The Olympics coincide with other athletic events. It’s the NFL season. A season for football, volleyball, and cross-country. (Oh yeah, school is beginning. The learning season begins — for some.)
It takes talent, size, speed and strength — but, sometimes talent is not enough. What distinguishes some, is their competitive spirit — the desire — to compete and to excel ... to be a “difference maker.” Competitive spirit is available to all of us, but not all choose to have a competitive spirit...
And not just on game day. It’s what you do in practice and before practice. Gabe Lee, who played on Frontenac’s State Champion Football Team, with Tilden Burns in 1995, said, “Tilden would call me on Saturday and say, let’s go run the steps at PSU.” Competitive spirit is not about size or even age. For example, in the recent 50-meter Freestyle, a 16-year-old was in lane four. In lane five was a 41-year-old. Who wins? The 41-year-old. Today, a 24-year-old amputee, competes in the Women’s Olympic swimming Marathon. The difference is a competitive spirit.
Colgan football has always been about competitive spirit. Years ago, two of Colgan’s fiercest competitors on defense were Jim Russian and Chuck Duesing. They only weighed 120 pounds each. PSU Football lists Caleb Farabi as 5’6” and 170 pounds. The picture doesn’t show him standing on a “Pepsi Case” with leg weights. Those defensive lineman just lick their lips when they see that “kid” lineup in the backfield, and sometimes when he has a collision with a Mack Truck. The fans moan, “Ooh, that hurts.” But, Farabi just bounces up, pats them on the back, and says “Nice tackle.” (P.O.’s ‘em when he does that.) Caleb has that competitive spirit.
The biggest payoff for a competitive spirit is not in athletics only, but in everyday life, with its challenges and opportunities. It’s a requirement for high achievement in any part of our lives.
I’ve been told when a jet goes down the runway at 115 miles per hour, it’s just going fast. But, it takes 120 mph to “Liftoff.” It can’t fly until “liftoff.” We can’t fly in life until we have liftoff and have a competitive spirit. A competitive attitude changes impossible to possible.
I one saw an advertisement in a sports magazine, “Impossible is just a big word thrown around by small men — who find it easier to live in the world they’ve been given, than to explore the power they have to change it ... Impossible is not a fact ... It’s an opinion ... Impossible is not a declaration ... It’s a dare ... Impossible is potential ... Impossible is temporary ... Impossible is nothing...”
Isn’t that great??!! Do you want to be something great? Why not read that everyday? A competitor doesn’t train for the silver; they train and compete for the gold. It takes a “gold medal attitude” to win the gold.
Things have been good, but the best is yet to come. 6:27
Hutsey can be reached at phutsey@hotmail.com.
