What It Takes to Be a Champion

200 Words / Reading time of 52 seconds

Champions don’t show up only in the extraordinary moments. Champions show up for every moment, even the mundane.

Average players do something until they get it right. Champions do something until they can’t get it wrong.

Professional Hall of Fame football coach Vince Lombardi when questioned about his brilliant play-calling, once quipped that he could give the opposing team his playbook and he would then beat them over the head with it. As Coach Lombardi knew, ideas don’t win championships. Every coach has ideas—it is instead, execution that wins championships.

Great coaches can tell by the way the opposing team practices during warms-up if the game will produce an easy victory for their team or be a battle.

Champions have “heart.” What we call heart is the combination of focus, determination, and discipline—when those three come together, a player will understand delayed gratification which is the ability to fight and push even when the instant reward isn’t there.

When a team comes together, delays personal gratification for team sacrifice, fights and wins not for themselves or their family in the stands, but for the player next to them on the field, that is when champions are made.

 

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