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139. How to Respond When You Get Cut: Resilience and Dreaming New Dreams
2 Plays1 month ago
In episode #139 of the Especially for Athletes Podcast, we tackle a tough moment many athletes face, the heartbreak of being cut from a team. Whether you’ve just experienced this setback or are coaching athletes who have, this episode is for you. We explore how to respond with resilience, work ethic, and perseverance, using the stories of remarkable athletes like Doug Meechum, Elsie Murphy, and Jeff Griffin.
Key Takeaways:
- Respond with Work – Doug Meechum shares his story of being cut from his high school team, but instead of giving up, he went to work, got feedback, and returned the next year to earn a spot. As he puts it, “Go to work and make it so they can’t cut you next year.” Resilience is about turning setbacks into motivation and putting in the effort to prove yourself.
- Dream a New Dream – When Elsie Murphy faced rejection for four years in a row, she didn’t let it define her. Instead, she shifted her focus to become an equipment manager, earning a scholarship and a career in athletics. Similarly, Jeff Griffin, after a life-changing injury, redirected his focus and became a Paralympian. When one dream ends, you can always create a new one and continue to apply your work ethic to something else meaningful.
- Failure is Not Final – As Michael Jordan famously said, “I’ve missed more than 9,000 shots… I’ve failed over and over again in my life, and that’s why I succeed.” Failure is part of the journey, but it’s how you respond that defines your future success. Whether you keep working or dream a new dream, resilience and perseverance will always lead you to the next step.
This episode is a powerful reminder that setbacks are not the end. They are opportunities to rise, to redirect your efforts, and to keep pushing toward your goals, no matter what the road ahead looks like.
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Credits:
Hosted by Shad Martin
Produced by IMAGINATE STUDIO
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Transcript
Introduction to Overcoming Rejection
00:00:01
Speaker
Welcome to the Especially for Athletes podcast, where we explore essential principles that empower athletes to learn life's most valuable lessons through sports.
00:00:16
Speaker
Hey, what's up, everybody?
00:00:17
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Welcome to the Especially for Athletes podcast.
00:00:19
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Today's episode is dedicated to all of you who have faced that devastating moment.
00:00:25
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When you've worked so hard, you've given it everything you've got, you've laid it all on the line, but then you did not make a team.
00:00:35
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You got cut.
00:00:37
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Today, we're going to talk about those moments and how to respond to those moments.
00:00:42
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Some of you or some parents who are listening to this maybe had children last year or you were the athlete last year that really wanted to make the high school team or the junior high team and you didn't make it.
00:00:58
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So today's episode is entitled To Those Who Got Cut, How to Respond with Resiliency.
Doug Meacham's Journey of Resilience
00:01:07
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So first off, we're gonna talk about the first principle.
00:01:12
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Principle one, when you get cut.
00:01:15
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When you get cut, respond with work.
00:01:19
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One of our favorite examples of this comes from Doug Meacham, former University of Utah basketball player, current high school basketball coach here in Utah, where our organization is based.
00:01:33
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And on our podcast, Doug shared how he got cut from his high school team his junior year.
00:01:40
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Now think about that for a second.
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Doug played
00:01:43
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on the University of Utah's basketball team during their glory years when they were making runs to the Final Four with Rick Majerus as their coach.
00:01:52
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Not many young people get cut as a junior in high school and then end up playing on such a prolific college team.
00:02:04
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But one of the keys was how Doug's mother reacted.
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So here's Doug talking about that moment when he came home to his mom and told her that he had been cut.
00:02:16
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Yeah, I think one of the greatest lessons I learned going back to high school, my junior year, I got cut from the basketball team.
00:02:25
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And I remember coming home and my mother, her response to me was,
00:02:32
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You know, there was some empathy there, but there was also some, well, go to work and make it so they can't cut you the next year.
00:02:39
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And just that response itself put the work and the effort on me.
00:02:47
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And it kind of, you know, shocked me.
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It was devastating to me at the time, but it also taught me how much I loved the game.
00:02:54
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Was I willing to go and work for it for that next year?
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And I think today as parents, our response to how our athletes handle hard things is crucial to them developing and wanting to go through that working process.
00:03:13
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And then I did that.
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I went to my coach and asked him what
00:03:16
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are the things that you saw that I needed to work on and set that goal.
00:03:21
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And it was probably a really life-changing event for me that helped me kind of forge later on in life when I had to deal with hard things outside of basketball.
00:03:34
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And that's what I love about it though, is watching these young athletes set goals, give them in the off season, some shooting sheets and say, here you go.
00:03:43
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Here's kind of a map.
00:03:45
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If you can come back and show that you've put time in, it'll present itself in November.
