FOOTBALL TAUGHT ME…

Football Season is Back!

It’s that time of year again. Football season is back! I played football through Junior High, High School, and a year of college. After that year of college ball, I realized it was time to hang up the pads and cleats. It was time to move on and pursue my dream of becoming a Navy SEAL.

My football ‘career’ (if you want to call it that) taught me a bunch of valuable lessons, traits, and skills. Many of which helped me make it through SEAL training. Some of them even helped me as a SEAL operator. They applied to both the football field and the battlefield. Some of the lessons I learned in football still help me today.

The HARD Lessons Football Taught me:

1). Commitment – When you decide to play a sport, especially a team sport, it is a commitment. You are committing to get in shape for that sport, participate in all the practices, and go to the games. You go to the games in hopes to play. If you don’t get to play (which happens), you are there to cheer on your team. Plus, you are only one play away from being needed by your team, especially in a contact / collision sport like football. You don’t miss practices or games because you have something else going on because you are committed to the team. Commitment is more important than either your comfort or convenience.

“Commitment is more important than convenience!”

2). Discipline – When you have the self-control, or ‘discipline’ to DO what you DECIDE you want to do, you can become nearly unstoppable. You get all your off-season workouts done regardless of how you feel or what you are thinking. You do the work on your BEST days (when it’s easy). You do the work on your WORST days (when it’s hard). You do the work when you are MOTIVATED or when you are UNMOTIVATED, again regardless of how you feel. As Andy Frisella, podcast host and founder of 1st Phorm and 75-hard says, “People like this cannot be stopped. People like this cannot be ‘messed’ with (he uses a different word, starting with ‘F’). You can burn their house down and their ‘stuff’ is still getting done that day.” Of course, Jocko made discipline very popular with his “Discipline = Freedom” mantra. I can’t agree more.

“People like this cannot be stopped.” – Andy Frisella

3). Accountability – When you play football, you are responsible for ‘doing your job.’ Yes, there are times when you must help your teammates, but if you worry too much about what your teammate is supposed to do, you’ll either forget what your supposed to do.. or not do it well. When you don’t do your job on the football field, it can be glaringly obvious. If you miss a block, your QB may get sacked. When you miss a tackle, the other team scores a point. People in the stands might not know why the QB was sacked or why the other team scored, but your coaches and your teammates will, either in the moment, or later in the film study! When you make a mistake, you have to OWN IT! You also have to make corrections so it doesn’t happen again!

“Do your job!” – Bill Belichick

4). Preparation – The more you prepare for a season, either in the weight room or on the field/track with your speed work, the better you’ll be in the fall. The same is true for a game. The harder you prepare on the practice field, in the film study, or even just memorizing the playbook, the better off you’ll be. Sure, sometimes we rise to the occasion.  More often, we “fall to our level of preparation”. One off season, I worked out really hard. I was much bigger, faster and stronger than I was the previous season. It made all the difference. Before one game in high school, we saw a pattern emerge. Every time they ran a certain play, they had a certain formation. We knew it was coming. Preparation helped us win that game, and many others.

“We don’t rise to the occasion. We fall to our level of preparation.” – Archilochus

5). Mental Toughness – The hard work of playing football will make you tough physically. But that toughness starts in the mind. The mind is primary. It takes a level of mental toughness, in addition to discipline, to work hard in the weight room and on the practice field. It takes even more mental toughness to GET BACK UP when you’ve been knocked down. Getting knocked down, or just being in pain is a common occurrence in the sport of football. Mental toughness is not just a trait, it’s a SKILL. If you play football, you have no choice but being mentally tough.

“We should remember that one man is much the same as another, and that he is best that is trained in the severest school” - Thucidydes

6). How to Win – When the game is close and your team FINDS A WAY to WIN, you learn a valuable lesson. You learn how to WIN. You learn what it takes to get the job done, finish the task, and accomplish the MISSION. This is not just a trait. It’s a SKILLSET. The more times you are in a position to win or lose, the better you will get at figuring out how to WIN. Then, as you win more and more games, you learn how to act after winning. You learn how to celebrate very briefly, and then get ready for the next game, mission, or task. You learn that if you celebrate too much or too long, you do so at the expense of the next fight. In other words, you learn how to act in victory… and defeat.

