Hilton Head’s 2-star general: ‘Work hard. Take risks. Invest in people.’ | Opinion
Stand at attention, folks, “The Five” has struck again.
And this time, the stakes are much higher than wins on the soccer fields of Hilton Head Island, back when “The Five” was a mantra for winning teams.
“The Five” was a list of five standards hammered into hundreds of kids under coach Bo Sylvia in the 1980s and 1990s, and it is still delivering results.
But now, in the case of star player and coach’s son Brett Sylvia, the scoreboard includes life and death — even world order.
After recently earning his second star, U.S. Army Maj. Gen. Brett G. Sylvia is commanding general of the 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault) and Fort Campbell, Kentucky.
That’s rarified air, and a staggering responsibility for the 1990 graduate of Hilton Head Island High School.
Fort Campbell is the equivalent of a city. It includes six schools, 45,000 homes, 10,000 barracks spaces, five chapels, a shopping mall, and 70,000 acres of training area at the Kentucky-Tennessee border.
Each day, 38,000 soldiers and civilians work there. It is the largest single employer in Kentucky and second largest in Tennessee.
Sylvia is responsible for the training and readiness of 20,000 “Screaming Eagles” soldiers in the 101st Airborne Division, and his base is home to 10,000 troops in other units.
Another 50,000 family members are associated with Fort Campbell. And 70,000 military retirees have chosen to stay in the area.
Sylvia said the job “is very humbling on most days.”
Prior to this assignment he was vice director of what they call Joint Staff J5, which proposes strategies, plans and policy recommendations to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Previous duties have included multiple commands on the battlefields of the Middle East, which he is proud to say kept war from our own shores.
Surely, the grit and grunts of our sandy soccer fields also helped prepare Sylvia for each daunting day.
“The Five” — considered the 12th man on Coach Sylvia’s soccer teams as he rolled past 200 career victories — stood for team offense, team defense, discipline, leadership of the upperclassmen, and the lower classmen’s understanding of their role on the team.
It also stood for these five things: Competitive fire, self-belief, loyalty to each other and to the school, self-discipline and collective responsibility.
“The Five” took on a life of its own in the Lowcountry, emblazoned on T-shirts, buttons, game banners, posters and Jeep wheelcovers.
Players often had crew cuts and called the coach “sir.”
They went to mandatory study hall year-round.
Brett attended Hilton Head Preparatory School and Hilton Head Island High, where he was class salutatorian. He finished first in his environmental engineering major at West Point, and has two master’s degrees. The question for “The Five” was not mere success, but whether players would push themselves or be pushed to higher ground.
The general focused on three things when we discussed what he’d tell today’s 17-year-olds on the soccer fields of home.
“Work hard,” he said. “Take risks. Invest in people.”
He said his father ingrained in him at an early age “a willingness to work hard” and the Army “provides plenty of opportunities for you to work hard and enjoy it.”
He said it’s crucial to invest time in your boss, subordinates and peers.
Risk-taking, he said, is a matter of doing the job right. You can play it safe — hit singles — and be a success, he said. Or, you can push harder “if you’re desiring to achieve significance — do things that make a difference, not just accomplish tasks.”
He referred to a time during his second tour in Iraq when they were involved in heavy combat. “I put up a sign that said, ‘What would you do differently today if you couldn’t go home until the war is won?’ ”
His point was, “You can do your time and go home, or you can really try to make a difference. Our job here is to do so well that no unit has to come in behind us.”
Long live “The Five.”
David Lauderdale may be reached at LauderdaleColumn@gmail.com.
