Coach Smitty informs the team that they will be “practicing” in the locker room. He goes on to say that he mishandled the Davey situation, and he apologizes to the team. He also apologizes to Coach Washington for ignoring his advice to handle the matter openly. He reiterates his apology to Marcellus so the entire team knows that he recognizes he treated him badly. The football becomes a microphone for everyone to have their turn to speak so that the team can begin to heal the hurts of the broken locker room.
At its simplest, integrity is calling right, right and wrong, wrong.
At the beginning of this story, Marcellus did what Coach Smitty had trained his team to do: he saw wrong and he called it out. But Coach Smitty was not able to accept that at the time. Over the course of the story, Coach Smitty comes to see the error he made. He did not act with the same integrity that Marcellus showed. But in this chapter he has seen the error and is, himself, using his integrity to call wrong, wrong.
It's not easy to call out others when they are wrong. It's not easy to be the only one standing up saying “This is not right,” when everyone else is just going with the flow. When push comes to shove, it's not easy to demonstrate integrity.
And sometimes, as happened to Marcellus, others will shut us down when we call right, right or wrong, wrong. But integrity demands that we speak up regardless of how the message is received. If others shut you down when your integrity has you speaking the truth, don't be discouraged. Don't let that silencing be the end of the story.
It's scary to behave with integrity. It's scary to speak up when everyone else is shutting up. And it's scary to admit when you have been wrong. There's nothing wrong with being scared. But there is something wrong with not finding the courage to press forward anyway.
Right is right and wrong is wrong. Integrity knows the difference and speaks up about it.
Okay, don't just sit. Here are six things you can do while you're sitting there: