THE DOOFUS TEAM

When you walk into a brand new pool facility, there is a clean, chlorine smell that
generates excitement and dreams. Twelve kids were waiting for me with grateful
expressions for taking the job as their coach and high expectations for this new
team. We had ten boys to compete and two girls as managers. This left me just
two swimmers short of the minimum of twelve needed for filling all of the events
at any meet, and that meant that we could not possibly win a swim meet all
season. In high school swimming at that time, swimmers were only allowed to
swim two individual events and one relay. We could not win, but we could do
some damage, and my goal as coach became not to worry about winning swim
meets but rather to focus on getting my swimmers in the best possible physical
condition possible. I hoped to send two or three boys to the state championship
meet at the season’s end where individual times were the only criteria to qualify.
They were a good bunch of kids. They worked hard, they played hard, the
Grateful Dead blasted through the sound system at every practice, and in a short
time I realized that we had at least four really fast swimmers, and six swimmers
who were rapidly improving.
Our first meet of the season was against the previous year’s state champs who
came from an expensive private school. Their coach, Ed, called me to ask if I
would consider cancelling the meet as it would waste their valuable practice time
and our team was not “a contender.” I responded sympathetically to his request
over the phone, told him what an honor it would be to compete against his team,
and ended the conversation by saying I would discuss it with my athletic director.
Inwardly, I was fuming. My boys needed eight meets to qualify for state trials, we
had eight meets scheduled, and the competition schedule for team meets was
finalized. I never called my athletic director.
I decided on my own to follow the competition schedule, ridicule be damned. The
day before the meet, I explained my strategy to the team. I told them that the
team we were facing thought we were a bunch of inexperienced swim doofuses,
not worthy of their time and attention, no competition to them at all. I told the
kids that I wanted them to dress down in old clothes for our bus trip, as would I.
When we got there they were to look and act like the worst swimmers in the

world, to use their imagination to convince the other team that we were no
threat, and were in fact, pathetic. During the warm up they were to cover their
team suits with baggy jammers and to thrash aimlessly in an attempt to warm up.
The kids loved the idea and played their parts perfectly. I found myself
mesmerized by the lengths they employed to make themselves look bad. I was so
entertained by each individual actor and the creativity they demonstrated, and I
was delighted to see their enjoyment. The other team and coaches looked on in
disgust at our team’s chaotic enthusiasm in the water.
I shambled over to Ed wearing my raggedy old Buffalo Bills T shirt and college
sweats and introduced myself. I explained to him that I had been out of coaching
for a while, that this was a new team and could I borrow an entry form for the
meet lineup as I hadn’t been able find any. Ed became more unwelcoming and
disgusted by the second. He informed me that his team would be practicing
during the meet - they had two pools - and that he would only put two swimmers
in each event as a gesture of parity to my small team. His swimmers would leave
the practice pool for their individual events in the main pool, and after each event
go right back to practicing in the practice pool.
My athletic director, a former Olympian and disciplined athlete herself, decided
to show up and cheer on our very first meet. She was sitting with some of the
parents, and I could see they were dismayed and whispering together. She came
down on deck and demanded that I do something immediately as my team was
embarrassing the school with their antics. I told her to let me do my job, that
everything was under control, and she furiously stomped away back to her seat in
the stands.
The first event was a relay. I entered two relay teams – eight swimmers. I knew
that I would run out of eligible swimmers in the second half of the meet, and we
had no divers. Since it was impossible to win the meet with our incomplete team,
I figured it would be fun to front load our events, run up the score, and at least
win the first half of the meet. The kids took off their funny practice jammers and
had on their team suits underneath. They quickly turned from buffoons to
become all business in the water. We soundly thrashed our opponents in the
relays, and proceeded to take first and second places in every event leading up to
the diving. The stunned look of panic on the other coach’s face was priceless to

me. Even the swim officials were enjoying the unexpected whupping that was
taking place. It looked as if the state champs were going to get knocked off by
nobodies. The athletic director and our small group of parents cheered us wildly
as the other parents sat in glum silence. Ed brought his entire team out for the
second half of the meet and entered as many swimmers as he could in each event
so that he could take back the score and end their humiliation.
Afterwards, my boss told me that it was one of the best sports tricks she had ever
seen and the most fun she ever had at a swim meet. That opposing team went on
to win the state championship for the tenth year in a row. Our team of ten sent
three swimmers to states and they all finished in the top ten in the state for their
events. Ed came up to me after the state meet and thanked me for almost beating
him way back early in the season. He told me that the experience helped him and
his team learn a different focus and to bring fun back into his lineup. I will never
forget seeing my swimmers have so much fun that they were relaxed and focused
on the ruse rather than worrying about winning. That mischievous combination
produced excellent swimming.
Many times Erickson prescribed failure as a road to success. Our opposing swim
team and their coach had a particularly negative view of our team; in fact, they
felt because of the size of our team that we were a complete waste of their time
and effort and undeserving of meeting them in competition. Our team used a
classic trance phenomena by showing the opposing team an extreme version of
their preconception during warm up, and then switching abruptly to surprising
competence during the race. Even then, it took several events before the other
team and coach realized we were serious competitors and not doofuses. Being
costumed as ragamuffins only completed the picture, and in effect we hypnotized
the other team into a classic positive hallucination – seeing something that is not
actually there. They did not see us as competitors until the first half of the meet
was well underway. Erickson many times used succorance – an active seeking for
nurturant care or dependence - to place anxious clients at ease. He competed
with children and let them win, and his handicaps (paralysis of the leg, being
wheelchair bound) let him seem less threatening and/or powerful to resistant
clients.

This is just one instance that shows how Milton Erickson influenced my coaching
style. Positive hallucination as exemplified by ten adolescent boys in real time at
that swim meet, watching the opposing team’s swagger turn to pandemonium;
had Erickson been there in the bleachers, he would have chuckled in delight.

By David J. Norton, LPC and Paula Norton, MA