Super Bowl LVII is over and it’s time for spring sports to take over.

You know the winner of the big game now. I’m rooting for the Chiefs as I write this (Saturday morning) but can’t be too confident. They are the underdog - albeit by just a few points.

The deeper the underdog the less likely a team is to win. But, there are some benefits. Underdogs have a nice freedom. Expectations are lower than that of the other team and they are supposed to fail.

I’m not a sports psychologist but I like the underdog’s freedom. You shouldn’t try to be the underdog but it’s a great way to think about a game. Failure was the topic in last week’s E-Impact 139. This is another way to look at it.

My Best Team

One of the best teams I was ever a part of was a middle school-aged baseball team. I remember the team coming together rather unexpectedly. We formed with some local boys that wanted to play in the summer when our league’s season was over.

At that age, we didn’t have baseball teams at school and everyone in the neighborhood grew up playing Little League together. There’s a bit of a gap in the middle school ages after that and before high school baseball. Unknown teams could come together quickly when groups of players’ other seasons were over and looking for more ball to play or just something to do during the summer.

I may not even have been at our first practice as we were getting things organized but it was easy to settle in. We started a little slow but picked up momentum as the summer went on.

Expectations

We didn’t expect to be playing for the whole summer but found ourselves getting better as the weeks went by. The more we worked together the better we meshed and the better our coaches understood how to deploy us. However, we were still an unknown group. Other coaches and teams didn’t have a lot of respect.

We were in an interesting position because we felt like we were a talented team but we were underdogs to everyone else. We embraced the role but had a quiet confidence that wasn’t recognized. It always seemed like someone came up with a big play when we needed it. There were no “stars” that carried the group.

The Worst Vacation

We started to get excited about traveling farther away from home to play more advanced games. Florida is a long state and we had to drive pretty far north (from the Ft. Lauderdale area) to keep competing in the state tournament.

August was quickly approaching. My family had planned a week-long vacation in Orlando (and Disney World) months before. There was no expectation to still be playing baseball at this point. We would have a nice family trip (just me, mom, and dad) shortly before the next school year started.

My parents decided that we should still go on the vacation and I would miss some baseball games. I was a kid and excited to go to theme parks but bummed I’d have to miss the games and the team. We kept close tabs on what the boys were doing.

It was killing me to be floating along on the “The Carousel of Progress” when I could have been sprinting the bases on a baseball diamond in central Florida. Little did I know that the team would be leaving Florida while were gone.

Yes, they won every game while I was gone (what does this say about me as a player?). They were deeper underdogs without me and played even better. I was legitimately happy for the boys even though I wished I could have gone to Texas with them. It was a tough vacation.

Coming Home

The trip to Orlando ended and so did my baseball team’s season within a couple days of each other. Once home, I connected with my friends from the team. They filled me in on the trip and how they missed me (I think). I told them it was strange walking through Disney and wishing I was somewhere else. None of us really wanted to be in school at that point.

It was most interesting about how my teammates explained that when they realized there was a chance to travel to another state they felt an extra freedom. I can’t be sure they explained it exactly like that but they said they had no expectations when the team was forming to ever have a chance to play that deep into the tournament. In fact, they didn’t even know there was a tournament. They just kept playing and weren’t afraid of failing.

Freedom

What if we could “play” with the fearlessness of a kid’s baseball team?

There is something to be said of acting without worry. There are so many things we worry about in life that certain things are inhibited.

These are a few things that come to mind:

• safety of our home

• our image on the internet

• safety on the road

• money

• relationships

• job

• what our loved ones think of us

• what our boss thinks of us

• health

• health of family and friends

There are others for all of us and I’m not saying we should try to completely eliminate worry in our lives. It’s a necessary emotion for managing life. However, there are ways to limit its effect on our performance.

Just Play

The players on my baseball team loved playing the sport and collaborating with their friends. I think we should do more of this as adults.

I am guilty as anyone of working from home, by myself and focusing on what I have to do for eight hours a day. I also know plenty of people who have jobs with specific individual responsibilities. They’re missing the collaboration too.

When you work alone you have all the pressure and no joint work factor. I am a firm believer that the whole is greater than the sum of the parts. Knowing you have other people on your side allows you to “just play”.

A pitcher throws pitches over the plate knowing they could be hit but they also know there are seven other players behind them to field the ball. They say teamwork makes the dream work. It also allows you to perform without all the pressure.

Underdog, Over Deliver

It happens every year and I’ve had enough of the Super Bowl pregame analysis. You know I love football (see E-Impact 119 and many others) but we are two weeks into talking about it. It’s time to “just play” and at this point, I am sure the players feel the same.

If you follow the sport like I do, or even if you’re a bit more casual about it, you’ve probably heard how the Eagles roster is more talented than the Chiefs. This is why they are the favorite.

If you go man for man, you’d say the Eagles have better players. You can’t do that, though. There is too much nuance in this sport. Rosters are huge. There are multiple phases to the game and different matchups inside the game will have had different weights on what happens. Also, the coaching battle also had an effect. And speaking of coaching, I am sure Andy Reid (the Chiefs head coach) and Nick Sirianni (the Eagles head coach) told their players to “just play”.

I think many professional athletes have a special ability to play with the freedom of an underdog regardless of their published status. The fact is that the game (whatever happened by the time you read this) could have been won by either team.

The Chiefs were not intimidated and were capable of winning the game because despite having a man-for-man less talented roster, that’s not how you measure their potential. Underdogs are capable of overdelivering because the factor of their player’s abilities is much more than the sum.

The Underdog’s Impact

The Impactmaker Movement is all about having the underdog’s mindset and creating an incredibly strong collaboration factor. We all have a special mix of gifts and skills to help. We can’t go it alone! There are too many naysayers and forces for us to tackle the world’s issues without leaning on each others’ special skillset.

We can’t be innovative changemakers if we don’t “just play”. There is something to be said for taking calculated risks to be radically generous.

Encouragement

It’s easier to act freely when you have the support of other people. I must encourage you to be a team player and a recruiter. Perhaps the unsung underdogs of both the Chiefs and the Eagles are the general managers.

Brett Veach (Chiefs) and Howie Roseman (Eagles) have each done an exceptional job of assembling a Super Bowl caliber team. You must be an exceptional general manager in your own right.

Great for-profit and non-profit organizations create a great environment for collaboration. It’s meaningful, intentional, enjoyable, and most importantly, generous.

Build a team with unique skill sets (that will multiply together, not add) and encourage the “players” to be free. Allow them to try new things and fail. They’ll feel like they have a critical role in the mission without the pressure and the support of those around them.

Winning

The underdog in sports doesn’t usually win. I can’t argue against the facts.

It’s different in the impact world. There are a lot of underdogs in the world but they can all win with the help of others. Technology allows us the ability to change things faster than ever before.

We can take the advantage of “favorites” to the biggest “underdogs” in the world.

Then, we all win.

This is impact.