SUNY Albany. At Half Hallow Hills, he competed in lacrosse, soccer and basketball.

Matt played varsity lacrosse for three years. As a junior and senior he ran first midfield. During his senior season, he was team captain and scored 39 points, including 16 assists that tied him for second highest on the team. Considered by his coach to be a “human clearing machine,” once he had the ball on a clear he often would run out of the defensive end or make the critical pass to the open player up field.

Matt is the perfect recipient for this first award. In many ways, he reminds me of myself on the lacrosse field at that age — a workhorse during games to succeed offensively when matched against excellent opposing players. Matt has the athletic ability to excel at the Division I level at Albany. To grasp the next rung, he must apply himself and push himself.

The school’s coaches, especially lacrosse Varsity Head Coach Gordon Hodgson, have been outstanding when communicating to players and parents about the benefits of playing high school athletics. They explain to them that hard work and dedication is required to be successful on and off the field.

Much of my success in business is attributable to the lessons I learned on the sports field. In recent years, I’ve been able to give back to the college where I was an All-American lacrosse player by establishing programs that support Hofstra University students and student athletes. Now, I am grateful that I can do the same at my former high school.

The opportunity at Half Hollow Hills to support my school, my sport and Long Island teen athletes was made possible by school trustee Eric Geringswald, the administration, the coaches and the parents. It is good to be back in the game, especially where it all started for me.

Jim

I hadn’t seen Tom Rotanz for more than 30 years. We used to glare at each other through the cages on our lacrosse helmets as we faced off against each other in high school and then in college.

Tom was an All-American player at Ward Melville High School in Setauket. His team was 1976 Long Island Champions and 1977 New York State runners-up. He also played at Suffolk County Community College and then Adelphi University. He was an All-American defenseman during his entire college career.

When I played against Tom, the competition always was fierce. But we always had respect and admiration for each other on and off the field. That combination of fierce competition along with the respect and admiration for a player on the other team lasts a lifetime and carries over to other aspects of life long after we leave the field.

Even though Long Island isn’t that huge, in all these years our paths did not cross. We travelled in different circles – Tom became a fabulous teacher and lacrosse coach while I concentrated on growing The Whitmore Group.

That changed a few years ago, when I attended my nephew’s high school lacrosse game. Tom was scouting my nephew’s team.

After renewing our friendship and reliving some of our head-to-head battles from the field, I learned more about Tom’s passion for coaching young lacrosse players. He learned about my business success and my continued interest to help today’s high school and college athletes. Now, through a new training product – The Power Shaft™ – that he designed, we finally have the opportunity to play on the same team.

The Power Shaft (www.ThePowerShaft.com) allows lacrosse players to train and perfect their game any time of the day and any time of the year in the yard, in the park, or on the practice field. With my connections on the marketing side, more of you soon will learn about this product and how it will help your budding athletes improve their game.

There is a time for everything. This, I strongly believe, was the time for Tom and me to reconnect. Finally, after 30 years, we are wearing the same jersey, and it is today’s young lacrosse players who will have opportunities that we never had or never thought were possible.