WEEKLY MOTIVATIONAL PIECE!

Greetings!

Sometimes we can get caught up in wealth and material things and never consider the value of one’s legacy when your athletic career comes to an end. What did you leave behind? What was your impact – both on the field but even more importantly, away from the sidelines?

Like USC QB Matt Barkley, Notre Dame’s all-everything linebacker Manti Te’o, also turned away the riches of the NFL to return for his senior season in college football. Both are considered Heisman Trophy candidates in 2012. Each is embedded as one can get in their university culture and like the Olympic Torch, their “flame” will never dim in the eyes of their school’s legions of followers and alumni.

“The NFL is my goal, not my dream,” said Te’o. “My dream is to have an impact on people. I think I'm doing that, and I'm not finished yet. People all around need to see that there's more to life than dollar bills, there's more to life than just money signs. It's education, it's relationships with people, it's honoring people, honoring where you come from. That's what I hoped to portray with my decision to return to Notre Dame because those things are important to me."

A humbled athlete who often can be seen in-and-around the Golden Dome, shaking hands and greeting strangers. Eating along in the dining hall, more than likely, Te’o is known to invite the person over to his table. If there’s a need for a player to visit sick children at the local pediatric hospital or with kids left homeless at a shelter, Te’o is as automatic as it gets to lend a hand and a smile.

On the field, Te’o has inspired his Fighting Irish teammates to lofty heights thus far with a 4-0 start and Top 10 ranking in the BCS Polls for the first time since 2006 – all this despite playing with a heavy heart that would rock the core for any person.

During the week leading up to Notre Dame’s showdown match with Michigan State on Sept. 15th, the senior captain received news from his family in Hawaii that his Grandmother had passed away. Six hours later while standing at his football locker, Te’o received word that his girlfriend from back home also died after battling a long fight with leukemia.

While he decided to play, over 80,000 fans piled into the Notre Dame stadium to pay tribute to their team and community leader and shower him with a level of adulation befit of a hero not seen in South Bend since the likes of Rudy Ruettiger (who’s story of courage and determination on the field at Notre Dame in the 1970’s inspired the award-winning movie RUDY). At this game, the thousands of fans each wore a Hawaiian Lei and promoted the Michigan State game as a “Wear a Lei for Manti” in honor of his heritage.

After the game as Te’o reflected back on the memories of those that he lost, he recalled one of his girlfriend’s favorite sayings: “Send roses while they can still smell them, tell people you love them while they can still hear!”

I’s not too late to start writing the first chapter of your own legacy! Always remember that baseball bats can break. Seams of a Baseball can rip. Wood will rot. Your life’s legacy that gets left behind will go on and on for always. Make sure your family and your own (future) family will have something to be Proud of when your name is written about”

MY BEST FOR YOU!

Jim Loria

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“If you have a chance to accomplish something that will make things better for people coming behind you and you don’t do that, you are wasting your time on this Earth” – stated by Roberto Clemente, the great humanitarian and legendary Hall of Fame Baseball player, who died in a plane crash while taking supplies to survivors of an earthquake in Nicaragua a year after leading the Pittsburgh Pirates to a World Series in 1971

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“WHEN I PASS AWAY, IF ALL I’M KNOWN FOR IS A ‘FOOTBALL PLAYER’, THEN I FAILED IN LIFE” – stated by Reggie White, an NFL Hall of Famer and one of the greatest pass rushers ever seen in pro football

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"It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly...who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who have never known neither victory nor defeat" – stated by Teddy Roosevelt, 26th U.S. President (1901)

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“Don't cheat the world of your contribution. Give it what you've got” – stated by Steven Pressfield, American Author of historical fiction

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Jim Loria
E-Mail Address: loria@sfstampede.com