Ron Wilson: From RI to the Olympics and Beyond
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
And, on Wednesday, he will be sharing his experiences and lessons learned with local high school sports stars at the Cox RI Sports Awards at the Veterans Memorial Auditorium.
His message to students: “Hold on to your dreams,” Wilson said in an interview with GoLocalProv. “Enjoy the journey you’re going to have.”
For Wilson, his journey has taken him from high school athletics in East Providence to being an All-American hockey player at Providence College to coaching in the U.S. Olympics. Wilson is also the head coach of the Toronto Maple Leafs in the NHL.
He says the challenges—and temptations—for athletes at all levels are not dissimilar.
“At the end of the day it’s all generally the same. When you’re playing games in high school, you think this one is going to be the biggest game that I will ever be playing in,” Wilson said. In college and beyond—there may be more money and more people watching, but the pressure to win is the same. “You feel the same—you win, you feel great,” Wilson said. “You lose, you feel awful.
Olympic Lessons for High School Athletes
Wilson remembers what it was like to play in high school—as well as sit through awards banquets where older athletes are the honored guests. “I would look at them like they had no idea about things,” Wilson said. “When you’re in high school sports, you’re so self-centered and so cock-sure about where you’re going.”
Rising through the ranks puts it all in perspective, he said. “When you’re in high school and you are an athlete, you probably stand out. You’re a big fish in a small pond. As you move up the ladder, the pond gets bigger and so do the other fish,” Wilson said. “It allows you to put the whole picture in perspective.”
That leads to one of his other messages for students: Don’t lose sight of the fact that sports mirrors the life, not the other way around. “Use sports to promote good things in life, not the negative things we sometimes see,” Wilson said.
Those who don’t have their priorities in order, he added, can turn to performance-enhancing drugs—messing their life up for a few minutes of fame. “Be true to yourself all the time and always do the right thing,” Wilson said.
Wilson ended up coaching the U.S. Men’s Ice Hockey Team that won a Silver Medal in the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver, British Columbia. He also was the coach for the men’s team in the 1998 winter Olympics in Nagano, Japan.
“You realize you’re out there and the whole world is watching. It’s cool,” he said. “When you get close enough, it’s an awesome feeling. You’re so close to realizing a dream.”
Being honored at the Cox RI Sports Awards, he said, is an opportunity to thank all those who made it possible for him to succeed in his career. “You have to look around and see there are so many people who sacrificed to enable you to do what you do,” Wilson said.
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