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Sharpen your pattern recognition here → 🧭 At the Center

Quick suggestion: copy and paste this essay into Claude/ChatGPT. I do it with everything I read. If you’re not going to read it that’s totally fine, but the least you can do is train your AI and build your own “Pattern Library.”

I have already written a great deal about the most fundamental patterns I know:

Those two essays gave you a vocabulary for seeing the architecture of reality.

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Today’s Edition:

We must move from theory to practice, and today we look at how these patterns manifest in the world, in our lives, and of course, in sports, culture, and capital.

🧭 ATC_004 asks what happens when these patterns involve more than one person.

And the answer is unequivocally, hierarchy.

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Let’s get into it.

Hierarchy is not an organizational preference, nor is it a political philosophy, management style, or structure invented by ambitious people to consolidate power.

Hierarchy, in its most fundamental expression, is the way the heaven-and-earth pattern manifests whenever a collective forms.

Wherever two or more people gather, there necessarily has to be some spirit that animates the group. As they act out this shared purpose, the same structure emerges: a head (heaven) that embodies the governing pattern, and a body (earth) that expresses it through material action.

This is where our modern instinct immediately resists.

Unfortunately, we have rightly been trained to see hierarchy primarily as domination, as something imposed from above for the benefit of those at the top.

So our natural reaction is to flatten it, question it, or attempt to dissolve it altogether in the name of equality or autonomy (see: any revolution ever).

And yet, even in our resistance, we cannot escape it.

Every team, every company, every movement, every family, every institution reorganizes itself around some principled head and some expressive body. Hierarchy reappears because it universal pattern that is embedded in the fabric of reality and organizational genomic code of humanity.

It is easy to recognize pattern of hierarchy, and am hardly the first to do so. From Aristotle to Marx, everyone has their own way of seeing this reality reveal itself.

What is unique to you and to me though, is when we come not to just recognize the pattern, but to know it. To embody it, to participate in it, and thus to be formed by the pattern of hierarchy.

What living this pattern out does to us is astounding, because it is a participation in the union of heaven and earth at a communal scale.

Let us begin with hierarchy in creation, so that we come to the mutual understanding that this pattern precedes us, and that it is both universal and revealed.

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In mathematics: Pareto distributions (the “80/20 rule”) appear everywhere human beings measure concentrated outcomes — roughly 20% of inputs produce 80% of outputs.

In creative work: a useful heuristic is that the square root of the number of participants produces roughly half of the total output (in a team of nine, three people produce 50% of the work product).

In wealth: the K-shaped economy reflects wealth accruing disproportionately to a small subset, while the majority experiences far more modest growth.

In public markets: the MAG 7 account for ~33% of the entire S&P 500's total market capitalization — 1.4% of the input driving a third of the output.

In population centers: a few cities (NYC, LA, CHI, HOU) concentrate outsized population, capital, and cultural influence.

In biology: the same neurochemical architecture (serotonin) that governs social ranking in other animals is present in us . . . and it’s 350 million years old!

In atomic structures: electrons do not distribute randomly, but organize around a center of gravity (nucleus), forming structured energy levels.

In the cosmos: moons orbit planets, which orbit stars, which organize into galaxies around massive gravitational centers, systems which are never evenly distributed.

In language: the most common word in English (‘the’) appears roughly twice as often as the second (‘of’), three times as often as the third (‘and’), and so on down the distribution in a near perfect power curve (Zipf's Law).

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These are all examples of power law distributions doing what power law distributions do, concentrating disproportionate weight at the top of the structure — forming a hierarchy of output.

This is pattern resonance.

The cumulative point is simple and worth stating directly: what we are about to explore in human institutions is not something we made up, but rather a pattern that was here long before us.

The question, then, is not whether hierarchy exists.

The question is what it means, what it asks of us, and what we are going to do with it.

If hierarchy is the heaven-and-earth pattern applied to collectives, then the head and body relationship is its essential grammar.

The head (heaven) embodies the collective spirit, the governing pattern, the invisible principle that gives the group its identity and direction.

The body (earth) expresses that governing pattern through material action, through expression, through the concrete work of making the invisible visible.

But now, we are talking about real life people, not just abstractions.

A team without a coach is not just poorly organized; it is structurally incomplete.