00:03:52
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November, always ask what you did October, March through October.
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And that's a reality.
00:03:59
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So Doug's mom did not shield him from the pain.
00:04:03
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She didn't blame the coaches.
00:04:05
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Instead, with love and toughness and empathy and tenderness, she said, go to work, make it so they can't cut you next year.
00:04:17
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And Doug did just that.
Lessons from Pat Summitt and Tyler
00:04:20
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He went to the coach, he asked for feedback, he trained harder than ever, and made the team his senior year.
00:04:27
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Then he went on to play at junior college and eventually for the University of Utah during their greatest era, like I said before.
00:04:36
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This principle reminds me of a powerful quote from Kobe Bryant.
00:04:41
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He said, everything negative, pressure, challenges, is all an opportunity for me to rise.
00:04:50
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That's how great people look at pressure, at challenges, at setbacks.
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Doug Rose above that.
00:04:57
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He made his high school team the next year and eventually accomplished all those wonderful things that have led to him being where he's at now.
00:05:04
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And so Doug Rose and young athletes today can do that too.
Redirecting Effort: Elsie Murphy's Story
00:05:08
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There's still those stories happening today.
00:05:10
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So similarly, Doug Rose
00:05:12
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Legendary Tennessee women's basketball coach Pat Summitt taught her son Tyler a lesson when he got cut from his sixth grade team.
00:05:21
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So here's the clip from Pat Summitt and her son talking about this dynamic in their life when her son, a Tennessee coaching legend, when her son got cut from the sixth grade team.
00:05:34
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Here's the two of them talking about that.
00:05:37
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People have heard this story when I got cut, you know, my sixth grade year and
00:05:42
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You know, I was heartbroken and I think maybe part of me thought that because I was her son, I might make it just solely on that.
00:05:51
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And I didn't work as hard as I could have.
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I walk in the room and I said, Tyler, what's wrong with you?
00:05:57
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And he goes, I got cut.
00:06:00
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Well, my first thought is what coach in East Tennessee would cut my son?
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I mean, think about it.
00:06:07
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You know, put him at the end of the bench, but give him a uniform.
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And then I guess the coach came out in me and I looked at Tyler and I said, he had basketball under each arm.
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He was crying so hard.
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And she goes, well, do you think you worked hard enough?
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And I knew I didn't.
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I said, no.
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And she said, well, now you know what you got to do.
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And I was like, I wanted her because I knew she knew everything about basketball.
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And he goes, Mom, will you help me?
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I said, Son, I will help you, but I will not start your engine.
00:06:42
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You must start your engine every day.
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Do you understand that?
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And he goes, yes, ma'am.
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So every day that I wanted her to help me, I would have to go to her.
00:06:51
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It wouldn't be her pushing me.
00:06:53
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You got to be self-motivated.
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And that's another thing she taught me.
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It's really important.
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A defining moment in his life.
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It changed him.
00:07:01
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It changed his focus.
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It changed his work ethic, his drive.
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I haven't had to motivate him since then, not at all.
00:07:09
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It's a pretty incredible story.
00:07:12
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Isn't that an awesome concept?
00:07:15
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I'll help you, but I will not start your engine.
00:07:19
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You must start your engine every day.
00:07:22
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That's just such a powerful concept.
00:07:25
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Tyler's focus and work ethic changed forever after that.
00:07:29
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And so here's the challenge to you young athletes today.
00:07:33
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When you get cut, start your own engine, work harder, get feedback, attack your weaknesses, enhance your strengths.
00:07:44
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You might be amazed where that work ethic will take you.
00:07:47
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All right, now transitioning to a different group.
00:07:50
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What if the work still doesn't result in making the team?
00:07:54
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That's a reality too.
00:07:57
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Sometimes no matter how hard you work, you might not make it.
00:08:01
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That's where the second principle comes in.
00:08:05
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Principle two, to those who got cut.
00:08:09
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When the time comes to hang up your shoes, dream a new dream and give that dream the same work ethic you gave your old dream.
00:08:20
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So this week on our social media, we posted about Elsie Murphy.
00:08:25
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Let us tell you about Elsie Murphy real quick.
00:08:28
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Elsie tried out for her high school basketball team not once, not twice, not three times, but all four years of high school, and she never made it.
00:08:40
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Can you imagine that?
00:08:43
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Four years of trying, four years of hearing, you're just not good enough for the team.
00:08:50
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But she didn't let that define her.
00:08:53
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Listen to how she described that experience and what ended up happening in her life.
00:09:00
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It was kind of a big mind shift.
00:09:01
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You know, I played sports for 12 years.
00:09:03
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That was my life.
00:09:04
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That's what I wanted to do.
00:09:05
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That's what my family did.
