Ruminations-The Travis and Andy “Shove”

Some Thoughts about the "Shove" between Travis Kelce and Coach Andy Reid.

"He caught me off balance. I wasn't watching. He was really coming over [and saying], 'Just put me in, I'll score. I'll score. So, that's really what it was. I love that. It's not the first time. I appreciate him. The part I love is he loves to play the game, and he wants to help his team win. It's not a selfish thing, that's not what it is, and I understand that. And so as much as, you know, he bumps into me, I get after him. And we understand that. He just caught me off balance." Andy Reid, about the “Bump”

Unless you have been hibernating or have turned off all devices in your possession, you will have seen the “shove” played repeatedly the last few days. Many in the media have made hay out of it. As seen above, Andy Reid laughed it off and Travis Kelce said after the Super Bowl:

”I got the greatest coach this game has ever seen. He's unbelievable at not only dialing up plays and having everybody prepared, but he's one of the best leaders of men I've ever seen in my life. He's helped me a lot with that, with channeling that emotion, with channeling that passion and I owe my entire career to that guy and being able to kind of control how emotional I get. I just love him, man."

Patrick Mahomes commented:

"That moment right there, that speaks to what kind of team we are, we all love it. Everybody loves the game; everybody wants to compete. Coach Reid wants to compete as well, you watch out or you might get a little bit too. That's the mentality we've always had and that's how we can win this kind of game."

Were the Chiefs doing a bit of damage control? Were they genuine in their statements, especially as they won the game in amazing fashion? How can we tell? How can we determine whether they are saying what they are feeling?

I don’t know. I want to believe that everything is honky dory with the Chiefs, I want to believe that this is all genuine. Just watching snippets of an overly produced event does not represent all that happened. Indeed, watching the interaction is a very small sample of what the Kelce and Reid relationship.

Some pertinent facts:

·       Travis Kelce. 34 years old. 11-years pro, all with the Kansas City Chiefs.

·       Andy Reid, 65 years old. Coaching 42 year. 11 years with the Kansas City Chiefs.

·       Kelce has only known one head coach as a professional player.

·       Reid probably drafted Kelce when he first arrived in Kansas City.

The two have had an 11-year relationship as coach and player. 11 years of practices, meetings, personal moments on and off the field. The relationship has accumulated many salient moments that has probably been transformed into a friendship; there have been 11 years of deposits and withdrawals in their emotional bank accounts. I would say that they know each other well, especially since Kelce is a large part of the team’s offense, which is Reid’s department.

When the “shove” was first shown on the screen, the response from the social media was immediate and scathing. To be fair, I was also shocked by what happened. It was unprofessional and it gave the opposition the kind of boost they needed: the Chiefs were panicking; this could be a meltdown and the beginning of an ignominious end. During one of the million replays of the “shove” I managed to look past the physical act and saw Reid’s demeanor: first shock and then, nothing. I then thought about the context and the history of the two men involved. Reid’s response started to make sense. I was swimming in thoughts by halftime.

My friends, both the coaching and non-coaching kinds were vociferous and vehement in their condemnation of the “shove”. As they should be. But then I started to think of the context.

This was the biggest stage in North America for sports: the Super Bowl. The pressure on everyone on the field is immense. I would suspect that if I were in that position at that place, at that moment, I would succumb to the pressure and behave emotionally. I have done egregious things under less pressure filled situations. I am not proud of it, and I have been called out about it. The saving grace had always been that my apologies were accepted, and I was told that I was forgiven. So, imagine being in that context and your mind is racing with all that you think you need to do to succeed and nothing is working, the probability of an emotional outburst is quite high, I don’t care who you are. Some will say that they would not have lost their composure under the same circumstances, tell me that after you have been featured in a Super Bowl game.

Some of my coaching friends lambasted Kelce and extrapolated his actions to their own context, stating that they would not respond as Reid did, that Reid’s reaction was just one more sign of the impending doom for sports. Hey Sparky, you’re not being paid millions to coach other millionaires in the biggest event in North American sports, you have no idea what it is like to be in Reid’s shoes, which may come as a shock to all the Monday morning quarterbacks who have jumped to conclusions about the “shove” and the kind of punishment that should befall Kelce.

Once again, going to the context. Coaching experiences in high school, club, or even college cannot be scaled proportionally to the professional level. This was a 65-year-old man dealing with a 34-year-old man, with an 11-year relationship. Club coaches have a one-year relationship with their players, and if they are lucky, one or two years beyond that. High school and college coaches may have a 4-year relationship with a player, maybe a few years beyond that; the relationships takes place when the player is a pubescent teen in high school or from a pubescent teen to someone who is hopefully ready to be an adult but is still wobbly and learning in college. Not the same as an 11-year relationship as professionals. Youth and college coaches’ relationships with their players are also framed differently. Their relationship is that of teacher-pupil, not of accomplished professionals who are closer to being equal within their team context.

I know that I would not respond kindly to a pimply faced 16-year-old shoving me unless I had very specific knowledge about that person’s emotional and behavioral status. That is not the case here.

Given the difference in age, I am sure there is more than a little father-son, mentor-mentee relationship between Kelce and Reid but I think that has evolved over the 11-years. I hope that Kelce has grown significantly in those 11 years, and I hope that Reid has watched and appreciated that growth. More importantly, I hope that Reid has adjusted his perception of Kelce as he evolved through those 11 years.

Even with all that, I was both surprised and appreciated Reid’s non-response. We are often prompted and reminded by many around us to forgive those who trespass against us, yet for many people, their first reaction is not only to not forgive but to castigate. What does that make them? In addition, if Reid can forgive him, the person who was shoved, who are we to not forgive him?

I have always had a large dose of respect for Andy Reid, much of it is due to our similar form factor, if you can call it a form; but the way Reid handled himself and the way he was able to realize the situation for what it is quickly and draw upon his relationship with Kelce and respond in a way that was appropriate made me appreciate him even more. It is one of those lessons that I hold to be a model for behavior between emotionally mature humans and something to aspire to as a coach, even while dealing with the vagaries of teenagers and their hormones. It is something that I have failed at before but hope to be better at.