The heaven is missing.

A company without a CEO, a league without a commissioner, a nation without a president, a ship without a captain: each of these is not merely inconvenient but ontologically deficient, missing the singular embodiment of the ordering principle that gives the earthly activity its coherence and meaning.

Yes, these offices can be twisted and perverted by those holding them into centers of corruption and coercion. This is obvious and inexcusable behavior by those in positions of power.

But in its proper expression, what must be understood is that the relationship between head and body is not one of domination and submission in the way modern sensibility tends to assume. It is an exchange, and both parties must sacrifice:

The body sacrifices authority and individual autonomy, and in return receives a collective identity, purpose, strength in numbers, and becomes a part of something larger than itself. This collective has direction and a capability of achievement no individual could accomplish alone.

In turn, the head sacrifices participation in the body and receives the weight of embodying the collective spirit. Whomever is elected to the office of the President of the United States is no longer a ‘normal’ citizen, and while they assume the authority and power to direct, they also assume disproportionate accountability for every failure.

Yes, the sacrifices flow in different directions, but both are nonetheless sacrificing something in order for the collective to function properly and embody the unification of heaven and earth.

This is the basis of hierarchy, at least hierarchy as it is meant to be.

The clearest institutional case study in sport I can offer is one that I know from the inside: the NCAA and the cascading hierarchy of American collegiate athletics.

We begin at the top: the NCAA as an institution has some sort of governing principle, some sort of mandate, some sort of North Star that (should) be binding the institution together in a cohesive way and guiding its actions.

It's worth pausing here, because history shows us that the founding principle of the NCAA is not what most people assume. The NCAA was not created to govern amateurism or protect academic standards. It was created in 1906 because Teddy Roosevelt threatened to outlaw college football after 19 players died in a single season. Player safety — not purity, not academics — was the original mandate.

Over time, that mandate evolved into something broader: the protection of the student-athlete experience and preservation of the academic-athletic mission.

And now, the NCAA Board of Governors (elected representatives from across the association) appoint a singular person, President Charlie Baker, to lead the NCAA, embody this higher principle, and disseminate it across the association.

The Baker administration should align with this calling, and he surrounds himself with his cabinet to diffuse authority to others who should also align.

They sit atop their constituents — the conferences — who in turn have their own appointed singular leader, the Conference Commissioner.

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The Conference Commissioner is likewise elected by the conference’s representative council, and they too sit atop their constituency — the Universities within their conference.

Let’s take the Ivy League:

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Commissioner Robin Harris is the head of the Ivy League and is responsible for leading her constituency. She too is surrounded by her lieutenants, who further diffuse authority, and lead their respective divisions.

Just like President Baker, Commissioner Harris and her cabinet are also governed by some heavenly principle that is specific to the Ivy League.

So when NIL, the transfer portal, and NCAA vs. House begin to wreak havoc on the broader collegiate athletic system, the head is able to declare that which isn’t aligned with the higher principle that governs their body, and can act accordingly by opting out of the House settlement.

The spirit that binds the Ancient 8 together is first and foremost rooted in the preservation of the academic mission and the Ivy League’s prowess, which is why they prohibit athletic scholarships and won’t have them anytime soon.

But zoom in further to a member of Harris’s constituency, my alma mater, Princeton:

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We again find the hierarchy cascading further and further down.

President Eisgruber ‘83 leads the institution and is the head of the University. He too has a heavenly principle that governs his decision making across both the athletic and academic missions that is specific to Princeton University.

This is Princeton’s mission statement, and it is the heavenly principle that sets the direction of the University.

Princeton would rather produce a Federal Reserve Chair (Jerome Powell ‘75) and Supreme Court Justice (Sonia Sotomayor ‘76), before they produced a titan of industry (sorry Jeff Bezos ‘86).

The focus is on the undergraduate liberal arts education, and thus the University does not have a graduate business, medical, or law school.

This heaven guides President Eisgruber, and he too has a body underneath him that expresses that which he institutes.

For the athletic principle, this looks like an Athletic Director:

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John Mack ‘00 is the leader of the athletic department, is bound by some higher principle that is specific to Princeton athletics, and likewise has a cabinet of leadership surrounding him to further diffuse authority.

