MORE THAN JUST A GAME

There is a DVD about Kenny Chesney’s song The Boys of Fall.  It is called The Boys of Fall: When You’re Playing, You Think You’re Going to Play Forever.    It is a film by Kenny Chesney and  Shaun Silva.  This clip is about 2-Minutes long with comments from:

Joe Namath:  Super Bowl champion and Hall of Fame Quarterback

Bill Curry: Won champions as a player and coach.  Earned 5 different ‘Coach of Year’ awards through 3 decades of coaching.  He has had one term as the President of the NFLPA.

Condredge Holloway:  Quarterback at the University of Tennessee 1972 – 1974

Bill Parcells:  Super Bowl Champion and NFL Hall of Fame Coach

I value education.  I have a Master’s Degree, earned with a 3.9 graduate school grade point average.  Roughly 30% of Americans actually earn a four year college degree.  Only about 10% have an advanced degree.  Playing the odds, I believe there is a direct correlation in the level of education a person earns and their average income.  As a political system, our democracy / republic only functions as well as it’s people are educated.  However, I have learned far more about life from athletics than I did from the world of academia.

Life is made up of human beings, our environment, animals and the symbiotic circle between us.  It is about relationships.  Relationships are interpersonal interactions between us.  Within these interactions are defined roles.  Leaders, followers, partners and support providers all working in greater harmony with defined and accepted roles.  Some of the most significant accomplishments in all of the human race are marriages, creating and responsibly raising a child, leading someone to Christ or simply serving as a positive influence on another.  For those of us that are Christian believers, our faith is founded on our personal relationship with God.  Even the United States Military works together in teams.

Teams involve a surrender of an individual’s ego or personal agenda for a role in the unified effort of a group toward a common objective.  Life is about team.  Sports, in my case, specifically football,  teaches us about life.  Sports teaches us the value of: team and teamwork, the significance of a positive attitude and mental toughness {resiliency}, the value of a solid work ethic / effort, the power of commitment, and discipline.

High School Sports programs are the best Response To Intervention {RTI} solutions for at-risk youth.  High School age students that participate in sports have better attendance and higher grade point averages.

The power of athletics transcends the world of academics and life situations.  One of the last fun and positive memories I share with my wife, Dana, before her health deteriorated due to breast cancer, was us watching the LSU vs. Alabama “Game of the Century” in November 2011.  LSU won the game 9 – 6.  Moreover, as her health began to deteriorate, I remember walking in our house and seeing Dana and her sister sitting on the couch together with an LSU Baseball game on TV with an LSU Softball Game on a laptop computer.  Sports, specifically LSU athletics served to provide us a few moments of levity when it was needed most.

As coaches and players, the lessons and relationships of athletics last a lifetime.  In June 2015, I visited a recently graduated former player that had been shot.  He laid in his hospital bed and told me about his thoughts while in transit to the hospital immediately following the shooting.  Thoughts of, “Man, coach, all  I kept thinking about was things you used to tell us.”

In the most extreme of life’s adversity and the most joyous of triumphs, athletics are more than just a game.