On Tuesday, March 3, Monta Vista had the great honor of hosting Stephanie Brown Trafton–a USA champion in the discus, former USA record holder, a three-time Olympian, and the 2008 Olympic gold medal winner!
Steph is a wonderful person, in addition to her marvelous athletic achievements. When I listen to Stephanie I feel certain that she is not talking about beliefs and modes of behavior to inspire us; she is truly telling us how she lives her life, and what worked for her as she won Olympic gold and how she is living to get back to the Olympics in 2016. Some of the memorable things that I took from her talk, not in any particular order:
–We can be focused on more than one thing at a time (Steph is training for the 2016 Olympics, raising a daughter, and starting to prepare for a life after athletics; we can get good grades at school and be a good family member and friend and also be a high school athlete, and do all these things well at the same time. There are other things of less priority that can be cut out. If we manage our time well, we can do all the important stuff and still have time to see our friends and catch a movie or concert now and then; our Facebook posts may not be frequent and our World of Warcraft scores might suffer, but we can do all the important stuff well).
–It helps to hang with other people who share your drive and enthusiasm, and not as much time with people who don’t have the drive to excel. Being around people who want to achieve will make your hard work and time management easier, you won’t be as tempted to goof off and all your good intentions will be reinforced (Steph said this very bluntly–she asked us, ‘Why would you want to hang with someone who is going nowhere, when you want to go somewhere?’ I don’t have this quote perfectly, but this is close, and she is right. There is an African proverb that is similar–‘If you want to go far, go in a group’ which also says that the team and friends you choose will help you go far.).
–Everyone has so much of their own ‘stuff’ going on in their heads, you don’t need to worry so much about what others are thinking about you, just take care of your own ‘stuff’ (this was in the context of how Steph growing up being taller than everyone–she was 6′ tall when she was 13 years old! She was trying to tell us not to be so self-conscious about our own issues, people are not judging us as much as you might think).
–Don’t talk yourself out of going for the ‘great’ (Steph was telling us about her conversation with her father before the 2008 Olympics, when she was thinking it would nice to just be there and her father was encouraging her to think about the gold medal. Maybe you can think of trying for your dream college?)
–Every day the slate is wiped clean; whatever you did the day before, you need to do today’s work to the best of your ability (this is in the context of consistency; making an amazing effort for a week or doing a hero workout for a day is less important that the day in, day out consistency of your effort in athletics, school, relationships, your job, etc. After her talk with us, Steph went to our weight room and lifted–she was not going to give herself a day off even though she still had to drive home to Sacramento!)
–And of course it was great to see Stephanie throw on our field–WOW! She makes it look so easy.
I’m sure that many of you have your own pieces of advice you took from Steph’s talk. I hope you all have something memorable from that day!
If anyone wants to write a note or card to Steph, saying thank you or telling her about something she said that meant a lot to you, I know that she would love hearing from you. Give it to me and I’ll send a package to her, that would be great!
And…thank you, Stephanie, for coming to see us!
(For those new to the team–you might want to read this. A couple years ago Steph helped Monta Vista students Emma Seyer and Kiersten Chuc with an article that was published in Track Coach magazine, the first article in the 50 year history of the magazine written by high school students. Here is the article.)
