When I was finally dismissed, one of the assistant coaches came over to reassure me. "Coach Graham rode you pretty, didn't he?" he said. I could barely muster a "yeah." "That's a good thing," the assistant told me. "When you're screwing up and nobody says anything to you anymore, that means they've given up on you." That lesson has stuck with me my whole life. When you see yourself doing something badly and nobody's bothering to tell you anymore, that's a bad place to be. You may not want to hear it, but your critics are often the ones telling you they still love you and care about you, and want to make you better. There's a lot of talk these days about giving children self-esteem. It's not something you can give; it's something they have to build. Coach Graham worked in a no-coddling zone. Self-esteem? He knew there was really only one way to teach kids how to develop it: You give them something they can't do, they work hard until they find they can do it, and you just keep repeating the process.