00:09:07
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And getting told no four years in a row that I couldn't do something was really discouraging.
00:09:12
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And I was a part of this program.
00:09:14
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And
00:09:15
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I thought, I can't do this anymore.
00:09:16
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I'm not an athlete.
00:09:18
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I don't relate to these people.
00:09:19
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I don't have anything to talk about.
00:09:21
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I'm not on the team.
00:09:22
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I don't wear a jersey.
00:09:23
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And it kind of fell perfectly into place.
00:09:27
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I ran into the football coach in high school and he said, look, I know you work hard.
00:09:32
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I know you are in the weight room.
00:09:34
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Why don't you come be the COVID manager?
00:09:35
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Cool.
00:09:37
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I said, yes, I had nothing else to do with my time.
00:09:39
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I wasn't doing anything else.
00:09:41
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And so I just decided to focus in on it.
00:09:44
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If I was going to do something, I was going to do it 110%.
00:09:47
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I was going to give everything I had and I did.
00:09:50
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And it snowballed into what I'm doing now.
00:09:52
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It turned into a four-year scholarship.
00:09:54
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It turned into a career.
00:09:56
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And it was just because I made the decision I was going to work hard no matter what it looked like.
00:10:02
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And it had taught me a lot that at some point you're going to hang up your shoes, whether it's now, whether it's 10 years from now, after the pros, whatever it is, at some point you're going to hang up the shoes.
00:10:12
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I just hung mine up a lot sooner, but I can still be part of athletics and make a difference in a different way.
00:10:21
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So Elsie didn't quit on hard work.
00:10:25
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She redirected it.
00:10:27
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Did you hear that?
00:10:27
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That's just crazy.
00:10:30
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So awesome what she did.
00:10:31
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She did not stop working hard.
00:10:35
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She redirected it towards something else.
00:10:39
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She became the equipment manager of her high school football team.
00:10:42
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She worked with 110% effort.
00:10:46
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That decision led to a college scholarship, a leadership role, and now a career in athletics and a life of impact.
00:10:57
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She dreamed a new dream.
00:11:00
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and put her old effort toward that new dream.
00:11:05
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That's another very healthy way to respond to being cut.
00:11:10
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So this brings to mind a quote from Michael Jordan, who was also cut from his high school varsity team as a sophomore.
00:11:17
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We've all heard this quote, it's wonderful, but this is what he said.
00:11:22
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I've missed more than 9,000 shots in my career.
00:11:25
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I've lost almost 300 games 26 times.
00:11:28
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I've been trusted to take the game-winning shot and missed.
00:11:32
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I've failed over and over and over again in my life, and that's why I succeed.
Jeff's Transformation to Paralympian
00:11:40
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So the key is to not see a failure as final.
00:11:46
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It's not final unless you let it be.
00:11:49
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Another example of this on our podcast was Jeff Griffin.
00:11:53
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So Jeff's story was a complete tragedy that ended up turning into a complete triumph.
00:12:01
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So Jeff Griffin was a college football player with big dreams.
00:12:05
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One day between school years, Jeff was earning a little extra money.
00:12:09
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He had some scaffolding set up with the ladder on top of the scaffolding, and he was painting a barn.
00:12:14
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What ended up happening is the scaffolding crumbled, his ladder fell, and Jeff came down like 50 feet and landed feet first on the ground.
00:12:27
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This instantly broke his back and made him paralyzed from the waist down for the rest of his life.
00:12:35
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Jeff was laying there literally in this pile of scaffolding and ladders, not being able to feel his legs.
00:12:42
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From the waist down, he had no movement.
00:12:46
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And laying there in the scaffolding, Jeff decided he was going to dream a new dream.
00:12:53
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If I apply pressure to a pineapple, I get pineapple juice.
00:12:56
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But here's what's interesting.
00:12:57
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Human beings are the only creation that I know of that's not true to its nature.
00:13:02
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Because when we apply pressure to us, what comes out?
00:13:08
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What we put in.
00:13:11
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And if we've been putting in crap, crap's gonna come out.
00:13:14
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If we've been putting in doubt, doubt's gonna come out.
00:13:16
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If we've been putting in fear, fear's gonna come out.
00:13:19
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If we've been putting in the things that we can't do, the things that we can't do come out.
00:13:27
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And so the question that I have for everybody who's listening is, if you don't like the results you're getting, are you going to change what you've been putting in?
00:13:41
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because I discovered a lot that day where I was on the ground when the pressure was applied to me again in a different way.
00:13:52
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I could stay down and wallow in that syrupy, sticky sauna of self-pity, or I could get back up and dream new dreams.
00:13:58
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I could focus on what I could do instead of what I couldn't do.
