I told you guys yesterday that I’m pinning a book right now and I’d like to get some of my thoughts out in some of my podcasts and some of my videos. I spoke with you yesterday about one of the lessons that I learned as a fullback in college and the relationship that most of us have with the fallback position. Most of us don’t get recruited as fullbacks. they get recruited as tailbacks or running backs. And then our role in terms of running the ball is reduced. When we get to the college level, or people come as a tight end or a line-backer, and they get moved to fullback. Well, I learned the lesson there that I want to talk to you about today, which is helped me a great deal in parenting. And that lesson that I learned as a fullback was self-sacrifice.
I learned that you have to sacrifice yourself, for your team, you have to sacrifice yourself for the tournament, you have to sacrifice yourself for others. And it is a very, very tough job to put yourself in a position to sacrifice yourself. When you come from the position of a running back when you think about self-preservation when you have the ball as a running back when you have the ball you think about how can I not take as many blows? How can I get out of bounds? How can I gain as much as possible? How can I protect the ball? As a fullback, you think how can I protect my quarterback. How can I protect my tailback. How can I make sure that nobody penetrates the line of scrimmage sometimes on the last line of defense for the offensive line? And sometimes especially in our offensive scheme at our university. I had to also be like a second quarterback reading the different defensive fronts. And those are all the things that I did. Without getting a pat on the back that I was used to getting as a running back that I was running back in the first two years a tailback as a freshman and a sophomore. Then when I became a junior as I was transferred to fullback.
Younger guys came in, they were little they will step faster, they weren’t as big, hadn’t spent as much time in the weight room as I spent and the base for these individuals to play. So, they can maximize their productivity while also maximizing my productivity. And my ego was not taken into consideration. And I felt really bad about that at the time. But I had to learn how to become as I talked about yesterday, a team player, and then in that, I had to learn self-sacrifice. And you need to learn self-sacrifice along with self-abnegation along with self-conceit, and along with me the diminishing of your ego. And that’s a rough part. I don’t care what anybody says that’s a rough part. Because the ego is not a negative set thing. You have to have a healthy sense of ego. You have to exist, to thrive, to excel. But then there’s also a point where you can go too far. And you don’t understand that the team needs you to reduce your me so that we can increase our we. And I had to do that through self-sacrifice.
The best drill that we had in football that teaches you self-sacrifice is that Oklahoma drill. They don’t run the Oklahoma drill much I watched my son My son’s football team and add a little bit of candy yet I said I’m saying I think they are right. But it’s salute candy. There’s not it’s not as hard as I would expect it to be. But the game has changed significantly. I lose my keys all the time. And I’m wondering if I have a little early onset of something, I got hit in the head a lot. I played games with full concussions, headaches, all types of stuff. I remember taking 1600 milligrams before the game for the headache that I had. That was still rolling over from a Wednesday. It was a very different time than the Oklahoma drill. For those people who don’t know football. It’s a running back. As a fullback as a quarterback who was handed off to the running back and then as a line-backer, and the fullback and the line-backers smash into each other full speed. The fullback is five yards away off the ball, the linebackers about six and a half, seven yards off the ball. There’s no question about where the ball is going. There are only three people in the drill that end the drill and the quarterback is handing the ball off. And let me tell you something.
If you don’t understand self-sacrifice, you will understand that day because, on that day, you will realize that it is your responsibility to sacrifice your body no matter how you end up so that tailback can get to the end zone. It doesn’t matter if you hit the linebacker and you move forward, doesn’t matter if the linebacker blows you up and you go back. Your job is to not allow that linebacker to run flee at free and clear. And to kill yourself in the process so that somebody else can live, you have a small Jesus moment. Sometimes you will hang your head and back. But you will learn self-sacrifice and I carried that lesson over into parenting. staying up late at night doing homework. Going into urgent care with somebody next their eyebrow on the edge of the counter, staying up late feeding children laying in the bed with sick children, and then you get sick too. And then you learn self-sacrifice and parenting. But I’ve got that good lesson in football first and I was able to apply it for the rest of my life. I mean he was somebody else. The only thing that was close to Oklahoma drill was the inside real not only we had an Oklahoma drill and an inside drill is when we just add the salt and pepper to the equation inside drill. Now we do the same drill and then we add the lime into it. That is the inside drill.
