Celebrating success

I have been watching lots of reaction from the National Championship game where Alabama stuck one on Norte Dame. This game will be discussed in tomorrow's blog. Alabama head coach Nick Saban said something very interesting following the game. He mentioned that work for this latest National Championship game started 2 days following their National Championship title last year 2012 and they would begin preparing and improving for next years campaign today. Two days following their recent national title.

This made me think, when do professional athletes really celebrate their success. How often do you hear coaches or players following a great win or winning a trophy talk about the next challenge. Take the England cricket team for example who recently just won their first test series in India in over 20 years. In all the press conferences following this series Cook and Flower rarely discussed how much of a great accomplishment this was and more about how the team are preparing well and developing for the back to back Ashes test series later this year.

Alabama crushed Norte Dame in the biggest game of all college sports on Monday to win the National title. Saban hardly talked about how great this was or what an amazing achievement it is to be the first college ever to win back to back championships. He instead wanted to discuss how it had been a long journey as it started just 2 days following their last title and in 2 days time they would be back at work preparing for next years title.

Again this is more proof that the true great and very best teams do not rest on their achievements but are always looking forward for that next great thing. However does this create a problem if you do not celebrate your success have you achieved anything? Tim Tebow mentions that Florida did not play particularly well in his senior year because they were so focused on winning back to back championships that they did not spend time to appreciate the championship they won the previous year. Tebow talks about the team being too uptight, not relaxed and having an unclear vision.

He himself says he regrets not spending the time to celebrate and realise the great achievement himself and the team had achieved in his junior year and taking time to celebrate with fans who are a massive part of any achievement. In my opinion the absolute great teams are right to always be looking for that next challenge after all that's how you are going to be classed as great. I do think tho teams, players, coaches and fans need to spend time to celebrate accomplishments as it will not only help in producing more quality in the future but you have not achieved something unless this is acknowledged.