00:14:06
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And it's been 20 plus years that I've been in a chair,
00:14:09
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You know, the doctors told me I'd never walk, stand, and move my legs again.
00:14:11
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They told me I'd never have kids.
00:14:12
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They said it's the first function to go, last to come back.
00:14:15
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Some of the experts told me I'd never get married, not because of my wheelchair, but just because of who I am.
00:14:20
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But I've been married for 20 plus years.
00:14:22
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We have four beautiful biological kids.
00:14:26
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And just in the summer of 2019, Shad, I just climbed Mount Ben-Loma, which is 9,711 feet.
00:14:35
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I walked every single step to the top of that mountain.
00:14:39
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And I know that everybody who is listening today or who's watching today can climb every single step to the top of their mountain, to the top of their dreams.
00:14:52
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Dreams do come true.
00:14:54
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If you have a desperate desire, determination to do, even while dealing with disappointments, because we're all going to experience challenges, we're all going to experience problems.
00:15:05
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The problem isn't the problem.
00:15:08
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The problem is a lack of vision.
00:15:10
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The problem is not knowing how to do it.
00:15:14
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His old dream was over.
00:15:16
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Now he dreamed to walk again.
00:15:18
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And anyone who's ever seen Jeff speak at a large event, if not Google and Jeff Griffin, he's awesome.
00:15:25
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Listen to our podcast with him.
00:15:27
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But Jeff has indeed learned to walk again, but never to the level of being a college football player.
00:15:35
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That dream was over for Jeff.
00:15:38
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But what did he do?
00:15:40
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He took all of that energy and effort and all of the lessons that he had learned from being a college football player.
00:15:50
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And now he applied it to a new dream.
00:15:53
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He decided he was going to be an Olympian.
00:15:56
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And Jeff became a Paralympian.
00:15:59
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He played wheelchair basketball.
00:16:02
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He won medals in that.
00:16:04
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He also became a motivational speaker and an author.
00:16:09
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He has impacted thousands and thousands of lives, far more than he probably would have if his first dream would have stayed intact.
Applying Lessons from Sports to Life
00:16:18
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And so just...
00:16:20
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The second principle here, and it might be one that's hard to hear, you've learned lessons from sports, but every now and then, like Elsie, like Jeff, there comes this moment
00:16:32
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when it's time to dream a new dream.
00:16:34
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But don't leave the work ethic behind.
00:16:38
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Just redirect it toward that new dream, and it will open doors of opportunity for you that may be better than anything you had ever dreamed of in regard to sports.
00:16:51
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So here's some closing thoughts.
00:16:54
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To anyone listening who has been cut from a team, overlooked for a starting spot, or just felt that door close and you have to take off those shoes and hang up the shoes, there's two ways that are very healthy to respond.
00:17:11
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One, respond with more work.
00:17:15
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Or two, dream a new dream and put all of your effort toward it.
00:17:22
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Sports is a great tool to shape young people and old people alike.
00:17:29
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If we will respond in healthy ways, not by blaming or complaining, not by pouting or anything like that, but by working, we'll
00:17:42
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or dreaming a new dream and putting our effort toward that new dream.
00:17:47
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If we will respond in that way, sports will help us to become everything that we're intended to become and to make our impact on the world.
00:17:59
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So to those of you who've been cut, your story is not over.
00:18:05
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It's a choose your own adventure.
00:18:07
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Respond in the right way and you could end up on the Doug Meacham path
00:18:13
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playing Division I basketball after being cut as a junior in high school, or you could be on the Elsie Murphy, Jeff Griffin path, which is redirecting
00:18:25
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your old sports effort to a new dream and finding your path that way.
00:18:31
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Either way, that's how you'll leave your mark on the world.
00:18:35
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So keep your eyes up, do the work.
00:18:38
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Not all is lost if you got cut.
00:18:41
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We're coming into a summer and remember that championships and spots on the team are often won
00:18:48
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During those summer months when all the lights are off and no one's watching, that's when you can pick up ground.
00:18:55
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There's very few that are disciplined enough to put in incredible effort.
00:18:59
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Come up with a plan.
00:19:01
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Do everything you can to make the team the next year.
00:19:03
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Respond with work.
00:19:05
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If that doesn't work out,
00:19:06
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redirect that work to a new dream and you will be successful in life thank you for listening to the especially for athletes podcast this is a podcast that you might want to send to someone you know and love who's been disappointed this year we hope you'll do that and as always we hope you'll keep your eyes up and do the work
00:19:26
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Thank you for joining the Especially for Athletes podcast.
00:19:29
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To learn more about Especially for Athletes organization, get a copy of our book, The Sport Light, or to bring our program to your team, school, business, or organization, visit us at especiallyforathletes.org.