Make a Difference

The article we ran yesterday is one of our favorites from High School Baseball Web...and, it serves as the focus of our post today. One of the key points Bob Howdershell makes is “A “player” never changes his game, no matter what the score." Today, we watched the emotional press conference from Brett Favre. As an athlete, there was no player that epitomizes that statement more than Brett. He brought his "A" game to every contest he ever played from the time he was a kid. It was practically ingrained in his DNA. His self discipline started early in his life.

Favre started for the Hancock North Central baseball team as an eighth-grader (there's our baseball reference to this story folks) and earned five varsity letters. He played quarterback, lineman, strong safety, placekicker and punter in a primarily option, run-oriented offense coached by his father, Irvin Favre. After high school, Southern Mississippi offered Favre a scholarship (the only one he received). Southern Miss wanted him to play defensive back but Favre wanted to play quarterback instead. Favre began his freshman year as the seventh-string quarterback and took over the starting position in the second half of the third game of the year against Tulane on September 19, 1987 and led the Golden Eagles to a come-from-behind victory with two touchdown passes.[7] In his junior season, Favre led the Golden Eagles to an upset of Florida State (then ranked sixth in the nation) on September 2, 1989. Favre capped a six-and-a-half-minute drive with the game-winning touchdown pass with 23 seconds remaining.

That kind of success only comes with determination, hard work, and belief in yourself and your dreams. If you look at the top baseball players in the game today, you will find those same traits that propelled Brett to the greatest quarterback in the game today. A-Rod takes 500 swings a day. Jeter takes hundreds of ground balls...there are countless stories of players going that extra mile, seeing the bigger picture, to make themselves better...but it all started when they were young. They didn't get to the Bigs and all of a sudden, decided to work on their game. They were working on their game with that same work ethic since they were kids. That's what made them better and that's what made scouts take notice. It may be the little things that make scouts take a look, but a player has to look at the bigger picture too. High school players..it's not too late. Have a plan and stick to it. It will seem like hard work at first...but as one of my coaches used to say...The Harder you Work, The Easier It Gets.