I have spent a lot of my life playing football. I love it. I always played on very competitive teams and was/am very competitive myself. From my first experience with football, as a 10 year old, I was exposed to pretty high expectations.
I didn't play in Pop Warner, I played in Junior All-American which is like a travel squad with cuts and everything. There were lots of kids that didn't make the team and "washed out" to the city Pop Warner league.
We had seven coached for our team, 5 of which had played in the NFL. I was exposed to good football and the best players in our city. We were good. We won our section, region, and usually placed in the state tournament.
When I got to High School, I looked down my nose at the kids who came up through the Pop Warner system where their dads had coached them. I knew that these kids didn't know how to work. I thought that I knew how to work. I thought I knew what a hard workout was. I thought I understood what discipline was. I thought I know what winning was all about. I was wrong.
Between my Sophomore and Junior year my family moved from Southern California to Arizona. In retrospect, my parents were crazy. We determined where we would live based on where the best high school football was being played. Back then, there was only one school that had the best football bar none: Mesa Mountain View.
Awesome one-on-one tug of war (sorry for the picture quality, they are old pictures)
What followed was the most grueling and intense transformation i have ever experienced. In their weight lifting program, I gained 35 pounds in 2 and a half months. Then I lost 15 pounds at their special football camp.
Most football players hate the first week of practice, which is typically called Hell Week. Most teams meet at their practice field twice a day for practice. It is really hard and it shocks your body back into football shape. Not Mountain View.
The base of "The Hill"
Mountain View took their players up to the rim in Arizona for a week of four-a-day practices. These practices began at 4am then breakfast and offensive class, then offensive practice, then run "The Hill" (read mountain trail) then lunch, then defensive class, then defensive practice then run "The Hill" (yep, same mountain), then dinner, then conditioning practice. One word: Brutal.
I was not prepared for this. I could write a book on the various drills and their attendant punishments for failing to perform them to the coaches standard. As the new guy, I had the opportunity, nay the privilege of attending both the JV camp as well as the Varsity camp the next week.
Then before school every morning we had a conditioning practice before we lifted weights. Is this sounding fun yet? This torturous schedule had essentially sucked the fun out of football. I was exhausted all the time. My body felt like it was week 10 of the season and we hadn't played a single game yet.
The after-school practices were no less intense. I remember having a conversation with my mom over a late dinner after practice and telling her that I was thinking about walking away. I wanted to quit.
My mother in her wisdom told me to stick it out. So I did; and then the games started. We weren't the biggest, the fastest, or the most talented, but we outworked everyone. We had earned victory before the game even started.
I firmly believe that any man's finest hour, the greatest fulfillment of all that he holds dear, is that moment when he has worked his heart out in a good cause and lies exhausted on the field of battle - victorious.
-Vince Lombardi
Luckily for me and my future, we were able to reap the reward of that work pretty quickly, We did lose a game that season, and that Saturday's practice was not a place anyone wanted to be, but that was the only loss that season. We went on to win the East Valley League and on December 10, 1999, the Arizona 5A State Title. I had the honor of being a First Team All-Region and a Second-Team All-State player.
I didn't quit the team. The off-season started two weeks after the title game. I worked like a dog. I now knew what that work would yield. I worked my butt off. I did the things that nobody else wanted to do. I was in the gym early and late.
I laughed my way through the camp my senior year. It hadn't changed. I had. My senior year, I was named a First Team All Region and First Team All State. I signed a full-ride athletic scholarship with the University of Washington as a four star recruit and later became a Second Team All-American there.
The work part of the process is never fun. It can become tolerable and as you set goals and achieve them, it becomes rewarding. But human nature is to want to have success given to us. If I hadn't played football at Mountain View, I probably would have had a successful high school career and maybe played college ball at a small or junior college. I would have missed out in playing Michigan, Notre Dame, Texas, USC, and a whole host of other teams.
That was the harvest. If we are willing to put the work into the plowing, sowing, and weeding or our lives, then our harvest will be great.
One thing my coach said to me after I had graduated was that his practices were not designed to be fun, (to which I thought, "Nailed it". I didn't say it, because to this day, I am still a little intimidated by him) but they are designed to make the game a lot of fun. Again; Nailed It.
Do the things that others aren't doing to get the outcomes that others aren't getting. That is the (True) Law of the Harvest.