Your Turn
Recently, I drove up to Portland Maine for Tom Watson’s book launch. Tom and I played ultimate together a very long time ago, before he moved to Maine to join his father in the real estate business. When Tom lived and played in Boston, this is what Tom said to me.
“Mooney, we need to try something different,” he told me when our offense repeatedly failed to score. He’d say this more than once. Each time he did, I’d nod but not really listen.
“I can teach you the Stanford Offense,” he offered. To this day, I don’t exactly know what he was talking about. And true to my personality at the time, and maybe even now, I didn’t listen. I should have. Instead of listening to Tom — who would become someone who made of life trying new things, taking risks, and later even bouncing back from a near death experience — I thought I knew better. Out team didn’t learn the Stanford Offense, and we didn’t win.
Today, I’m halfway through reading Tom’s first book Your Turn, and loving it. This can’t really be a book review since I’ve never written one, and since you can’t write a review before finishing the book. Who does that? Still, I feel compelled to bang something out.
Though my memory’s not all that great, I think Tom moved to Boston after graduating from Stanford, where he and his team won the first college nationals in 1984. Coincidently, I’d been a photographer for that event, snapping pictures of the action, including this one of his Stanford team after they won.
That day on the Tufts fields where the tournament was being held, I’d only half watched the finals as Stanford defeated Glassboro. Stanford employed their patented offense, and essentially ran Boro into the ground. But my focus was on taking pictures, not learning a new offense. Years later, Tom and a couple other Stanford players joined our Boston team as we vied for a national championship.
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Driving up to Portland last week for the reading, I tried to remember the last time I’d seen Tom but couldn’t. Was it on the field? At a party? Not sure. What I do remember is that recently he’d suffered a massive stroke a few years ago.
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“I died,” he’d tell us during the reading. “The doctors don’t agree, but I’m here to tell you. I died and they brought me back.”
Everyday we’re on this planet, we count our blessings. Tom’s book is all about remembering to count your blessings, but also about getting back up after a fall. About what it takes to be successful in business. About how to renovate dilapidated buildings. And of course about how to find hope again after a near death experience.
“MOONEY!” Tom yelled when I saw him towards the end of the launch event. “How are you?” He was smiling. He was full of life. He was the very same Tom Watson I remembered from when we played together. Fun. Funny. Irrepressible.
What I remember most vividly about my time playing with Tom happened not on the ultimate field, but on the basketball court. We had a pick-up team one winter, and were playing three on three against a guy who trash talked, fouled, and otherwise made me want to punch him in the face. Oh, and the guy was good, as was his team. Tom’s approach? Instead of getting angry, Tom sat down next to him during a break and started laughing.
“You crack me up,” Tom said to the guy, smiling at him. “All your antics, you’re killing me out there.” And then he just laughed and walked away.
It was the perfect interaction. Not threatening, but honest. The guy didn’t know what hit him. Was that a compliment? Was it a dig? No, that was Tom Watson.
I recently wrote an article about mental resilience for Ultiworld. Tom’s book is a masterclass in resilience, in taking on hard things, about leadership, about finding ways to win when others think you can’t possibly. It’s a book about building a half billion dollar real estate business, and also about not feeling sorry for yourself when you’re down and flat on your back.
A few hundred people attended Tom’s reading the other night. Came to feel the energy. Came to support the man. Came to rub shoulders with a winner.
“Get back up!” He says in his book, over and over again. “You can do it, all it takes is will.” The will to win. The will to get back on your feet. The will to live.
Your Turn is a masterclass in life, and this time I’m not going to make the same mistake. This time, reading Tom’s book, I’m going to listen to his advice as I should have some thirty years ago.
