“Sacrifice is a form of bargaining.” –Holbrook Jackson, British Author
What does it mean to sacrifice? We can look at all of the definitions online and in print as much as we want, but that doesn’t change the fact that the word itself is inherently one of the most case-specific noun/verbs on the English Language. Sacrifices come in small or large packages. What is considered small to some is enormous to others however. For instance, you can look at giving up your Friday Night’s for four years and think to yourself, “Where did my high school social life go? I can’t believe I sacrificed all of that time for nothing.” Or you can think “I’m in-season and it’s only 3-3.5 months…plus I’ve got film in the morning…a small sacrifice to get better and move on to the next level.”
These sort of personal offerings to the pigskin gods do not go unnoticed however these are what I call “controlled sacrifices.” Meaning these are things in essence you shouldn’t even be worried about if you’ve committed yourself to preparation for college ball. Giving up social time may be important, but this is your vocation for the time being. In essence, it’s expected that you at least understand that your social life is minimally correlated with your success on the field. You already know that a sacrifice is there to be made and that it’s a personal choice. You either give up your free time to become a student of the game, or you don’t; simple as that.
What about those that cannot control what happens to them? I cannot get the images of two young men in particular on National Signing Day immediately following the announcing of their intentions. I believe that I may have experienced a lesson in sacrifice when I heard these two young men speak about what it had taken to get to this point in their lives. I keep thinking of the perspective ruling the premise in their cases in which I began to tear up slightly. Yeah, I said it. Grown men shed tears. At least those with souls do. When you see a young man come to tears, and I MEAN GENUINE tears of joy you cannot fight the overwhelming feeling of sharing that moment and what it means to give up so much in order to just “make it” to this stage.
I think about Juwuan Coffee from Jefferson standing up and within 60 seconds already in tears along with his J-Boys Family surrounding him in the Media Center like a human security blanket. I hear the story about Coffee sleeping out of his car and on the streets with his mother who passed away just before the Dragons made their state title run in 2010. I think about him going out of his way to thank the entire neighborhood of Carver City as those tears flowed and that he was the first member of his family to graduate from high school, let alone go on to play in college.
I think about Juwuan standing as proud and tall as the 2 young men immediately to his right (Adrian Jenkins and Tyriq McCord) announcing his intentions to play for Becker College (a small D-III school in Boston) like he was going to play at Boston College. I can only imagine the sorts of things that must have been said to this young man along his journey to this point. True story, MY 4th Grade teacher told me that I’d be dead or in jail by the time I was 18 because she was trying to scare me and didn’t know how to teach herself to tie her own shoes let alone a classroom of 32 kids, I can only imagine how many times this young man faced death or jail before he was 18, but he made it to this point. That’s pride. That’s joy. That’s called sacrifice.
I think about Mike Scheerhorn, the Center from Tampa Catholic who signed a National Letter of Intent to play for Valparaiso (FCS 1-AA) out of the Pioneer League up in Indiana. I think about hearing the story from his family and then hearing his reaction to the Dr.’s when they told him that his shoulder pain was actually in the neck and spine and that they needed to take a closer look. What they found was something. Something that his father says they still don’t know, but what they did know is that Mike’s career was over before it got started essentially. All he ever wanted to do was play football at Tampa Catholic and now he was in a fight not for just his ability to play for TC, but for his life; literally.
Mike was relegated to becoming a glorified water boy/student assistant trainer, but do you think that stopped him? I guess you know your answer since his story starts in this piece with his commitment to play at the next level, but this is a young man that now stands at 6-4, 250lbs and only a year ago was 60lbs lighter and significantly weaker due to his procedures. Mike also has watched closely his own Brother (Daniel) survive Cancer. As someone whose wife is on the forefront of cancer research previously at the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville and now Moffitt at USF, I can personally attest to the ultimate sacrifice made by families and that’s watching their sons and daughters pass away as teenagers and twenty-something’s well before they can even understand what being in the “prime” of their lives even means.
Lastly, I think about two more young men that are sacrificing themselves in a much different fashion. I think about Nick Fabrizio from Durant and Reggie Barnes from Berkeley Prep that have committed to the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis and the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs respectively. It may be a different kind of sacrifice, but just as much about life and death as these young men mentioned before them; especially in today’s climate. To these two young men, football is now a means in which to distract them from the job at hand which is to be trained to lead our young men and women overseas and home in the protection of our freedom. In their case, distraction is a good thing.
It’s becoming easier and easier in some cases to get noticed, but for all the wrong reason it seems; time to change that I suppose. Two of the better efforts I saw the entire season came from RB’s whose teams were a combined 1-19 and I cannot wait to see their progress this Saturday (Speaking of Leto’s Andre Simpson and Chamberlain’s Xavier Johnson.) I can only speak for three of the four personally, but #’s 32, #76, and #90 on the Rivals Top 100 List are ALL 3.9+ GPA students. There’s some more sacrifice. In Jordan Sherit’s case, he’s in International Baccalaureate and is in the 5.0+ range and in Ryan Green’s situation, I’ve taught and experienced parochial education at its finest and that’s by no means a handout. These are players that are considered to be in the Top 100 in the NATION. Go on and marinate on that for a minute.
There are more statistics than an episode of “Numbers Never Lie” regarding HSFB participation. According to one site, there were over 1 million players in the country in 2010. Out of those, 306, 221 were seniors. There were 61, 252 NCAA athletes in football with 17,501 positions available for freshmen to fulfill, while 13,612 were composed of seniors. Out of those 13,000+ seniors, 250 were drafted. The percentage of players making the successful leap from HSFB to NCAA was 5.7%. The percentage of players making the transition from NCAA to the NFL was 1.8%. The most staggering statistic of them all was the percentage of HSFB players that eventually made their way through the maze to become highly paid professionals was .08%. That’s literally the same percentage it takes to get thrown into jail for driving under the influence of alcohol. Talk about playing a modified game of Russian roulette with your lives.
To put it all into perspective, it doesn’t matter what your background is. Sacrifice knows no boundaries. Your premise has been determined by you, your families, and your coaches. The goal is the same, but the journey is not. Your perspective is what changes it all. How bad do you want it? How much are you willing to give of yourself to make it happen? How much of it is inside of you versus the external factors like the “haters” that say you cannot do any of this?
To borrow the chorus in one my favorite songs (if not favorite) by ‘The Roots’ appropriately titled “Sacrifice”:
[“Let me tell you one lesson I’ve learned, if you want to reach something in life…you ain’t gonna get it unless…you give a little bit of sacrifice…oooh sometimes you got to smile before you cry, you need a heart that’s filled with music, if you use it you can fly…if you want to be high.”]
Have fun. Be great. Commit. Live. Sacrifice.