“Act like you’ve won before!” – Coaches EVERYWHERE!

7). How to Lose – Eventually, you will lose. The younger you start playing, the sooner you learn this lesson. The sooner you learn it, the sooner you will learn how to handle it. The sooner you learn it, the sooner you’ll realize how much losing SUCKS! You should never get used to losing. But those who don’t know how to lose are in for a lot of disappointment later in life. They don’t know how to ‘take it’ when things don’t go right. In life, things will not always go right. This teaches you a level of mental toughness. You learn that the loss of a game is just temporary. The loss is just a set-back. Often times, we learn our best lessons in losses and failures. Most importantly, we learn that FAILURE IS NEVER FINAL. It’s just a momentary set-back in the pursuit of your objective, as long as you know how to GET BACK UP when you’re knocked down. This is one of life’s most important lessons.

“Don’t be a sore loser.” - Coaches/Parents since forever

8). Resilience – At some point, things will not go your way. Similar to losing, mistakes will happen. It’s ok to lose. It’s ok to fail. It’s ok to make mistakes. They all teach you something. They also give you an opportunity to practice RESILIENCE. Athletes (I’d argue everyone) needs to know how to bounce back and not let a failure define them. This is both a TRAIT and a SKILL. It’s a hard one to develop as it requires a failure or a mistake to practice. Treat every such instance as a chance to strengthen your resilience. Football will give you MANY opportunities! In my opinion, Michael Jordan is one of the greatest athletes EVER. Not just in basketball, but ALL SPORTS. He demonstrated his resilience over and over before finally winning his first title. That resilience made him even TOUGHER by the time he won that title. He became unstoppable because of what he went through to get there.

“Fall down seven times. Stand up eight.” - Japanese Proverb

9). Teamwork & Leadership – When you play a team sport, you will learn teamwork and leadership both. As a member of a team, you learn to sacrifice of yourself for the good of the group. You become more selfless (also a trait). You learn how to lead either by being a leader on the team, such as a team captain, or observing the behavior of the leaders of your team (captains or even coaches). Being a team player, and becoming someone others can rely on to do their job is a valuable lesson. Most people will end up working with others no matter what they do. Being part of a team as a youth is a valuable experience before you work alongside others in a corporate setting. You have to do your job. You also have to make the team better. That’s the essence of being a great teammate!

“It’s not good enough to be good at your job. Do you make the TEAM better?”

10). Unanswered Prayers – This one is the most personal… I wanted NOTHING more than to become a Division 1 football player. That never happened. After my first year of college ball, I realized God didn’t create me for the sport. I simply wasn’t good enough (or big enough or fast enough). Things didn’t work out. At the time, I was upset. As I look back, I realize it was a huge blessing. It lead me to pursuing my goal of becoming a Navy SEAL. I soon realized that was something I wanted even more, and it was something I was really good at. My time in the Navy brought me to San Diego where I eventually met my wife. I went on to have an amazing career as a Navy SEAL. I’ve been married to my wife Lea for nearly 21 years. We have 4 kids and an amazing life TOGETHER. None of this would have happened if ‘football had worked out’ for me. To this day, I’m grateful it didn’t. Some of God’s greatest gifts are all too often those unanswered prayers!

“Some of God’s greatest gifts are unanswered prayers!” – Garth Brooks

The Process vs the Results…

When I was in high school and college, all I wanted was to be good at this game. I wanted NOTHING more than to be good enough to get a division 1 scholarship. I didn’t get one out of high school and went to college thinking I would earn that scholarship later. That wasn’t meant to be. As I mentioned above, I was not good enough. At the time, I was upset. Today, I’m grateful. Not only am I grateful that it didn’t all work out. I’m grateful for the lessons learned playing the sport of football. Those lessons, traits and even skills shaped me. They helped me in the military and help me still today. The greatest blessing in this case was not the accomplishment of my goal, but the person I became in pursuit of that goal.

What sports did you play as a kid? How long did you play them? What lessons did you learn along the way?