Loyalty Can Pay - Even When It's Hard to Be Loyal
(Lesson for Teens)

Purpose: To motivate my students to be loyal to their school, friends and teams. 

Hints for Presenters: Students like to know of your personal experiences with loyalty. Think of times when you've been loyal to a friend or employer. How did loyalty help you? Think of times when people have been either loyal or disloyal to you. How did you feel? Could sharing any of these personal illustrations make a personal impact on your students? 

Introduction

Discussion: Defining Loyalty

What does it mean to be "loyal"? Allow students to discuss, coming up with a working definition on the board, something like: "Staying true to your friends, school and teams,  even when it's hard." 

Discuss: "Why is it good to be loyal?"

1. The Importance of Loyalty

Activity: Learning to Lean

Divide into groups of 6 or 8 - it must be an even number. Ask each group to stand in a circle holding hands (or holding wrists, to make it stronger) and count off in order, one, two, one, two. Instruct the students: "When I say 'Go!' all the "ones" lean forward while the "two's" lean back. Hold on tightly so that you'll support each other from falling." Next, ask them to reverse: the ones leaning forward to lean backward and the ones leaning backward to lean forward. (For K-3 you may wish to start with one group, with all the other students watching. Then, organize a second circle to do the same. In this way, adults and responsible students can stand close to the circle to make sure nobody falls.)

Debriefing - Was it hard for you to trust the others to hold you when you leaned forward and back? How many of you were a little scared? Why is it important to be able to trust the people who are holding on to you? If a person's loyal to you, will he or she hold you tightly? Why is it important to be loyal to others?

Teacher Hints: 

1. Go to www.youtube.com and type in "Tom Brady" to find some cool clips of Brady in action. I really liked one with music in the background entitled "Tom Brady: My Hero". Play a bit before you speak to remind your students how awesome a player he is. Or, you might want to start with the first of a video, and show the rest after the story.

2. Put the students in a setting conducive to story-telling and interaction. Practice the story so that you can tell it naturally, with some flare!  

We've been talking about loyalty. Now I want to talk to someone who remained loyal to his teams and friends, even when it wasn't easy. His name is Tom Brady, the quarterback for the New England Patriots. 

Today, he makes winning look so easy.  Moments before lightning fast defensive tackles and 300 pound linemen close in on him, Brady steps back to avoid one collision, to the side to avoid another, patiently waiting for his receivers to get into the open. Now. He throws. Completes. Touchdown, New England!

It happens so often that he's considered one of best quarterbacks ever. (1)

But becoming a great quarterback wasn't so easy for him. Sometimes things didn't seem fair on the teams he played with. When things got bad, he could have complained and made people mad. When he did well, he could have bragged and made others jealous. But let's look at how Tom Brady behaved. Raise your hand when you think he was being loyal. 

Tommy entered high school built like a beanpole, which means he was skinny. Also, he wasn't very fast. But he kept trying and wanted to be the best for his team.  

So he did more than show up for practice. He went to special camps to learn more about being a good quarterback. He also worked with a special teacher who knew all about how to be a better quarterback. He didn't just listen. He took lots of notes, some of which he still looks back to today. (2)

And the "extra mile" stuff continued. After school, when it isn't football season, many kids throw their backpacks onto the bedroom floor to watch TV, play games and goof off until bedtime. But not Tommy. He completed his homework first and met up with his friends to work out for three or four hours. [He was loyal to his team by working hard for his team.]

When his coach said that Tommy wasn't very good with his feet, Tommy took it as a challenge. Every morning before school, he'd practice a tedious footwork drill called "The Five Dots," which most players hated. 

According to his coach, "Tom Brady is the only student athlete I ever saw who took advantage of every opportunity that was provided to him." (3)

His high school team wasn't that great, but he was a loyal, hard-working teammate. He played his best, managing to win about as many games as they lost. [He was loyal by trying to be a better player.]

By high school graduation, he was still a skinny beanpole. But he and his dad put together a video-tape of Tom's games and sent it to fifty-five universities. The University of Michigan accepted him! But for his first year on the team, they never let him play. The second year, he only played two games. (4)  But he still worked for his team, practicing hard every day. [He stayed loyal, even when he didn't get to play.] 

During his last years in college, Tom thought he deserved to be the main quarterback, but sometimes the coaches let other quarterbacks play instead. It was frustrating at times,  but instead of griping and complaining and getting his friends to gripe and complain, he tried to keep his best attitude to keep the team together. (5,6,7)

The Pro Brady

After college, Tom wanted to be a professional football player. In pro football, the coaches pick players one at a time, sort of like when you choose teams at recess. Do you know how it feels to not get picked first, second or third? Tom Brady knows how you feel. He didn't get picked by the Patriots until after 198 players had already been chosen!  

But the Patriots liked Brady. He'd hung in there during those tough college years and made the best of it. He had stayed loyal to the team, even when things didn't seem fair. (11)

With the Patriots, he had to start at the bottom again, with five quarterbacks ahead of him. So he didn't play his first year. But the coaches noticed how hard Brady worked, even when there was little chance he'd get to play. So the next year, they put Brady second in line. And when the first quarterback got hurt, Brady took over. (12,13,14) Finally, he was successful!

Brady thinks that success is sweeter when it doesn't come easy. As he once said, "Who wants everything to come easy?" (15)

In 2005, the Patriots agreed to pay Tom Brady $60 million to play football for them for the next six years. Not bad for someone they used to call a slow, skinny beanpole.  

Do you ever feel like you're trying hard, but not succeeding? Do you ever try hard at a sport, but the coaches just don't play you much? Do you try to do your homework, but don't get the grades that others get? 

1. In what situations was it probably difficult for Brady to be loyal?
2. How did it help him to be loyal?
3. When is it tough to be loyal to your friends, your school, and your team? 
4. How can loyalty pay off, even when it's difficult?
5. In what ways can we be more loyal this week?

1. Wikipedia on Tom Brady.
2. Moving the Chains: Tom Brady and the Pursuit of Everything, by Charles P. Pierce (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2006), pp. 38-40.
3. Ibid., p. 41.
4. Ibid., pp. 59,60.
5. Ibid., pp. 61-65.
6. Ibid., pp. 67,68.
7. Ibid., p. 78.
8. Ibid., p. 89.
9. Ibid., pp. 89,90.
10. Ibid., pp. 90,91.
11. Ibid., p. 92.
12. Ibid., p. 94.
13. Ibid., p. 95.
14. Ibid., p. 8.
15. Ibid., p. 18; also The Education of a Coach, by David Halberstam, (New York: Hyperion, 2005), pp. 214-221.