12.1.2024 – will and wish to win

will and wish to win
isn’t chance for either unless
a will to prepare

The will to win.

We hear a lot about that.

The will and the wish to win, but there isn’t a chance for either one of them to be gratified or to have any value unless there has been a will to prepare to win: the will to prepare for service, to do the things that build and develop our capacity, physical, mental, and moral.

I don’t care what job you are undertaking, what field of human endeavor, all life is a service of some kind or other; all that we do in organized society today to make it better and finer is good service and all that we do the other way is poor service and we never can render this service and the will to win won’t be much to a twelve second man in a run against a ten.

He must have the will to prepare to win.

Fielding H. Yost as quoted in Intimate Talks with Great Coaches Edited by E. Dana Caulkins (Public Schools Athletic League (New York, N.Y.) New York : Wingate Memorial Fund, Inc., 1930).

Prepare to win.

Put in the time required to win.

The will to put in the time required to win.

Fielding H. Yost coached football at the University of Michigan and was Athletic Director at the University of Michigan from 1900 to 1940.

It was in 1930 that Coach Hurry Up Yost said “The will and the wish to win, but there isn’t a chance for either one of them to be gratified or to have any value unless there has been a will to prepare to win.”

It was on Nov. 30, 2024 that current Michigan football coach, Sherrone Moore said:

It’s not really about scheme.

It’s not really about techniques.

It’s really about the will and the will to want to put your man in the backfield or put him across the line of scrimmage, and that’s what we preached all week, and that’s what those guys did.

It’s really about the will …

and that’s what those guys did.

Michigan 13 – OSU 10.

And don’t you forget it.

11.16.2024 – when really matter –

when really matter …
really matter now but when
they really matter

So as long as we’re being conscious about learning and getting these things in long term development then all these games will help us pay dividends and help us win those games later when they really matter. They really matter now, but when they really really matter.

Michigan Head Basketball Coach Dusty May on where his team is after 2 games as quoted in Michigan basketball, Dusty May ‘not going to panic’ over early turnover troubles by Tony Garcia in the Detroit Free Press.

Win those games later when things really matter.

They really matter now, but when they really really matter.

I do, goofy to say, know what he means.

But like they say in baseball, a win in April counts as much as a win in September.

They really matter in April, but they really really matter in September.

11-13-2024 – when it’s not your day

when it’s not your day
and you can still win, that’s a …
sign of a good team

“For me I’m not going to tell him anything because I don’t feel like this is, oh, man, what are you doing? These weren’t ill-advised throws. It wasn’t our day. When it’s not your day and you can still win, that’s a sign of a good team.”

Detroit Lions Head Coach on the 5 interception performance of Lions Quarterback Jerod Goff in a game that saw Detroit score 19 second half points Houston Texans, 26-23.

“Man, that is the definition of resiliency,” Campbell said. “You guys just kept bangin’ away, right? We did whatever we had to do. And we just bought our time.”

“We get our points. Bates, that was freakin’ ginormous, alright?“

My college team is awful.

My pro team, for the first time in my life, is good.

Good good.

Lucky good.

Rather be lucky than good good.

Finding ways to win games they have no business winning.

Winning games they should win.

Going to sit on the beach of this Detroit Lions team and enjoy the warm sunshine and soft breeze as long as I can.

11.4.2024 – irrelevant? how

irrelevant? how
bad does it have to be to
be irrelevant?

I like to start my Sunday newspapers reading two sports columns in the online USA Today.

One is a column that tracks the winners and losers, those college football teams that came out as winners the previous Saturday and those college football teams that came out as losers.

My team lost and lost big to the Number One team in the nation.

Oddly though neither team made this column.

My team lost, was expected to lose and I guess as such, was not listed among the losers.

The other team, just be a loser of a team, and I guess as such, was not listed among the winners.

The other column is the College Football Misery Index.

This column tracks which college football team’s fans feel the worse.

Your team can win and you still feel lousey like last week, Ohio State beat Nebraska, but no one felt that good about it.

This week the five top teams whose fans are in Misery, all lost.

The next group of fans are listed as being Miserable but not miserable enough.

Georgia won their game but with their QB throwing 3 INT’s, their fans still feel not so great.

