Pictures of teams and seasons fade like ancient tintypes in our grandparents' attic. Yet just as we learn from Civil War battles and the generals who fought them, we learn from sports encounters past and present.
 
In 1970, two of today's coaching sages were having an on-the-field reunion. Lou Holtz was traveling his William & Mary team from beautiful Williamsburg, Virginia up to Morgantown to play the heavily favored Mountaineers coached by his friend Bobby Bowden. Filled with anticipation, Holtz who had grown up in nearby Liverpool, Ohio had invited his friends and family. He got tickets for everyone he knew; grandparents, aunts, uncles and friends came from everywhere to see the fledgling coach.
 
Holtz must have been thrilled to see them all there when his new team took the field. The glow didn't last long. Though Holtz felt his William & Mary team was much improved, he accepted the potential to be embarrassed by Bowden's West Virginia team which outmanned Holtz with size and speed.  Even when West Virginia with two NFL prospect running backs scored on their first possession, Holtz was confident his friend wouldn't pour it on or let the game get out of hand. Holtz remembers, "Bobby was a close friend...I knew he had too much class to leave his starters in and run it up on us."
 
Holtz's team played its heart out, and with about a minute left on the clock, William & Mary trailed respectably 34-7. Then one of the Mountaineers' big backs scored on a breakaway, making the final 41-7. Holtz was humbled in front of his followers. After the game he met Bobby Bowden at midfield. Piqued his friend had run up the score Holtz asked, "Bobby, I thought we were friends. How could you leave your starters in and keep piling up points in front of my family and friends?"
 
In Bowden's calm, Southern cache he offered Holtz a classic response: "Lou, it's your job to keep the score down, not mine. You can only coach one football team at a time, and that's yours. You can't coach mine. If you don't want to get beat badly, get better athletes, coach better, or change the schedule." It was a harsh reality for Holtz, though later put into context in his rolodex of motivational memoirs. Simply put says Doctor Lou, "If you have a problem, it's YOUR problem. Solve it. Ninety percent of the people you meet don't care about your problems, and the other ten percent are glad you have them."
 
Business leadership is a lot like coaching: instant gratification, and the old "what-have-you-done-for-me-this-season" syndrome. Today, wins seem agonizingly farther apart and their relative sweetness diminished by the climate we're working in; a world looking for a problem today, tomorrow, next week. 
 
So as you're trying to make sense out of a disappointment and feeling tempted to play the "If it weren't for _____" game, picture Lou Holtz meeting Bobby Bowden on a forgotten field nearly forty Autumns ago. You can only coach one team, and that's yours.