Listening to Coach Prime motivate his team makes me understand more and more about why some people make it and others do not. There’s a spine in everything you do or you do nothing. When I was a young walk-on at Iowa State back in the 90’s I had no spine. I thought I was good. Heck, I thought I was him. Then I watched running backs and even my damn QB move faster than I could. I watched Wrs block better. I watched coaches look past me and, eventually, say why don’t you bulk to Tight End. I didn’t want to do it. In fact, I didn’t do it. I wound up off the squad. I wound up losing everything I thought I was completely about and it didn’t hurt nearly as much as it should have because I wasn’t about anything. I spent decades chasing after it long after the fact. I spent thirty thirsty years trying to make up for what I didn’t do–what I did not have in my prime. It absolutely sucked. It shaped so much of my life to not have that spine when I was young. If I could — If life allowed you to reshape your own realities and get second chances– I would go back and change that. I would devote and develop myself to that. I would’ve finished that story.
But it didn’t happen. For a while I tried to make it happen through my kids. I shepherded them into football. Now I have a kid playing a Drake and he wants it. He wants more, and he has the mindset to get it. I have a kid fighting for Varsity reps as a 15 year old. I don’t know if his mind is right yet, but he feels to me closer to me than he is to his brother who is at that next level. So, instead of trying to make it happen for him I have refocused on helping him understand why it didn’t happen for me. That way he can decide and make his own choices.