This fall I wrapped up coaching a group of 7 to 10-year-olds in flag football. Besides having fun and discovering the perfection of the play action pass and the power of a good fake, I tried to teach them one thing above all else: when everyone does their job, no matter how big or small, the team succeeds.
In football, only three people touch the ball on most plays: the center, the quarterback, and whoever ends up with it next. That means eight other players have to do their job—block, fake, run a decoy route, or just try to push a defender away—to make sure those three can do theirs. On defense, maybe one kid pulls the flag, but it takes everyone else being in the right place for that to happen.
That idea, doing your job even when you’re not the star, isn’t easy for adults to grasp, let alone kids. Everyone wants to be the one holding the ball. But what really makes a team great is when every player understands that their role, even the unglamorous one, is essential.
It reminds me of something I once heard on my favorite podcast, Discograffiti, hosted by Dave Gebroe. Dave, who’s also a filmmaker, was interviewing John Landis, the director of Animal House, The Blues Brothers, Coming to America, and of course Michael Jackson’s Thriller video.
They were talking about John's early roles on film sets and how he kinda talked his way into whatever job he could.. And how in film you can do this cause it can take fifty different people to make just five seconds of film. THAT's WHAT I SAID.. 50! Fifty people lighting, casting, editing, location scouts, PAs, set decorators, boom operators, sound techs, even that mysterious key grip.. what the hell is a Key Grip anyway... all working in perfect coordination for a moment the audience might not even consciously notice. Most people only think about the actors or the director, maybe the writers.. but every person on that set from the drivers who got the actor to the location to the catering company making lunch for everyone... has to do their job close to as perfectly possible for that five-second shot to exist.
It made me think about someone I know who went to film school to make movies and ended up in New York working on a real film set. Their dream was to tell stories and direct scenes, but their actual role ended up being very different. One day, they were assigned to stand on a street corner and tell the people who lived there that they couldn’t walk down their own block because filming was in progress. Another day, they were literally asked to hold an actor’s joint while a scene was being filmed. Let’s just say it wasn’t exactly the movie magic they had imagined.
But in hindsight, those jobs mattered too. The shoot couldn’t happen without someone managing the street or keeping continuity intact. Every single job on that set, no matter how small, was a piece of the puzzle that made the story possible.
That idea stuck with me and made me think about teamwork in film, in sports, in music, in business, and in life. The best things we create usually come from people working together, trusting each other to do their part.
As someone who’s played a lot of imaginary baseball and football games by myself as a kid, being the announcer, the pitcher, and hitting all at once, I can tell you it’s way more fun with a team.
So this year with my little flag football team, I tried to instill that idea: every single role matters. Whether you’re running the ball or pretending to, you’re part of the play. Whether you’re catching the pass or shouting “I’m open!” to draw a defender, you’re helping us move the ball down the field.
On every great team, in sports, art, or business, the best advice I can give is simple:
Keep moving, keep playing your part, and trust that your role no matter how big or small.. matters.
By Patrick Tape Fleming