'You Have To Let Go of All of the Heaviness and the Emotion'

In his early coaching years, Jim Valvano would routinely go over his team’s upcoming schedule with his father, who insisted he’d be there one day when his son won a National Championship.

“Pop, it’s hard,” Valvano said.

“You’ll get there,” his dad responded. “My bags are packed.”

Valvano did, of course, go on to win one of the most improbable college basketball National titles ever at North Carolina State — and his dad was there to witness it.

The packed bags phrase has become a favorite of former Ohio Congressman Tim Ryan’s, who drew inspiration from it during his hotly-contested U.S. Senate race last year.

“That has become a Ryan theme,” he said. “If one of our kids or nieces or nephews wants to go and do this, my bags are packed.”

The Daily Coach caught up with Ryan recently to discuss how he applied coaching lessons during debates, keys to earning trust with skeptics, and processing painful defeat.

This interview has been condensed and edited for brevity.

Congressman, thanks a lot for doing this. Tell us a little about your early years and some lessons from childhood.

I grew up outside of Youngstown, Ohio. We were always taught you’ve got to grind it, hard work. It was very working class. We played a ton of sports, basketball, football, baseball in the backyard, go-karts.

Our neighbors had two boys, one my age, one my brother’s, so it was 2-on-2 everything. Lots of shoveling the driveway and shooting baskets. We had a tire tied to the swing, throwing the football through the tire, some old-school stuff. We really grew up with, “Hard work pays off.” That was the underlying ethic.

You were going to go to Youngstown State to play quarterback before you suffered a serious injury. Looking back on it, what stands out to you most from your early sports days?

Teamwork was key. Nothing really good happens on your own. Even if you’re in an individual sport, you have coaches. Football and basketball were really my two key sports — and (the lesson was) how important everybody on the team is. We really grew up with, “You’re never out of the game.”

We were Browns fans, and Bernie Kosar was the quarterback. We had some heartbreak, but there were so many games they were behind and came back to win. I was also a big Boston Celtics fan. Larry Bird, never out of it. Any game, you dive after loose balls. I've taken that into my life. Don't ever give up. That’s really embedded in my DNA because of my coaches and how we were always taught.

One of the rules I had in my Congressional office for 20 years was, "Never take no for an answer." Everyone tells you no. You ask them to do something, "No." But never take no for an answer, never give up. It translates into your real life after sports.

How else did some of your coaches shape you?

They were tough. It’s hard to tell where the line was if your feelings were getting hurt, but I never felt unnecessarily so. My friends later would ask, “How do you handle those town hall meetings as a Congressman when people are going wild? How do you handle the intensity of public debates?” I said, “Because I had Coach Jasinski for basketball and Coach Zolciak for football.”

I was ready for pressure. I was ready for people to come at me because (those coaches) prepared me, never unnecessarily so or with physical abuse, but they’d get in your ass. You look back on it and you deserved it if you were doing stupid stuff, if you were making mental errors. There wasn’t a lot of criticism if you didn’t have the talent or there was a physical mistake with something you weren’t capable of, but definitely mental mistakes.

In some sense, I think we’ve lost a little bit of that where we don’t necessarily have that grittiness because I think a lot of coaches feel they’ll get fired for it or for saying a swear word. We grew up that if your coach or teacher said you did something wrong, our parents sided with the coach or teacher. We turned out O.K.

You were also a high school basketball coach at one point. What was Coach Ryan like?

I loved it. I was a little bit intense, but the kids loved me, and I loved them. When the players know you love them and care about them, they play for you. I coached freshmen basketball at my old high school, and we went undefeated that year. I was really proud of that.

I was either going to go into college coaching — we’d go to the Final Four with my old high school coach every year, wherever it was — and I certainly caught the coaching bug, but I also caught the political bug. It was going to be coaching or politics. I ran for office and won my first race and that was that.

Shifting to your political career a bit, when you were in Congress, you were known for having pretty low staff turnover. What do you think leaders in general can do better to get buy in and establish cultures?

