I found this sound byte to be intriguing.
As I’ve stated before, I was never a football player. As a musician who later played in the Redcoats, I distinctly remember our little Clayton County area having a few of the best saxophonists in the state all at the same time, coming from the same county. Every local competition, every state competition, we were competing against each other. We all came from the same elementary school, and somehow always found ourselves at the same state competitions each year. I’d be lying if I said it motivated me, but somehow the thought of them in the back of my mind kept me gunning for first chair, not because I thought they bettered me, but because I didn’t want to be second.
Call me an egomaniac. It wouldn’t be the first time I heard it.
Anyway, it begs the question…if you don’t have the iron in the fire, then what do the other irons sharpen off of?
Does Georgia need a Brock Bowers every year, if not for the on-field production, for the internal competition?
Have at it in the comments, scamps.
Even with all the God-given talent, all the advantages, it just isn’t that often that a Bowers type comes down the pike. Ferocious competitive drive coupled with love for the game. As rare as that is we had a similar guy (McConkey) on the same team at the same time!
I had a coach tell me there are 2 ways to get better-
1) compete against someone better than you.
2) Beat the hell out of someone you are better than.
Hard word beats talent that doesn’t work as hard. Hard work & talent always wins. Brock had both.
I don’t want to get too pedantic, but you can sharpen a knife with a metal file, but your be a lot better off sharpening it with a stone made of silicon carbide or diamond or cubic boron nitride.
It’s this way in every walk of life. Passion, talent, and hard work create a generational type of player like Brock Bowers. You see that in business, in families, etc. We see it in sports most often.
I would have loved to have had the talent of Jack Nicklaus. Alas, I didn’t. He took that talent and worked his ass off with his long-time coach at Scioto to become the best. His passion to be mentioned in the same breath as Bobby Jones fueled him to take on and knock off Arnie at the height of Palmer’s dominance in the game.
You get better being around better in most things in life.