But here is the point.

My team didn’t make either list.

They are so awful, that there no longer even figure in the conversation of teams whose fan’s feel awful.

My team had a very good year last year.

I should be able to manage a bad year this year.

But who planned on being … irrelevant.

My team has been here before.

We hired this feller known as the Morgantown Miracle Worker as head coach and he was reverse Amish.

He did less with more than almost any coach known in the history of the game.

My team didn’t lose often, at least until Rich Rod came along.

He even lost to the University of Toledo.

Lost to Toledo and then an odd thing happened.

Toledo had a bad season, beat my team but had a bad season.

Almost any other time in history, any team from the state of Ohio that beat my team was a reason to give the coach a better contract.

This year though was different.

Beating my team didn’t matter and that Toledo coach got fired.

My team was irrelevant to the conversation that season..

Much like my team was this past weekend.

Winner?

Loser?

In Misery?

In the wrap up conversation about the weekend of football, my team had again become, irrelevant.

Are we back in those bad old days so soon?

Oh well, there was always last year.

10.14.2024 – The Detroit Lions

The Detroit Lions
made a statement to the league …
NFL’s best team

My Monday morning started as my fall Monday mornings have started for the last 40 years.

I get my coffee and review the weekend’s pro football games.

With online news, I can flip through the New York Times Athletic, The Guardian, USA Today Sports, The Detroit Free Press and the Detroit news.

This morning I read sentences made up of words I never thought I would ever see in anyone’s lifetime, let alone my life.

I read …

The Lions arrived in Dallas looking for a win — their first in three tries under Dan Campbell. They’ll leave with not only that, but a statement win. This was an all-out dismantling of the Cowboys. The offense never punted and put up 47 points. The defense forced five turnovers and held the Cowboys to three field goals. You could make a strong argument this is the most complete win of the Campbell era.

Defensively, Detroit suffocated the Cowboys (3-3) offense.

The manner of the defeat on Sunday is more impactful than the loss itself. Detroit bullied the Cowboys, on offense and defense.

Losing is one thing. Being humiliated at home – again – in a season that the Cowboys entered with championship expectations is something bleaker.

A run defense that has struggled all season had no shot against the best offensive line in the NFL.

Sunday’s 47-9 drubbing at the hands of the Lions may have felt more like watching The Substance than Love Is Blind, but seeing the Cowboys being beaten on their own home turf remains must-watch TV.

In the nearly 30 years since the Cowboys last won the Super Bowl, there have been plenty of lows. Sunday’s defeat, though, felt like a nadir. It was the team’s worst loss since 2010 – and the worst at home since before the days of Troy Aikman and Emmitt Smith.

The Cowboys have lost three straight since, all in embarrassing fashion. They were routed 44-19 by the Saints in Week 2, fell 28-25 to the Ravens in Week 4 in a game that was never really close, and on Sunday were dismantled by the Lions 47-9, the franchise’s worst loss since 2010 and worst at home going all the way back to 1988.

Detroit spent the remainder of the game playing with their food, trying, in vain, to draw up a touchdown for one of their offensive linemen. It almost felt like bullying.

The best division in football — which was the AFC North not all that long ago — is now unquestionably the NFC North. For the first time since the 2002 realignment, all four teams in a single division have at least four wins six weeks into the season. The Bears and Packers are 4-2, and the Lions are 4-1, trailing the 5-0 Vikings, who were on a bye.

The Lions made a statement to the league that they should be viewed as the NFL’s best team

I decided I had to be dreaming and I went back to bed.

If I was dreaming, I really didn’t want to wake up.

PS: Terrible news about the injury Hutchinson but I was intrigued that Dallas QB Dak Prescott said that he tried to talk to Hutchinson as he was taken off the field but Prescott was pretty sure that Hutchinson wouldn’t remember. Prescott said that he planned to talk to the Michigan guys who played for Dallas so he could get Hutchinson’s phone number. I was struck that Prescott was aware Hutch played at Michigan. I was struck that Prescott knew who on his team, had played at Michigan. And I was struck that Prescott sounded pretty confident that those guys had each others phone numbers and kept in touch. For some reason, a window on the pro game I hadn’t thought about.