Q&A With Jon Law

WHEN DID YOU PLAY FOR HIGHLAND RUGBY?

I played for Larry Gelwix on the Highland Rugby Club from 1989 to 1993, so five years total.

WHAT KIND OF PERSON WAS COACH GELWIX?

I remember back when I was a fairly inconsequential part of the team as a 9th grader. We were taking a trip over to Denver, and although I didn’t contribute much on the field — he knew that it was my first time on an airplane — he made sure that he rearranged  all of the seats so that I could have a window seat my first airplane trip.  He had two teams going, all of the gear, the members of the team that were traveling and there was a lot to keep in mind, but for him, there was nothing inconsequential.  He’s always been able to think about the small parts as well as the big.

DO YOU APPLY ANY OF THE PHILOSOPHIES YOU LEARN FROM COACH GELWIX (GELWIXISMS) IN YOUR BUSINESS TODAY?

I operate a lot of my philosophies in business and other things based on the philosophies that Larry taught me.  For instance, his philosophy on horizontal leadership rather than vertical leadership — I employ that in business today and it allows people to all be empowered and feel a sense of connectedness to the direction of the company and its success.

I think that I use “Gelwixisms” frequently without planning to.  Working in a bishopric with young men gives me a lot of opportunities to revert back to those things that Larry taught me.  One of the things that I work with young men on is doing their absolute best, regardless of situation.  Not comparing themselves to anyone else in their quorums, in their groups or in their social circles.  And as long as they can always do their best, they don’t have to worry about wins/losses.  I think we tend to get caught up on if you’re going to be in a competition, there’s going to be a winner and there’s going to be a loser.  The thing that I learned from Larry is that there is a third alternative that people don’t think about all the time, and that is sometimes you’re just going to come up against somebody who’s better, faster, stronger smarter, and as long as we do our best, we can get beat and still hold our head high and not feel like we’re a loser because that third alternative can enter the equation.

HOW DID COACH GELWIX INFLUENCE YOUR CHOICE TO SERVE A MISSION?

With regard to my mission and Larry’s influence on that — boy, it’s loaded.  There are a lot of things I learned from Larry.  But let me just share this: Hartman Rector Jr. used to say that the Lord wants to bless us and he puts most of the blessings in the second mile and he tells us to go there.  When I was on my mission and I read that, I learned that that’s what Larry had been doing this entire time in Highland Rugby as well.  When I found that I thought that I was spent and exhausted and completely useless, Larry found a way to get me to turn myself inside out to find that there was something deeper there — to tap a hidden reserve, to tap strength that I had no idea existed.  And by doing that, I was able to expound my boundaries and to extend myself beyond my own self-imposed limitations and it made me a better missionary.  It inspired me, as I understood the crystallization of that lesson, to reach people when I was exhausted on my mission, to go find people that may be hurting and needing something more and to serve them.  And it was all about going into that second mile on my mission and finding prosperity that I may never have found on  my own.

HOW DID CHARACTER PLAY INTO THE TEAMS SUCCESS?

I remain connected with rugby today because I believe that it’s one of the most player-rewarding sports that an athlete can play.  In rugby, it’s not about the coach.  It’s not about the coach telling you where to go or what to do.  It’s about a coach teaching you the right way to go and letting you make the choice on the field.  In a rugby game, you may go offense-defense-offense within a 15-second period.  There’s no way that a coach can tell you what to do within that time frame.  So it’s a bit reminiscent of how Joseph Smith said, “Teach them the right way to go in their youth,” and they will never deviate from the teachings that they receive in their youth.  And I find a lot of parallels in rugby with that.  It’s a player’s game.  It promotes fitness, it promotes diligence, it makes one find their limits and push beyond them, and it empowers. And Larry always taught us to find ways on the field to be creative.  I’m not sure that he would enjoy me saying this, but I really didn’t learn that much about rugby from Larry.  What I learned about rugby came from most of the older players.  And Larry understood that winning championships, winning games, was 50% about rugby and the other 50% was about character and discipline and drive.  And that’s what I really learned from Larry.

HOW WAS WORKING AS AN ASSISTANT COACH?

After my playing days and my competitive days were over, I went back and I was assistant coach with Larry for five years, and the biggest thing I learned from that is just the intellectual challenge that is associated with coaching — the demands of always being prepared to give an answer and how challenging it was to organize the team in that fashion.  There’s so much that goes into creating a team that competes at this caliber and, as a coaching staff, it was important to always be prepared ahead of time when your input was asked. And I don’t know that the players really understand — I know I didn’t, as a player — understand just how much that goes into the planning sessions and all of the strategy, the coaching strategy, from the day-to-day basis in practice, the game-to-game basis weekly.

