I set my alarm for 4am to get ready to watch Team USA redeem themselves in the 2008 gold medal
basketball game. My coaching idol, Mike Krzyzewski of Duke University fame was at the helm, and my
favorite player in the NBA was about to remind all of us why he hit different. It was the 4 th quarter and USA
was only up two and so Coach K called a timeout. The only timeout Coach K signaled for of the entire
Olympics if I remember correctly. After that timeout, Kobe Bryant either scored or gave the assist on the
next thirteen points. Kobe, well, pulled a Kobe and clinched the Gold Medal for Team USA when he double
jab stepped Spain off of him and sank a three-pointer while drawing the foul. Before Kobe would walk to the
free-throw line and make it a four-point-play, he glared down the entire European arena and put one finger to
his lips and gave them a signal that in America means sssshh or shut your mouth! And they got quiet, and the
rest of TEAM USA got confident thanks to Kobe Bryant’s game-winning extravaganza, proving once again
that when the pressure was the highest, Kobe performed the greatest.
The 2021 Summer Olympics just ended and the USA Basketball team won another gold medal after a shaky
start, but they didn’t have the same devotion and adulation that Kobe’s Redeem Team had garnered. There
weren’t twenty-year-olds like me setting our alarms to make sure we watched the performance live, but
instead settled for clips on Instagram after-the-fact. Something was missing and it was more than just Kobe
and Coach K, it was the love and devotion they represented. With the Olympic games over, it made me
wonder: What if we celebrated people who love the best like we do who runs the fastest, jumps the highest,
or swims the quickest? What if we idolized those who give the most love instead of those who get the most
money? What if the message we taught our children that being a loving person mattered more than being a
“successful” person? What if before we asked our children about their grades, we asked them how kind they
were today? What if instead of just buying our children private trainers for athletics or private tutors for
academic exams, we also got them personal coaches on how to be a more loving person?
To love first not only requires you to have the audacity and temerity to be the first to speak I love you, it also
requires you to speak and show I love you to those who will never love you back and who don’t like you at
all. To love first means you love those who don’t love you, who don’t like you, and who aren’t even friendly
or nice to you. To love first means you have to love those who are the most difficult and challenging to love.
It’s important to remember, you don’t need to know anything about someone to love them, you only need to
know one thing: who you are. When love is who you are, love is what you give to everyone. And the end of
every day, honestly ask yourself: Would I Gold Medal In The Love I Gave Today?
This concept of getting a Gold Medal in Love first came to me many years back when a student of mine
shared something he wrote in class with the whole class. He mentioned how he felt like a loser because his
track season ended and he never got a first place medal. Even though he was a sophomore on varsity, he felt
like a loser for not getting a gold medal. That night after school I drove to Party City and bought him a big
plastic gold medal with 1 st on it and wrote him a handwritten letter. I wrote to him that the only thing that
really makes him a winner is “Gold Medaling” in Love. I mentioned Mr. Fenny, the fictional teacher from
the television show Boy Meets World and how the final thing Mr. Fenny says to his students on the last
episode is, ‘Do good.” Topanga questioned him, “Don’t you mean do well?” thinking her English teacher
had misspoken as doing well means what you do for yourself. For example, if you win your race you did
well, but if you help a teammate win his race you did good. Doing good is about the love you give to others
while doing well is about the accolades you accumulate for yourself. And so, Mr. Fenny corrected her and
said, “No, do good!” And I wrote to this student that to study these losses and turn them into a future win,
not only for himself, but for his team. His team had won the league championship that year but he was only
wallowing in his own self-pity. I told him to train better but also become a better teammate and one day a
gold medal would come. I told him to look at this gold medal every day and visualize the real one that would
be around his neck with enough time and training. And then I never mentioned it or heard anymore about it
from that student again.