We went to a black college. Howard University historical black college. At the black college, nobody wants to hear what happened. All they know is he put your ass out. I will have you know Mark Christie, my freshman year in college. I watched it with my own eyes. bench-press 545 pounds. Listen to what I say. He was a freshman from North Miami Beach, Florida. By the end of the first year, my man had a full scholarship. I want you to listen very carefully when I’m telling you, Mr. Christie ran through. Everybody on my football team, the only person that I saw they gave him a rough as money was Rupert grant play fullback and NFL. And they would hit each other and then sparks and fire would fly off the helmets. So as the law would have it, the season comes all the way around. rehab. My first play after rehab notice happened in the springs movies happened this spring. So I rehabbed all summer. The first play in the fall, first hit, and not even be a big hit, first hit, boom, shoulder comes out a socket, the season’s done. I got it with surgery. All fall, I’m rehabbing after surgery, we come back to the spring.
Now when we get back in the spring, I’m in the same position I was in before in front of the same man for the Oklahoma drill and they don’t call me, I’m not waiting for nobody to call me because I know what time it is. I want nobody to call me. Mark Christie stepped out of Oklahoma drill when Mr. creasy stepped out for Oklahoma drill I want to step down at fullback Oklahoma drill and the hope and the holler and has started now. Was I scared at the time? No. I want you to understand that at learn at fullback, you learn self-sacrifice, how I ended up had nothing to do with nothing. And for people who have ever been injured before, whenever you’re injured, you got to go back to the same spot if you can do the same thing that you did, I guess the same person that you got injured, otherwise, you’re never gonna get over the injury. So sitting around being scared got nothing to do with anything. One or two things are gonna happen. This one will go well or was gonna go bad again. And that was it.
Linebackers have to be some of the craziest people on the planet. I don’t know why they’re like that. They’re upset for no reason they walk around man frothing from the mouth. I don’t know why linebackers are like that. You were thinking that fullbacks and linebackers are similar. They’re not similar. They have some similarities, but they’re not similar. So that to Christie’s back there, I’m thinking I need to find a way to make sure that I have some type of forward lane here so I don’t hurt my goddamn back. And then I don’t want to choose a side I hurt my shoulder. So I tried to creep up about another half hour yada yada. So this 12-yard brain destruction exercise has been now reduced to about 10 and a half yards okay. Pep Hamilton says again, sad hut when the blow-up happens is a quality hit from both people. I didn’t win either one of them. I look bad on both of them, but I didn’t go down on either one of them. And I’m done. I go to the site, take my helmet off, take a knee. I didn’t do any more Oklahoma drill the rest of the spring but I didn’t have to. Now here are A couple of lessons.
1. Don’t wait for somebody to call you. Do not wait for somebody to call you. You know when is your time, they know it’s your time. The people in the set, don’t wait for somebody to call you.
2. Never be afraid to line up. You can be aware of some of the consequences. But don’t be afraid to line up.
3. You got to be willing to sacrifice yourself so that other people can do what they need to do.
When you are in a marriage, you got to sacrifice yourself sometimes for your spouse. They may forget the sacrifices that you’ve made later. That’s another discussion. You guys sometimes sacrifice yourself for your spouse or right. And vice versa. Somebody’s got to sacrifice yourself on the job. But one thing, you will always have to sacrifice yourself for the children. But the one thing man that I learned when that one major lesson that I learned was man, I learned that lesson to self-sacrifice on the football field.
You have to be willing to sacrifice yourself, which is why we call the offensive linemen and defensive lineman the unsung heroes because they’re not making any tackles. Every once in a while the line makes some type somebody calls them nobody calls the old lines name until they make a mistake. That’s why they’re the biggest unsung heroes on the football field. But the lesson I learned was that lesson of self-sacrifice. So that’s what I have to share with you today. Man, this is Dr. Rhadi Ferguson. I hope you have a super fantastic day
I love you regardless, you best take care.
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