Like other parents, I fell into the travel-soccer trap. I spent a lot of time thinking about the ins and outs of soccer all those countless hours watching their games from the sidelines. One day, it struck me that there's a lot of overlap between their sport and the "sport" of advocacy. I realized that there are three lessons that soccer can teach us about advocacy.
Lesson 1: It's hard to score
Americans commonly criticize soccer games for their low scores. Advancing the ball all the way up the field and getting it into the net takes foot skills, discipline, teamwork, adaptability, and strategy. If you grew up like I did, watching "Schoolhouse Rock" every Saturday morning, you watched "I'm Just a Bill" make the journey from the hopper to the President's desk in three short minutes. The reality is that it takes an average of seven years to advance a bill through Congress' complex decision-making process. In fact, I was involved in an effort that spanned from 2003-2014 to pass a job-training reauthorization bill. That's an 11-year journey from the hopper to bill signing, and without the groovy music.
Lesson 2: You need a goalie's mindset
Both my teenaged children are soccer goalies. Last year, my son's team lost to a much stronger team. The final score was 1-4, and he had a right to feel frustrated afterward. He was upbeat instead. "Dad, today's score doesn't show it, but I won today," he explained. "My team took three shots on goal, and their goalie stopped two. The other team took 50 shots on me and I stopped 46."
Advocacy requires a goalie's mindset. The reality is that for every one law you help pass, you stop hundreds of bad ones. For example, in February 2013, a rescission bill (H.R. 1) threatened to eliminate all federal funding for employment services and job training. It would have turned out so much worse if job-training proponents hadn't fought so hard. While a small portion of funding was cut, the preponderance was saved.
Even if it didn't feel like a victory and it didn't get a drop of ink in any newspaper, we won.
Lesson 3. You won't get to play in the championship if you don't play hard all season
Years ago, my son's team dominated its league. With an undefeated record late in the season and their top-ranking almost guaranteed, they faced a team they had badly beaten weeks before. In the first half, they played like they didn't need to make an effort to win. They got a reality check at halftime and narrowly won the game. After the final whistle blew, they celebrated that meaningless victory like it meant everything.
In advocacy, the big wins and the small victories can both have far reaching and long-lasting effects. Take H.R. 1 for example. Last Friday (Aug. 7, 2020), the Department of Labor released July's monthly jobs report. There were 24 million unemployed (16.3 million) and jobless (7.7 million) people last month. That long-forgotten victory in 2013, made a difference for those people who filed for unemployment insurance benefits to help pay some bills and/or participated in training that will help them learn skills they need and employers seek.
Final Lesson
You will lose some, but you can't win if you don't show up to play. Thomas Jefferson made this case better than I ever could when he said, "We in America don't have a government by the majority. We have a government by the majority who participate."
** This article, written by Seth Turner, was originally posted on the Congressional Management Foundation's website on August 10, 2020. For more information about CMF, go to www.congressfoundation.org.