Three years later, the current English teacher of Hunter, the student I gave a gold medal to, who was now a
senior in high school, sent me the essay he wrote about me in her class. The student wrote how he kept my
handwritten letter on his wall and kept that plastic gold medal in his athletic bag and would look at the medal
every day before practice and before each competition. In the final race of his senior year, he won first place
and finally got his real gold medal…but he decided not to keep it. His essay mentioned how there was a
sophomore on his team who had lost his race and was in tears and felt like a loser because he never got first
place. He said he could hear my words echoing inside him and he went up to his teammate and did good, by
placing the gold medal he had just earned around his teammates neck and then took the plastic one I had
given him three years earlier and wore that one for the team photo. He said he became a champion twice that
day, first by winning his medal and then again by giving it away. He wrote that he learned how to love first
because I had dared to first love him all those years ago. He not only did well, he did good, and learned how
to Gold Medal in Love.
With that nightly question of Gold Medaling in Love, I wanted to create a symbol that would serve as a
visual reminder for my students to feel more loved and to be more loving. I had a former player tell me
once, “If love was money you’d be rich because you understand love so much.” I thought about making
money with the messaging of love on it but then I remembered the time my former student gave away the
gold medal and kept the one I gave him, and eureka: I knew I wanted to give all my students a real gold
medal with the phrase LOVE 1 st on it.
I started out by hand-drawing (I don’t have drawing skills) the design I wanted. I wanted my life logo of the
Teeter-Totter Leader on top where there red, white, and blue ribbon would go, and a fluted bezel around the
edge of the medal like my favorite Rolex watch design, and then a big LOVE 1 st and some other words of
mine. From this point on, I, on my own, possess no other skills to turn this thought in my head of real gold
medals into an actual thing in my hand. This is where leadership comes in.
When you know how to lead you are never limited by your singular skills but have access to every skill of
those you influence. I contacted a former player of mine who I led fifteen years earlier when I was his high
school basketball coach. His name is Alan and he is an amazing graphic designer. I sent him my non-Van
Gogh drawing and he transformed it into a beautiful piece of art free of change because he said of the lasting
impact my leadership has had on him these last fifteen years.
I contacted a plethora of trophy companies about creating my custom-made medal and all of them gave me
prices that were astronomical. Then I posted Alan’s design of my Gold Medal and explained a little bit of its
deeper Love 1 st meaning and how I wanted to make these into real gold medals and gift them to my high
school students but every manufacturer I asked was way too expensive and I asked if anyone knew anyone in
the manufacturing business that could help.
Only one person responded…but often, one response is all you need to multiple your talents and build the
product you envision. My one response was from a man named Mitchell who was a former student of mine I
had taught seven years earlier. He said he deals with manufacturing companies on creating all kinds of
products in the business he was in, and he would reach out to people for me. For over a week, he called me
every day and went over all the details and prices multiple different companies he contacted would make the
medals for. We hashed out all the details and I picked the company and finalized the deal. These medals
were still expensive about $1,000, but Mitchell got me a tremendous deal that saved me thousands of dollars
from all the companies I contacted on my own were charging. With leadership, it’s not about what you can
do on your own, but how you can multiple talents by building a network of people who feel loved.
Mitchell gave a date and time to Facetime him so he could walk me though the details on how to wire the
money for the medals. I had my $1,000 ready but was not ready for the surprise that was about to happen. It
would become the most memorable Facetime of my life! I gave him a call and we are chatting for a couple
minutes and then suddenly, two more faces appear and now it’s a group Facetime (which I didn’t even know
you could do). The two other faces were familiar. It was Mason and Dylan, two former students I taught ten
years ago who had become business partners. We had all stayed in-touch since they graduated and continued
a relationship (there is no leadership without a relationship) and I was always thrilled to see the
entrepreneurial successes they had become. One of the first people Mason called when he bought his first
house was me. So I knew these two guys well, but I had no idea why they were on this Facetime.
Dylan and Mason said, “Mitchell told us about this project he was working on for you and how expensive
these medals were that you were buying for your students and so we are here to surprise you and let you
know we are paying for all of the medals for you.”
I was stunned and speechless. All I could muster was, “What! Why?”
