“COACH, I GOT THIS!”: The Human Advantage No Model Can Learn

“To ‘train a human’ — that is, to live a life — is to struggle and to accept the possibility of failure. Generative AI is all about cutting out that process and making any pursuit as instant, efficient, and effortless as possible.” — From “Sam Altman is Losing His Grip on Humanity” by Matteo Wong

Sam Altman talks about humans and machines as if they operate on equal terms. That assumption, now common in the AI industry, feeds the long-standing humans-as-replaceable-resources corporate paradigm — casting humans as systems to be trained rather than people shaped through struggle, choice, and lived experience.

Optimization only works in stable environments. In an AI-accelerated world defined by volatility, the impulse to eliminate friction becomes a liability. Machines thrive on efficiency and pattern matching. People bring value by asserting themselves when the model fails — when ambiguity and moments of struggle demand judgment rather than execution.

As a coach of teams that defied the odds to win national championships, I’ve witnessed what is possible when humans “assert themselves” in “moments of struggle.” Our teams had to make significant improvements to challenge more accomplished rivals. This was made possible when each member of the team committed to continually stretching beyond perceived limitations. Growth doesn’t happen without struggle.

One moment of growth still gives me goosebumps. It happened during the 1995 NCAA National Championship final.



We were on the brink of losing to Florida, the #1 seed. Momentum had swung decisively against us. Most of our athletes had never experienced the pressure of an NCAA final. Our singles lineup included two seniors, one sophomore, and three freshmen. Only one player in the singles lineup had experience in this kind of environment.

Our freshmen who had shone so brightly in the semis suddenly looked like deer in headlights. We went down 4–1 quickly in the singles. Our #1 player, Kelly Pace, pulled out a tense 3-setter, winning four straight games after being 3–2 down in the third. Now it was 4–2. We had survived the singles. But Florida only needed one more point to close it out. We would have to pull off something extraordinarily difficult under any circumstances: sweep all three doubles matches. It had never been done before in the history of NCAA championship finals. There was a sense of inevitability in the air.

But I felt good about our chances.

During the regular season, we had encountered an unusually high number of rainy days. Our only option on those days was to try to grab the one indoor, multi-purpose tartan court on the 5th floor of Bellmont Hall — before the students who wanted to play badminton showed up.

If we were fortunate to get there first, we would pull a dusty old tennis net out of the storage closet and jerry rig it to stanchions that were designed to hold volleyball nets. To hold the stanchions down, screws were driven into holes in the floor that were all, but stripped. I had to hustle down to the third floor to borrow some free weights to hold the stanchions in place. When there were no weights available my assistant and I would have to stand on the stanchions to keep the net from collapsing. Tartan floors are slick, but this particular tartan floor was old, worn and splotchy. The ball would skid erratically especially if it hit one of the many bare spots.

How could we possibly get anything out of practicing under these conditions? How could we possibly be ready to compete for a national championship in May?

I could have complained about not having indoor courts like so many of our rivals, then have our athletes hit some volleys, maybe hit against the wall a bit, and call it a day. But on a rainy day in March I wasn’t thinking about winning in May. During each practice I was focused on how our athletes could become better competitors — on that day! I saw this as a tremendous growth opportunity — an opportunity to create an environment that challenged each athlete to execute in very difficult circumstances.

In high-level doubles you do not want to let the ball touch the ground on your side of the court while doing everything possible to ‘find the ground’ on your opponents’ side. The conditions in Bellmont provided every incentive to do this. The frictionless surface created plenty of friction!

I challenged our athletes with “Find the ground, close, and finish!” To emphasize “finishing,” we did a drill called “Crazy Overheads,” making them hit overheads off of lobs fed to them at a quick clip and at ridiculously extreme angles and trajectories. They had to hit every ball as an overhead, even balls that they would normally let bounce or hit as volleys, as I screamed “Finish!” Being forced to contort your body to hit overheads while scrambling randomly up and back, side to side, and diagonally forward and backward definitely created “moments of struggle!”

When May arrived, Bellmont was with us.

But Florida was pumped. Our athletes had a big mountain to climb. They needed a jolt. After giving them some space and time to hydrate, I pulled them together. “Eyes here. You can do this! Go out and compete the way you have prepared to compete. Remember Bellmont!”

All 3 teams stormed to early leads. Our #1 doubles team, Pace and Cristina Moros, dominated and finished quickly. At the outset, prospects for our #3 team, Ashley Johnson and Lucie Ludvigova, were not promising. Johnson had been hit with food poisoning the night before. During the singles she was flat on her back in the clubhouse. But she had always found a way to rise to the occasion in tough situations before and Ludvigova, who along with Pace was a team leader, was a stubbornly relentless competitor. After a slow start, they went on to win their match.

Suddenly, the score was tied: 4–4. The national championship came down to one match. Our #2 doubles team: sophomore Farley Taylor and freshman Anne Pastor. They had struggled all season just to stay above .500 and they were facing two Florida upperclassmen — one of whom would go on to become a top-20 player in the world.

Because Taylor and Pastor had been so up and down, I decided to become Coach Optimizer and call every serve — like a catcher calling pitches. They cruised in the first set. Returns were finding the ground and after all, why not? A true bounce was heavenly after struggling with the splotchy tartan in Bellmont. They were also serving effectively. In baseball lingo they were “pitching to contact” by jamming the Gators or making them stretch, forcing them to hit weak returns. The server’s partner would then poach to pick off the “pop ups.”

Then reality began to set in. They tightened up and dropped the second set. The third set went back and forth. Optimization was starting to break. At 3–3, 30–40, I felt that Taylor absolutely had to hold her serve. I barked out: “Serve T!”

Instead of nodding in compliance, Taylor paused, turned, locked eyes with me, and barked back:

“Coach, I got this!”

I was stunned. But I didn’t react with something like “What makes her think she can speak to me like that?! I’ve gotten them this far.” I was thrilled! I turned to one of my assistants, Kimm Ketelsen, and said “I think we got this!”

Taylor saw something I didn’t see. She served wide — and hit an ace! She and Pastor went on to close out the match, securing a historic upset for the team.

It still gives me chills to reflect on the explosion of growth unleashed in front of me that day. In crucial moments, our athletes decided to shape circumstances rather than letting circumstances shape them. In “moments of struggle” each athlete made a personal decision to stretch beyond what they perceived to be their limitations. What distinguishes top performing teams is mutual respect, earned by demonstrating a strong relationship to self — the willingness to step out of comfort when optimization breaks.

In an AI-accelerated world, workers experience “moments of struggle” every day. Business leaders must understand that treating people like human resources on a balance sheet doesn’t work anymore. Human development is about becoming someone, not just producing something. When it comes to ‘humans,’ business leaders must let go of the “if you can’t measure it, it’s not worth doing” mindset and learn how to create an environment that unleashes the true value that ‘humans’ can offer.

AI cannot grow. It can only churn through patterns it has already seen. Inefficiency becomes something to eliminate. Inner struggle becomes weakness. But much of what matters most emerges precisely because life is inefficient. People grow when challenged to stretch beyond perceived limitations in moments of struggle — the human advantage no model can learn.

Jeff Moore is a leadership coach and CEO of Moore Leadership LLC. He is the author of “Strive Together: Achieve Beyond Expectations in a Results-Obsessed World.”