I love football for the lessons it teaches those willing to learn them.
I was sitting in a bar during RAGBRAI [cross-Iowa bike fest] and I noticed a kind of wing-dings-and-things picture near our table. Usually these things on the wall are just to feign any sense of authenticity, and this was no exception. But the frame’s contents actually hit a soft spot I have. American Football. Specifically college [University of Iowa Hawkeye football] football.
Within the cheap metal frame held a series of inspirational quotes from Vince Lombardi. I was raised on football and basketball as a fan and a player. In junior high I was too short to contend with this new fangled “tackle-football” but I tried my damndest which is what I guess I love so much about the sport. Its unyielding demands on the players, their will and faith in themselves. As a youngster I vividly remember tearing up watching Rudy alone on our living room floor one Sunday afternoon. The values embedded in that film, and inherently, in all of the great tradition of football struck me as pure.
These values have unknowingly been strung throughout my life, and I think Vince, perhaps one of footballs greatest coaches of all time, puts them into words that ensue that same sense of chills that I would get after killing myself on the gridiron against giants I had no ability to fell.
Success is like anything worthwhile. It has a price. You have to pay the price to win and you have to pay the price to get to the point where success is possible. Most important, you must pay the price to stay there.
I’ve never known a man worth his salt who in the long run, deep down in his heart, didn’t appreciate the grind, the discipline. There is something good in men that really yearns for discipline.
Perfection is not attainable. But if we chase perfection, we can catch excellence.
Individual commitment to a group effort-that is what makes a team work, a company work, a society work, a civilization work.
Now, this isn’t my manifesto or anything, but this spirit lives in a part of me. On the other hand so does the whole “strive to not strive” Tao.
ps. Pro football and neo-college football sucks [to be continued...]