Last Sunday, Tom Brady returned to Gillette Stadium for the first of what undoubtedly will be many ceremonies celebrating his amazing 23-year career, the first twenty of which were spent in New England with the Patriots. It was a time to celebrate Tom Brady. It was a time to remember the six championship seasons and the two decades of unbridled joy he brought to a region.
It’s fun to reminisce about those championship seasons.
To remember sitting in the Hampton Inn in San Antonio on the phone with my Dad watching in disbelief as Adam Vinatieri’s kick sailed through the uprights and our Patriots were Super Bowl Champions for the very first time.
Or sitting in The Providence Biltmore, looking over the notes for my Monday morning meeting, when a text arrived from my daughter containing three emojis: a football, shamrock, and a rainbow. I clicked on the TV and saw that somehow the Patriots had pulled off the greatest comeback in Super Bowl history in a game I had abandoned over an hour earlier. Then spending the next two hours on the phone and watching highlights; and then listening to Boston sports radio until it was time to walk the two blocks over to the Rhode Island DOE the next morning for what I’m sure was a very productive meeting.
I guess I spent a lot of Sunday nights in hotels.
Those were great moments and great memories. But days like Sunday are also a reminder to remember our own moments and to celebrate those championship moments in our own lives. We tend to remember the important personal moments (Saturday was our 39th wedding anniversary), but it’s easier to forget our professional victories, small and rare as they might have been, and the people we with whom we worked side-by-side, day-after-day to achieve them.
In his speech on Sunday, Tom Brady said,
It’s one of my core beliefs — there’s nothing significant in life that can be accomplished as an individual. It’s always about the team. We [had] a culture of teammates and cared about two things. They cared about each other and they cared about winning. And if you didn’t care about those two things, you did not last here very long.
It’s unlikely that any of our professional triumphs rise to the level of Super Bowl championship, complete with confetti cannons and commemorative locker room t-shirts and hats. (I had no idea that I would be buying so many of those between 2002 and 2020, but I’m not complaining.) And thankfully we were not mic’d up, at least not most of the time. (Note to self: Take off the clip-on mic before heading to the restroom.) But we all have had some victories and our own special moments and teammates to remember.
When I reflect on my career these days, what I remember most are my teammates, our commitment to each other, our commitment to what we were doing, and what we were able to accomplish together. In a field such as ours, the projects, teams, and teammates change fairly regularly, but if you are lucky their impression and impact last a very long time.
I remember the team at Advanced Systems and the spontaneous celebration that broke out when we got the call that we won the Kentucky assessment contract. I remember the first song my colleagues could find with Kentucky in the title playing over the “PA system,” and rushing out to Service Merchandise to buy a Louisville Slugger which we all signed and presented to Rich Hill. Sure, the celebrations that followed over the next several years were more like Irish wakes and Dear Kentucky (You’re Killing Me) would have been an appropriate theme song, but we celebrated our hard work and our accomplishments, in the office and on the softball field – Go ASME Ants!
I will always remember the MCAS team at the Massachusetts Department of Education. The assessment team led by Jeff Nelhaus and Kit Viator. The extended MCAS team led by Commissioner Dave Driscoll and Jim Peyser. And the extended, extended team that included our contractors and TAC members, along with Ron Hambleton and the grad students at UMASS Amherst. I probably shouldn’t leave out our critical friends at places like BC and FairTest.
There was the incredible team that Achieve assembled to work on the ADP Algebra II End-of-Course Test project, including the folks at Pearson who figured out how to turn our standard setting vision into a reality.
The family of folks from the states and Measured Progress, who along with our TAC members combined to form the NECAP team which occupied a solid decade in my career.
For nearly fifteen years, working with my Center colleagues (primarily Brian Gong and Karin Hess) alongside so many teammates from the Rhode Island Department of Education first on the PBGR team (proficiency-based graduation requirements), which led to the SLO team (teacher evaluation), to the assessment literacy team, and eventually to the accountability team.
And there were my NEERO and NERA teammates. I’m sure I’m missing some others.
So many teammates committed to each other and to the cause of improving assessment in support of student learning. So much to remember.
Was it all successful? Of course not. I would be happy if we achieved at the same rate as Tom Brady and the Patriots, six championships in twenty years, with a lot of close calls, and a big gap in the middle. It is what it is.
We did our job. We did it together.
Image by Francine Sreca from Pixabay
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