“ATTENTION YOUNG PLAYAS, this is the day that you’ve dreamed about your entire lives. You can’t slow it down because God will only give us the same twenty four hours TODAY that he gave us on yesterday. So we’ve got to cherish this moment and take full advantage of the opportunity while we’ve got it.
You’ve dreamed of playin’ in the State Championship since the first day you picked up a football. Now God has chosen YOU out of the thousands of kids that started on this journey in the state of Indiana from the projects, the suburbs and yes, even rural America. There have been kids with far more talent than you possess, more athletic ability, more style and charisma; well not really but get what I’m tryin’ to say. However, YOU are the ones that have made it to Lucas Oil Stadium on THIS day.
Gentleman, you have been predestined to run out of this locker room to show the state that you belong in this championship game. Now that you’re here, what are you gonna to do with the opportunity? It’s not enough to just show up, to bring your camera and soak it all in. God didn’t bring you here to have a field trip downtown. So what are you prepared to do this evenin’?
Championships are not won on game day! The game is only a culmination of events. This championship was won during the off season when the other teams were having a good time and you were putting in work. When everyone practiced for two hours and went home and you stayed and put in 100 extra reps everyday. When everyone was asleep and you got up at 5am to put in work, in addition to your regular workouts. With that, you put yourself in a position to be become a champion.
The trophy was being engraved when you decided that you weren’t going to let boyz tell you what you couldn’t accomplish. Your ring was sized the day you cut off friends that weren’t going in the same direction that you were going. Your name and picture was immortalized in the book of champions the day that you bought into Coach Hebert or Coach Moore’s mission. Every diamond in the setting of that ring represents the sweat that you put in to get to this very moment.
Aristotle once said, “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then, is not an act, but a habit.”
So as a result my brothas, this game is just a matter of formality. It’s just another part of what we have to do to show Indiana what you’ve already become. CHAMPIONS!
Now who’s got the intestinal fortitude to last the 48 minutes you’ve been given to decide this thing? You don’t have to be the best team; you just have to be the best team during this allotted time. It’s just that simple because nothing has changed my friends.
The field is the same 100 yards in length and 65 yards in width that it was when the season started. The goal posts are still 10 feet high and 18 feet 6 inches wide like they were last week. The refs are still the same ole duns from Footlocker trying to sell you some repeat Jordan’s from twenty years ago. If you can remember that when you run out of this locker room, you’ll return as champions and become immortals in the “Football Book of Greatness” forever.
However, if you allow the moment to get too big, you’ll fail miserably and 24 hours from now you’ll be irrelevant to the rest of the state. Why? Because just showing up will mean nothin’ if you don’t win it all. You’ll have what the ole timers used to say, “A face that only a mother could love.” So how do you wanna do this bruh? I say you go out there and put yourselves in a position to be relevant tomorrow!” LET’S RIDE!!!!! CHAMPIONS on THREE!!! ONE! TWO! THREE!! CHAMPIONS!!!
