Why I love Football

Now the only relevant clip is the first 42 seconds when Lou Holtz is giving his pregame chat to his players. As much as I loved Joe Montana (Notre Dame Alum) and the movie Rudy I am in no way a fan of Notre Dame. In fact I probably root against them most of the time. But Lou Holtz talks about one of the reasons I love sports, specifically for a physical sport like football. There’s a lot of team aspect to the game and strategy where you try to mis-direct and out-think your opponent but a lot of times you come to the situation where it is one-on-one, i.e. mono-e-mono. Your assignment is to block, hit or get past the guy in front of you.

This reminds me of high school football where we would do tackling drills where it would be basically you against the ball carrier. No cutbacks or other blockers to worry about, it’s just you going straight at the other person. In the Lou Holtz speech clip he says you should “go out there and say hey baby here I am now, let me see you run through me now. Let me see you show some disrespect for me when my nose is on your nose. Let me see what you think of me now that my face is to you.” He’s describing the idea of not backing down.

When you’re tackling someone there are many things that can go wrong. You can miss (I know the feeling), you can get run over (I also know how this feels), you can even get injured (and yes unfortunately I know what this feels as well). But you shouldn’t demean yourself by not giving 100%. Otherwise you’ll live a life of regret. You won’t get a chance to really shine. It’s the same with our faith in God. If we don’t give our whole selves then we won’t get a chance for God to shine.

So when I watch Football I don't see individuals mindlessly hitting each other. I see how a person can face their fears, look them straight into their eyes and say "here I am now, let me see you run through me now. Let me see you show some disrespect for me when my nose is on your nose. Let me see what you think of me now that my face is to you.”