As far as teaching the philosophies (goes), it’s important that all of the coaches are unified in the direction.  We wouldn’t want any of the boys to get a divisive direction; all of the boys are moving in the common goals.  And so what we really did as assistant coaches is to reinforce the things that Larry was teaching because Larry was too busy with the organization.  It was our job to meet with them day-by-day, teach them on a daily basis of the core philosophies that drive the team forward.

HOW DID COACH GELWIX LETTERS HE WENT TO MISSIONARIES AFFECT YOU?

Although I had already decided to go on a mission long before I ever became involved with Highland Rugby, it was amazing to me every month that as busy as Larry was, he always found time to send a newsletter to all of the missionaries that were around the world.  In those newsletters I found a number of things every month that I could use in my teaching to reinforce and to strengthen me as I went along. He commonly quoted prophets and apostles, one of which was Writings at the Turn of the Century by Orson F. Whitney called “Spirit Memories” that talked about how every salient truth that comes so forcibly to the heart and mind of man is but a reawakening of our spirit memories.  And as I went out to teach people, it was remarkable to know that I didn’t have a job to teach people, my job was more or less to remind people of things they already knew.  It became a great source of strength to me.

WHAT DID COACH TEACH YOU ABOUT PREPARATION AND INTEGRITY?

One of the unique things about rugby and the way that it’s coached is that you don’t find the coaches on the sideline on game day.  They’re actually sitting in the stands in international matches and high level matches, and that’s because the teams have already been prepared before they take the field.  That’s much the way that we found ourselves operating after we were in the mission field.  Larry had prepared us with philosophies and a drive that allowed us to hit the ground running.  It really mitigated the lead-in time and the learning time that it took for us to become really effective missionaries.

When you play rugby for Larry Gelwix, it’s expected that you will be honest, that you’ll have integrity, that you’ll watch out for the best interest of your community, your family, your team, yourself.  The one overriding rule is simply never do anything that would embarrass you, your family, your team or your community.

HOW WAS DID COACH GELWIX INVOLVED WITH THE MAKING OF THE FILM?

During the filming of the movie, Forever Strong, it was fun to watch Larry in his role as rugby choreographer.  He was responsible for the technical aspects of rugby and everything you saw on camera, relative to the game of rugby itself, was basically driven by Larry and his creative genius.  He was responsible for a lot of the things that the coaches said on set, the movements of the players, the design of the rugby pieces and sets.  Really it was a fascinating thing to watch all of the different camera angles and the takes and the patience to take rugby in its beautiful, natural sense and put it into a film.

WHAT DID THE ACTORS THINK OF THE HIGHLAND RUGBY TEAM?

I think that during the filming of Forever Strong, the stars that played roles in the movie found that there’s a very unique spirit that accompanies Highland Rugby.  They said many times that there was just a different feeling on this set than on the other sets that they had been involved in.  I think that the love, the companionship, the camaraderie, the strength of unity that pervades the Highland Rugby Club touched them.  I think they really became attuned to the true nature of the game, especially after the boot camp they were put through in order to learn rugby.  They came in as pretty raw, athletic specimens and after a short boot camp they became passable.

YOU WERE CALLED ON YOUR MISSION TO OKLAHOMA, NOT THE MOST EXCITING MISSION. BUT HOW DID COACH GELWIX HELP YOU GET PREPARED?

I received a call to the Oklahoma Tulsa Mission, and I was having a difficult time getting excited about that.  But as Larry met with me, he helped me to understand the very unique and authentic call and how my talents could specifically benefit those in that particular part of the world.  I hadn’t viewed it that way up until that point and my entire outlook on serving in the Oklahoma Tulsa Mission completely changed. I had the opportunity of working  underneath a brilliant mission leader that taught me so much about business and things, and he was right — it was the perfect place for me to go.  I really learned a lot about the authenticity of the divine nature of mission calls because of that discussion with Larry and the other things that he had taught me leading up to that point.

WHAT WAS YOUR EXPERIENCE LIKE MEETING ELDER WIRTHLIN?

As a coach, we had many opportunities to go down and visit Elder Wirthlin in his office in the administration building downtown.  It was fun to listen to him tell his stories about his days as a University of Utah football player.  Many of the boys had never met an apostle before and to have that opportunity to feel of his spirit in his office was truly a unique opportunity.  One that I’ll never forget.