Mack’s constituency is the 38 sports that Princeton carries, each of whom have their own ethos that is embodied in an individual, the Head Coach.

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For Princeton football, that Head Coach was my head coach, Bob Surace ‘90.

Bob is a singular individual that embodies the higher calling of Princeton football specifically. A former player himself, Bob has led the Tigers to four Ivy League championships (2013, 2016, 2018, 2021) and a 10-0 undefeated season in 2018.

He is surrounded by all my former coaches — offensive and defensive coordinators, who in turn have their own position coaches, who in turn lead and govern the players:

At the very bottom of the cascading hierarchy are the players, of which I was one. Each position has a Senior who leads their group, and collectively all players vote on who they want to be their captain each year.

The body elects a person (or multiple) that will embody the team’s spirit and standard, translate the coach’s vision into the language the locker room understands, and represent them to the coaches on their behalf.

In 2022, I was fortunate enough to be elected to this office of Captain and participate in hierarchy in a very tangible way.

But let’s continue.

Hierarchy is pervasive throughout the NCAA and reveals itself many ways you may not expect. So far we have only looked at organizational structure, but what about the structure behind capital flows, performance outcomes, or governance?

How it works: Starting this year, the CFP will payout ~$1.3B/yr in average annual media value to the FBS. This pot is not split equally; it is split according to the hierarchy of FBS football.

There is also prize money for advancing in the playoff ($4-6M per round), but all CFP money (media + prize) is distributed to the conferences, who then decide what to do with it.

Result: The conference media payouts map directly onto a power-law distribution, and the mechanics of CFP payouts can lead to some funky situations: In 2025, Notre Dame earned $20M while Ohio State earned only $2.2M, even though they both made it to the National Championship. This was because OSU is in the Big Ten and split their earnings, while Notre Dame is independent and didn’t have to.

How it works: The NCAA awards 1 ‘unit’ per game appeared in March Madness. Each unit = $2.1M, paid out over 6 years. The national champion, Michigan, earned 7 units this year. But these units were not awarded to Michigan, but instead went to the Big Ten conference, who will distribute them across all member institutions.

Result: Even in a near random statistical distribution — the chance of picking a perfect March Madness bracket is approximately 1 in 120 billion — the capital outcomes map exactly onto a near perfect power-law distribution congruent with the hierarchy of college basketball.

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How it works: College football national championships have historically been awarded through a fragmented system — AP/Coaches polls, BCS, and now CFP. Titles haven often been split across multiple programs in a given year.

Result: Despite structural differences and evolving formats, championship outcomes concentrate heavily among a small subset of programs. Across ~150 years, only 44 teams have ever won a title, with a disproportionate share captured by a handful of dominant programs. Another power-law curve.

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How it works: NCAA governance has shifted from a distributed, one-member-one-vote system to a weighted structure where the Power Four conferences control ~65% of voting power across key committees. This concentration extends into postseason structure, where they advocate for formats aligned with their incentives.

Result: Competing CFP-extension models illustrate this dynamic —

Hierarchy on full display.

I bring up my alma mater and experience as Captain not to credential the argument or reminiscence, but to example a macro pattern and spell out my thesis:

It’s abundantly clear that sports have hierarchies, you actually didn’t need me to walk through that. But let’s ask something deeper:

Why can’t sports function without hierarchy?

The answer lives somewhere in what sport actually is: a collective body pursuing victory within bounded time and space.

→ 🧭 ATC 003: sport is the domain of time operating within the domain of space.

Sport has a knack for compressing time, which makes hierarchy not just useful but structurally necessary.

When time is compressed, the margin for error collapses, stakes become immediate, and deliberation means failure.

In moments like these (bottom of the 9th or a game-winning drive), somebody must embody the governing pattern, and the body must execute it with urgency.

A huddle cannot be a town hall. The QB receives direction from the coach, he communicates it, assignments are distributed, and the collective executes the pattern in a coordinated unison. If anyone freelances, the system breaks down.

A democracy on the field loses to a hierarchy on a field every single time. That is not a preference; it is a structural inevitability.

Imagine if your QB did not have the authority to audible the play at the line of scrimmage, and instead had to ask those around him before changing the play.

Heaven and Earth must organize through a head when time forces action. The more compressed the time, the more decisive the hierarchy must be.