These three men continued, “We know how you have spent tens of thousands of dollars over the years on
your students in bringing the learning to life and you have elevated all three of our lives more than you can
imagine. We still have all the lessons and symbolic gifts you gave us and use your teachings to navigate our
business and our lives, and you have always modeled generosity for us and so we are just doing what you
taught us to do. I know very few people in society give back to teachers and so this is our little way to be like
you and give back to the kids at the school we were once kids at and remind our favorite teacher that the
message of his medal of Love 1 st in alive inside each of us. We love you.”
And then each one individually, Mason, Mitchell, and Dylan, all said to me the three most transformational
words in the world and changed my world in the process: “I love you…I love you…I love you.”
I just could not believe it. I responded, “Are you sure?”
They all had these big smiles. I was waiting for them to yell, “Sike! Just kidding.” But they didn’t waver.
They said, “Schultz, you taught us the most important teaching of all: how to love ourselves fully and how to
love others first. You truly elevated each of our lives and we are being the leaders you taught us to be. We
are loving first! It’s already been paid in full. Mitch just scheduled this Facetime so we could tell you. We
planned this a couple days ago. It’s already been done. We are doing what you taught us and are using these
medals to teach the new teenagers. We are Gold Medaling in Love.”
“I can’t thank you enough” I said. “We can’t thank you enough” they said.
And then one more time each of them individually said the three magic words to me: “I love you…I love
you…I love you.”
It was the best Facetime I’ve ever had and now these Gold Medals took on a whole new meaning to me as
my Love First medals were truly made with love.
None of this could have happened without leadership: mine and theirs. And none of this could have
happened without love: mine and theirs. Together, we will lead up even more people to Gold Medal in
love…that is leadership in its highest form.
As I hung up the phone I looked up to the framed photo that was hung on my wall. It was me being hugged
by Kobe Bryant. I used to tell my players that when you’re a Teeter Totter Leader and you Love 1 st , your
influence will elevate people where they say, “I don’t know you personally, but you made me a better
person.” I didn’t know Kobe personally, but Kobe Bryant made me a better person…a better leader.
Although Kobe is synonymous with basketball, Kobe is bigger than basketball. People love Kobe so much
because he showed us how to love something so much more than we thought was possible. It wasn’t merely
collecting championships and gold medals; it was the pursuit of perpetual personal improvement. Be it in
basketball, business, writing books, or storytelling that wins you an Oscar or just one child’s heart, whatever
you’re doing, love it and you can give more to it and become more because of it. Love is how you turn critics
into crickets like Kobe did when he gave the crowd the hush one finger to the lips signal. Love conquers
fear. Kobe said, “It’s okay to fail because you are going to be loved no matter what. Love gives you the
confidence to go for it in anything in life. Children become paralyzed by their own fear when parents don’t
give them that security blanket of love.” By Loving yourself 1 st you hush the haters and silence self-doubt.
With our Los Al varsity basketball teams we had many hand signals for different plays, but I would always
remind our guys that our most important hand signal is three fingers that represent the three most
transformative words: I LOVE YOU. I would show them the sign language signal for I love you and told
them that “Placing Love first is greater than getting first place.” That it’s bigger than basketball and XOXO
is greater than X’s&O’s. When the game would get close or a player had some doubt on their face, I would
hold up those three fingers of I Love You and help them quell their inner fear thanks to my visual love.
Those three fingers were like Kobe telling all those who doubted USA to be quiet because Kobe loved so
large he didn’t fear outcomes because Love always overcomes. When you Love 1 st , you have already won
whether the shot goes in or not. Kobe missed many shots, but he’s known for the ones he made. I admired
him because he wasn’t afraid to take them and I love him because Kobe put his arm around people like he
did to me and through love, encouraged us to take our shots in life, too. Through Love you live forever.
Impact is how you gain immortality and there is no more lasting impact than elevating others to Gold Medal
in Love. The love you give continues when your life can’t. May you not only do well, but do good, by giving
your medals away. Love 1 st !