I think the key was having a fun work environment where everybody knew the mission of the office and what the expectations were. We were there to do great stuff for this little patch of land in Northeast Ohio. Everyone knew that was important. It was, “We are in the service industry. We are public servants.” We created that culture of taking time with people, offering to help, call me if you need something.

Nobody was taking credit. I was dependent on my staff. I had my role to be an inspiration, set the vision and the culture, and I had some great teammates who would go out and execute.

It was about more than, "I can go to another Congressional office and make $5K-$10K more." People got to take vacations, I let them travel and have a good experience. They were part of something bigger than themselves, and I think any time you see a leader have any success at all, it's because they've created a culture where everyone's mission in life can be expressed within that culture.

In your recent Senate run, you had a lot of people who were skeptical of you whose vote you were trying to earn. What do you think the ultimate key is in trying to win over someone who’s not sure about who you are?

It’s being real, being yourself, letting them know you’re sincere. One of my favorite commercials was me and my wife get 7/10 in agreements on whatever we’re dealing with on that day. We crack open a bottle of wine and celebrate how great our marriage is. If I don’t agree with my wife 10/10, why in God’s name would I agree with you 10/10?

I think it’s being really honest and saying, “It’s O.K. We have to talk and solve these problems.” It’s not always the liberal solution, it’s not always the free market solution. It’s usually a bit of both, but we won’t know what that is if we’re not talking to each other.

We were able to get people to say, “Tim’s a good guy. He’s an Ohio guy. I don’t agree with him on everything, but he seems like a normal guy who loves his wife, loves his kids and I can have a beer with.” We’re not going to agree on everything. Why do we have to hate each other because of that?

We also went to all 88 counties to the rural areas where a lot of Democrats don’t go because I really felt it was a moral issue. We can’t ignore voters. These are people who have struggles. Go tell them what you’re going to help them with. Don’t be afraid. I wasn’t afraid to go because someone was going to disagree with me. I went there anyway because I wanted to start a conversation. That would’ve never happened if I hadn’t gone to John F. Kennedy High School with some old-school coaches.

You put in a ton of time and energy into the campaign and then it all just quickly ends. How did you process that and begin to move on?

That night, I had my brother, brother-in-law, my nephew, my wife, my sister-in-law. My wife was like, “I don’t know if we’re going to have a party. Tim’s probably going to want to go home.” I was like, “Hell no. I’m going to go hang out with my crew.”

Sports prepares you for this, too. There are regrets, I wish I would’ve done this different or done that different or spent money on this instead of that, and you go through that, but we left it all on the field. There was nothing major I could’ve done with what we had, and I just kept coming back to that. You’re not going to win everything. It’s Ohio. We did really, really well and we outperformed.

Even now when I travel, someone will grab me in the airport and tell me, “You ran the best race ever. You need to stay in politics.” But I think in the midst of the polarization, people were paying attention to the Ohio race and somebody like me saying, “Guys, we have to come together and heal and move forward.”

I took a lot of satisfaction in that. Who knows? The Lord works in mysterious ways. Any time I’d get a little down, and I think a lot of coaches are like this, you learn. In these experiences, you really learn the lesson. I tell my kids, “Make a mistake. Learn the lesson. Turn the page.” You have to let go of all of the heaviness and the emotion. Take the lesson out and move on.

What are your three favorite books?

“In Tune With the Infinite,” by Ralph Waldo Trine
“The Obstacle is the Way,” by Ryan Holiday
“A Failure of Nerve,” by Edwin Friedman

Three favorite coaches of all time?

Phil Jackson
Jim Valvano
Steve Kerr

Do you have a favorite quote?

It's from Joseph Campbell. “The warrior’s approach is to say ‘Yes’ to life: ‘Yes’ to it all."

The good, the bad, that’s your life. I’m going to be 50 in July. You look back on your life and these moments you thought were the worst — the girl who broke up with you, or the job you didn’t get, or the election you lost — and you look back and think that was probably the most important thing that ever happened to me. It made me who I am and who I was and allowed me to do these other things.

Q&A Resources

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