It’s been a rough year for Dak Prescott. Even without COVID-19 throwing a wrench into the plans of every sports league in the world, he had to deal with the unexpected death of his brother in April. Can you blame the guy for sinking into depression around that time?
It took a lot of courage on his part to come out and talk about this publicly, especially as the starting quarterback of one of the world’s biggest, most valuable sports teams. Don’t get me wrong: in an extremely online world where people love presenting only the best versions of themselves (truthfully or otherwise), it takes courage for anyone to actually come out and say they’re not doing OK right now or weren’t doing so OK not long ago. It’s just that most people don’t have the spotlight from playing quarterback for the Dallas Cowboys locked onto them.
So it sucks that as soon as Prescott took off his armor and showed us some vulnerability, Skip Bayless saw a weak point and went on the attack on national television.
While it is important to note Bayless’s life has not been entirely happy and easy by any means, watching someone open up to others and calling that a bad display of leadership is like watching someone drown and trying to pull them under rather than helping them get back to shore. It does nothing but further a stupid, weird societal belief that never did anything for anybody but make them bitter and insecure.
There are many different ways to be a leader. Not all of them are good, though, and I believe our society has been so fixated on the idea of being that person at the top of the food chain, the one an entire team depends on to get things done, that we’ve made it easy for a lot of bad actors to give us bad ideas about what effective leadership really looks like.
If nobody’s there to check you, you might be a terrible leader without even realizing it.
One thing that always gets associated with someone’s ideal style of leadership is the concept of strength. You’ve probably heard it a lot. People don’t just need leaders — they need strong leaders. That’s what everyone can agree on and also where the paths start to diverge. You get messed up when you go down the path of strength at any cost, which usually comes at the expense of mental health.
I listen to Blesspool and this topic actually came up in the second episode of the podcast’s first season, which was recorded back in July before Prescott went public about his struggles. I recently talked to Shaq and Kayvious from the podcast about what Bayless said and that episode came right to mind. In it, the guys discussed the stigma attached with vulnerability, a belief of weakness in one’s openness which gets passed down to young men (and surely this happens for women, too) by the generations that came before them. Many of us were taught from a young age to bottle up our emotions and keep them private so as not to project weakness and dependence on others.
Not all of us realize it as soon as we leave home, if ever. I took way too long to realize how bad a habit that is and I’m still trying to break it. I’d like to think I’ve gotten way better in the least year and a half, but I still have a ways to go. Seeing someone so prominent in a field I care strongly about speak up this publicly will help me going forward. I can’t speak for all of you, but I’m sure there are at least a few of you readers out there in the same boat.
Why is it that forcing yourself to play your cards close to your chest at all times became an act of strength? Bluffing your hand is fine in poker but why is it acceptable when you’re bluffing for people working with you and not against you? Eventually your problems boil over to the surface in some way, somehow, and your house of cards comes tumbling down before anyone in your life knows they may need to lend their support.
Is there no honor in opening up about your struggles and maybe inspiring someone else to keep going through the obstacles like you’re doing? Is there no glory in trusting your teammates enough to let them know you’ve been facing adversity but are trying your hardest to overcome it? If anything, I think Prescott looks like a much stronger person now for opening up. If I were his teammate, I’d play harder for him now.
I feel like the “keep it to yourself” attitude goes against what everyone in sports is taught about both overcoming adversity and being there for your teammates when they’re in need. If you’d support anyone in the locker room when they’re going through hard times of their own, there’s no shame in letting them support you.
And I hope Bayless and anyone else with that outlook on leadership actually takes some time to learn what strong leadership really is. The people who carve out a path forward so others can follow without facing as many challenges are team leaders. The people who pull others backward because they can’t come to terms with their own humanity are team killers. Do you really know which one you are?