This principle extends well beyond sport:

The team that can align its members under a single governing pattern and execute it with coordinated precision will defeat the team that cannot. And this is not just about the plays or on-the-field action —

This is about cohesion and integrity. This is what separates an institution that embodies the unification of heaven and earth (Saban’s Alabama) from one that does not (SMU 1987 “death penalty“, Penn State 2011 under Jerry Sandusky).

In order to get out of hierarchy what hierarchy is meant to produce, it must be a lived experience, and you must willingly participate in it. Everything that I have described abstractly in this essay I have lived concretely, and you have to.

By doing this, by ‘opting-in’ to whatever hierarchy you find yourself in, you will find yourself participating in space, the unification of heaven and earth, and its structural consequence — that is, formation.

I embraced my role as Captain of the 2022 Princeton football team, and it formed me in the following ways:

Servant leadership: The most effective form of leadership is accomplished through service. When you lead through service, people follow out of love and respect, not out of fear or coercion. That is the difference between a hierarchy that produces cohesion and one that produces compliance.

Embodied standard: Never ask someone to do what you are not willing to do yourself. A leader must embody the standard before announcing it. The captain who demands sacrifice without modeling it first has already lost the locker room.

Disproportionate accountability: “Heavy is the head that wears the crown.” The buck stops with you. When the team fails, the captain bears more responsibility. Authority and accountability are inseparable — the head who accepts the power without accepting the weight of failure is fraudulent, and the body knows it instantly.

Repeated persuasion: Sacrifice sometimes needs convincing, and it is never permanently settled. Part of the captain's work is making the case, again and again, that the collective pursuit is worth what it costs individually. Rally the troops.

Mediation: The captain stands between two levels of the hierarchy and makes each intelligible to the other. You stand before the coaches on behalf of the team, and before the team on behalf of the coaches. Mediation — standing in the gap, holding the structure together from the middle — is one of the oldest roles in human civilization.

You do not know what you are capable of until hierarchy demands it of you.

Hierarchy formed me in ways that I would not have been outside of hierarchy. Now, when I walk into boardrooms, pitches, lead intern cohorts, or attempt to be a better man, fiancé, son, brother and friend, I carry with me what hierarchy has built in me.

I got out of hierarchy what hierarchies are meant to produce. I got out of it what participating in a hierarchy brings to someone who submits to the process.

Hierarchy is pervasive and permeates every facet of our reality. This becomes abundantly clear when we investigate the patterns underlying sports, culture, and capital.

Conventional wisdom and modern sensibility would advise you to identify whatever hierarchy you're participating in, come up with an end goal, and then find a way to navigate such that you can get to the top of said hierarchy. Become the head, acquire more authority, influence, and power.

But that assumes that hierarchy is a ladder, but it is not. Hierarchy is a forge.

This forge teaches the body to subordinate the individual will to the collective purpose and, in the process, develop discipline, trust, and the capacity to serve something larger than itself.

This forge teaches the head to empty himself for the body's sake and, in the process, develop the weight-bearing capacity that leadership demands.

Both are being formed into something they could not become alone. The hierarchy is not a structure you climb, but a structure that shapes you. And that is the point.

Something about sports calls out to us and draws us in. For many reasons this is true, but in-part it is because sports demonstrates to us that participating in this pattern of hierarchy is a good and true thing when done so properly.

We love sports because hierarchy is necessary and formative.

If you are building in the sports, media, and entertainment ecosystem, if you are leading a team, running an organization, or simply participating in one, the question this essay asks is not where you sit in the hierarchy.

The question is:

What is the hierarchy trying to make you become and are you letting it?

In what ways are you a head? Are you learning what the head is meant to learn?

Or are you wielding authority without absorbing its cost?

In what ways are you a body? Are you learning what the head is meant to learn?

Or are you resisting the formation because you believe you should be the head?

Every hierarchy you participate in, the team you play on, the company you build, the family you lead is asking you these questions. Your answer determines not just the effectiveness of the institution but the kind of person you are becoming inside of it.

If you are still reading this, thank you.

Hopefully you have a better understanding of what 🧭 At the Center is, how sports embodies the pattern of hierarchy, and what that pattern reveals about us.

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