Motivate Your Team! Cheer Up A Friend! Inspire Yourself!
Motivate Your Team! Cheer Up A Friend! Inspire Yourself!
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| Wooden's Wisdom - Volume 13 | Issue 768 |
| Craig Impelman Speaking | Championship Coaches | Champion's Leadership Library Login | |
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"EARN IT - EARN THIS!”: “MAKE EACH DAY YOUR MASTERPIECE” (TONY FULLER) John Wooden Video Clip (1 min. 40 sec.): Coach Wooden discusses: "Make Each Day Your Masterpiece". "Yesterday is gone and tomorrow has not yet come. We are given only today. And, if we have been given today, perhaps our responsibility is to make it count!" - Mother Teresa
"We must live each day as if it were our last!" - Mother Teresa
"Today is where your future is being created!" - Henry Ford
Coach Wooden had orders to report aboard the USS Franklin, an aircraft carrier, during WW II. His appendix ruptured, his orders were cancelled, his replacement - his friend and Purdue fraternity brother Freddie Stalcup was aboard the Franklin and lost his life when the ship was attacked by a Japanese Kamikaze pilot.
In April of 1977 Bobby Watson, the Head Basketball Coach at the University of Evansville drove to Vincennes JC to pick me up for my official recruiting visit during which I was offered a basketball scholarship to the University of Evansville. Eight months later on December 13th 1977, He and the entire Evansville team lost their lives in a tragic airline accident.
Coach Wooden was not on that ship. I was not on that Plane.
One of my favorite movies is "Saving Private Ryan." Near the end of the movie when Tom Hanks’s character (Capt. John Miller) lies on a bridge mortally wounded, he looks into the eyes of Matt Damon’s very young character (Private Ryan) whose life he has given his own life for, and with his dying breath he painfully whispers the words: "Earn it - Earn this!"
The next scene of the movie shows a now elderly Private Ryan with seven members of his family including his wife, who have come to pay their respects years later at Capt. Miller’s grave.
Private Ryan becomes emotional as he kneels before the marked grave. He fights back tears and his voice trembles as he speaks to Capt. Miller’s memory: "Every day I think of what you said to me that day on that bridge. I have tried to live a good life. I hope that at least in your eyes I’ve EARNED what all of you have done for me."
Private Ryan then stands and his wife comes to his side. He turns to her and lovingly pleads: "Tell me I’ve led a good life. Tell me I’m a good man." She replies, "YOU ARE."
What if Coach Wooden had not ruptured his appendix? What if Evansville had been the only school that thought enough of me to offer me a scholarship and I had been on that team, on that plane?
The third item on Coach Wooden’s 7-point Creed is : "Make each day your Masterpiece."
For almost 50 years I have wondered why those fine young men I spent that weekend in the spring of 1977 meeting, partying, and playing with at the University of Evansville are no longer with us.
"Life is a gift, Don’t waste it!’ That is what "Making every day your Masterpiece and Earning it" mean to me!
Help someone.
Forgive Someone.
Leave something better than you found it.
Blessings Coach Fuller
Yours in Coaching, Craig Impelman
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Kingdom of Man Our world is the world within, John Kendrick Bangs (1862-1922)
Our world is the world within, Henry Thoreau (1817-1862)
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