At times it really matters

My wife and I went to the movie Friday night, “Farmers for America.” It was a documentary that was well done and really informative.

I didn’t get nostalgic and think that getting back into farming was going to be a goal for my future. I’m happy living on a farm but I don’t feel the need to produce another crop.

After the movie was over, I saw an old friend Jim who was concerned that my column wasn’t in last week’s paper. I had to explain that I was at a game and got home late so there wasn’t time to put together a column and still get some shuteye before getting up early to go to work the next day.

I did say that I would give a shout out to him because I did plan to write one this week. So Jim, here it is!

Unfortunately, this appears to be one of those weeks that I really don’t have a lot to work with that I feel is a very good topic.

So Jim, I guess I’ll revert back to someone that you and I remember, Coach Dick Agee.

I’m not sure what year I was in school when I heard Coach Agee say, “Green Bay Packers football coach Vince Lombardi once said, ‘Winning isn’t everything, it’s the only thing!’”

Over the years I’ve heard people say that he was misquoted about that. Apparently Lombardi actually said, “Winning isn’t everything, but having the will to win is!”

Football coaches sometimes have difficulty with saying the right thing at the right time. And others can get the point across rather succinctly. The important thing in all of this is that the players are influenced to give their very best effort.

The funny thing about Coach Agee is that the four years he coached our team in the late 1960s he was more like the second quote than the first one. He loved to win but it was more important that we gave a maximum effort than what the final score was.

I’ve mentioned in this column before that the two most difficult practices we ever had when I played were a Monday practice after a 25-6 victory over Wilbur my freshman year and a Monday practice after a 35-0 victory over Odessa my senior year.

I don’t recall agonizing practices after a loss although two of those losses were the last games of the season. But I doubt that those would have been difficult because bigger teams from larger schools beat us and we gave it everything we had to achieve victory.

There is a motivation when a coach tells you at halftime that if the team doesn’t play better in the second half they would expect the most difficult Monday practice that we will never forget.

He was right. Over 51 years ago was the second most difficult practice I ever endured as a player. Just over 48 years ago, which was the last Monday practice of my senior year, was the hardest practice I ever had the pleasure to suit up for.

You know, I don’t remember every practice that I went through playing football but those two stood out. I’m not sure if we played a whole lot better the following Friday night but we did win both of those games which I guess is all that matters.

The main point of this story is that we played well enough to win those games and by the scores you may think they were blowouts but they weren’t.

We made turnovers and we made mistakes and it all stemmed from us thinking we were going to win and had to finally play to our capabilities when the games were on the line.

Each week Coach Agee outlined what the other team’s offense could do and what we needed to do to stop it. What teams forget about is that the other team is devising ways to make our lives miserable and break free for TDs and to stop our offense.

We won those games not because winning was the only thing that mattered. We won because at some point in time in each of those games, we had the will to overcome obstacles and we needed to stop the other team’s momentum.

Whether it was the fear of an unbelievably hard practice or the fact we did not want to lose the game, eventually having that will to win really did matter.