Think Like a Warrior: The Five Inner Beliefs That Make You Unstoppable (Sports for the Soul Book 1) by Darrin Donnelly

Think Like a Warrior: The Five Inner Beliefs That Make You Unstoppable (Sports for the Soul Book 1) by Darrin Donnelly

Author:Darrin Donnelly [Donnelly, Darrin]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Shamrock New Media, Inc.
Published: 2016-05-03T03:00:00+00:00


14

During my weekly radio show, Randy Tanner said, “Coach, we’re happy to see this team on a three-game winning streak, but to be fair, coming into the year we all knew the schedule was back-loaded. Let’s be serious, the toughest opponents, with the exception of Michigan State, are waiting for us in the second half of the season. Do you think this team is ready for the next stretch?”

“We don’t really think about things like,” I said. “We just take it one game at a time.”

It was typical coach speak, I know. The type of thing you hear all the time when a coach talks to the media about keeping his team from looking too far ahead. But ever since my conversation with Coach Wooden, I genuinely believed in this approach.

Going into the year, I knew the schedule set up nicely for us to try to build some early momentum. I had worked with our athletic department to design it that way. I was aware that the second half of the year would provide us with our toughest MAC opponents and our in-state “big brother,” Wisconsin, but I honestly wasn’t thinking about those things now. Thanks to Wooden’s rule, I was learning to focus on only the things I had total control over, and that meant getting ready for Northern Illinois.

The Huskies had been champions or co-champions of the MAC West Division for each of the past five seasons. They had won the MAC championship in three of the last four seasons. It had been eight years since Wisconsin State had last defeated Northern Illinois.

Even though the Huskies were favored to beat us by two touchdowns, we had hope that Northern Illinois wasn’t as strong as they had been in recent years. They entered the game with an uncharacteristic record of 3-3 and were struggling to get their offense going.

A home crowd of roughly 20,000 fans greeted us for this Saturday-night matchup and we didn’t disappoint our fans.

It was one of those games where the Huskies seemed out of rhythm from the beginning. After they went three-and-out on the opening drive, we quickly drove down the field and took the early lead.

Jimmy was back as our starting quarterback and his arm looked great. His passes were crisp and accurate. He also caught a few lucky breaks in the first quarter when two of his passes were tipped by the defense but landed in the hands of one of our receivers.

After building a 14-3 lead and driving, I sent in Ray at quarterback for a change of pace. Sure enough, the defense wasn’t ready for his mobility. He busted into the open field on a designed run play and scored a 26-yard touchdown to put us up 21-3.

Being forced to alter my playbook and giving Ray the chance to gain some confidence while Jimmy was hurt had turned out to be a great thing for our offense. We were now able to keep defenses uncomfortable by using two different quarterbacks who had much different playing styles.



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