This is not just a story about football - it's a story about winning in life...
(link to full video here: )
So much of this video speaks to me. It’s been 11 years since this feeling has been in the air.
Let me tell you a little story about my love for football – as Mike Strahan says, to me it is forever ‘steeped in tradition’. Way back to the earliest days of the Giants playing at the Polo Grounds and then on to Yankee Stadium, before the Yale Bowl and Shae Stadium, then Giants Stadium (where I went to games with my Dad on the 30 yard line, first tier), and now to MetLife, my family, starting with my Grandpa Julius Gerber back in the 1930s, carried the tradition of New York Giants football. Season ticket holders for so many decades before PSLs came to play (I won’t make this about the disaster of PSLs), the legacy of what it means to be a New York Football Giants fan has been a part of my life – engrained in toughness, playing smart in every sense of the word, and dependability.
No, for those like me who go back to living through the downs of the Giants of the 70s, and onto the Bill Parcells, LT and Harry Carson years of the 80s (when I first met my good friend Joe Morris – whose football card I used to voodoo the opposing teams on Sunday as one of my many superstitions) and beyond, this isn’t a game about Fantasy Football stats or Madden touchdowns. This is about family, pride in hard word, community. It’s about teamwork. It’s about bringing every man’s (woman's) strengths to the field of play, and every man playing for the win of the guy standing next to them. It’s about belief in oneself and believe in your teammates to play their part the best way they know how. It’s about being the underdog and clawing your way up, because you know what’s possible when you put ego aside and play for the team to win.
You see, it’s these characteristics that I have connected to over my 5 decades that have not only made Giants football special. As I have grown, I have made these a part of my core values in life, and the values I know help every team (in business and in all of life) to thrive. Over the last 15 or so years, I have studied teams that represent these sorts of values, and more often than not they become championship teams.
And sometimes we lose track – like we as Giants fans have seen over the last 11 years. But when we find our way back to the values that are foundational; the values that make us thrive as teams and as individuals… and we honor them… we have the opportunity to be GREAT!
Take this not so much as a commentary about football. It’s a commentary about how we play and win the game of life. Which of YOUR CORE VALUES are you honoring today?
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