Late to the party, but just finished Miracle.

I appreciated:

-how Brooks chose the right people for the team rather than the best players; my favorite example of this was the goalie. Brooks knew that in order to win he needed a goalie with more than skill - someone with a deeper sense of purpose to make it through a game with the high scoring Russian team. He found this in the goalie he chose, whose deceased mother always dreamed of her son playing in the Olympics. That deeper purpose got the goalie through the last game with the Russian, and he blocked an insane amount of shots

-Brooks’s wife, she was the true coach - she kept Brooks grounded and made him keep his eye on what really mattered. Brooks was always at risk of making the Olympic run all about him due to his past experience in the Olympics, which could undermine the team he was building. I think his wife coached Brooks through this and Brooks ultimately was able to let go to of his past and focus on his team and the present

-Brooks having a Red Leadership style. It was nice to see an example of a positive Red and the power of the “common enemy” leadership approach he instilled on his team, i.e., he was an enemy/persecutor shared by the entire team that ultimately unified them - example, working them to max fatigue in drills together, “not your friend”, and doing things like bringing in an outsider on the team at the last minute to further unify them.

Ryan Farha
Managing Director, Legal
(214) 237-2242