The Fruits of Your Work Exposed

I can assure you that my ESPN Final Four bracket is no threat to you. My current rank is 1,397,692. 

I have no teams left. Apparently I am not alone.

Thanks to a Final Four with no No. 1 or 2 seeds, plus an 8-seed in Butler and an 11-seed in VCU, just two out of 5.9 million-plus brackets in Tournament Challenge correctly predicted the entire Final Four. In fact, only 6.9 percent of brackets picked those four teams to win in the "second" round (the former first round).

But here Coach Duddy has some better news for us.

By Dan Duddy

I had the honor recently to MC a youth track for an annual Men’s rally in New Jersey. It is perhaps among the premier spiritual events in the state of New Jersey as it attracts close to 400 men at times in its history of 16 years. The youth track was presented this year for the first time.

An important component in the rally is “giving witness”. Gregg Schiano of Rutgers football gave witness last year for example. It’s truly a sign of manliness to stand in front of other men boldly and inspire others with the exposition of your otherwise untold truths. It’s not an easy thing to do. Its courage unfolded.

Among the 50 young student athletes in attendance for our separate session, 8 were from my football program, young men that have developed through our virtue and man-to-man mentoring program for 2-4 years depending on their grade. Two grads came from college to witness as well.

These young men stood and gave witness without any hesitation while others watched. They boldly stood and told their stories about what they stand for. They talked about their strengths and non-strengths. They told their truths.

When others, although very few, did flex their courage and talk, a most touching moment, there was a distinct difference in the evolution of their self-knowledge and comfort level “in their own skin”. My players spoke with ease, excitement, and thirst for more wisdom. They couldn’t hold themselves back and I was proud of them.

It told the story of what can happen through the smallest of daily efforts in mentoring and resolutions to specific actions that take a player just slightly “out of his comfort zone”, and the “status quo” in situations where those simple efforts are unfortunately not initiated…yet.

How would your players respond in this situation?