Dreams Overcome Nightmares

I grew up watching the Seattle Mariners. I loved to go and watch them play and then after the game I would wait in the parking lot to see them leave ... they were "Gods" to me. Eleven years later, I was playing football for the Buffalo Bills and as I pulled into the stadium parking lot I saw a little boy leaning against the barricade. It was then and there that my life flashed before me. I was running late and had to hustle into the locker room but after the game that little boy was in the same spot. So, I walked over and introduced myself, "Hi, I'm Jon. What's your name?" He looked at me with his hands in his pockets and said shyly, "Hi, I'm Joey." I smiled and asked him if he had ever been on the field? He hadn't, so I snuck him and his dad down on the field at Ralph Wilson Stadium. As his father watched him run around he began to cry. He explained that Joey had a rare form of cancer and three months prior was given only six months to live.

Joey and I became friends and I tried to include him in Bill's events. one day he asked me if I wanted to go to the Super Bowl. The Bills weren't that good that year and I told him, "Of course, but it ain't lookin good this season." He laughed and told me he had tickets and wanted to invite me. I was thinking that Make-A-Wish Foundation was sponsoring his trip to the Super Bowl. Instead, Joey pulled out two tickets made out of construction paper - one form me and one for him.

About a month later I got a call from his dad, asking if I could head to the hospital because Joey wasn't doing well. He told me to bring the tickets. Sure enough, when I got to the hospital and looked at the tickets, in crayon was written the date October 18. As I walked into his room, he smiled and looked up at me and said, "You made it. Today is the Super Bowl." October 18 was six months and one day. Joey dreamed of that day, the day the doctors didn't think he'd be alive, and to Joey, that day was his Super Bowl.

That is what I call having a Dream to Overcome a Nightmare.

The lesson: "we must dream again and again, outrageous dreams, and when we do, nightmares fade. Dreams are hard work, sacrifice, and commitment. But dreams are worth the work; they are worth the sacrifice, the blood, the sweat, and the tears. Nothing worth it comes easy!"

John Dorenbos
Center for the Philadelphia Eagles, Tennessee Titans, and Buffalo Bills

Death

The first death you experience is actual death. It is your passing. It is what we all think about when someone dies.

Your second death is what occurs when you think that you died and no one would remember you. I wonder if this is why we all try to be known. Think about how important celebrity has become. We sing to get famous; expose our worst secrets to get famous; lose weight, eat bugs, attempt records, and even commit murders to get famous. Young people today post their deepest thoughts on public web sites. It's as if we are screaming ... Notice me! Remember me! Yet the notoriety barely lasts. Names quickly blur and in time are forgotten.

So, the question is how can you avoid the second death?

The answer is simple ... by being part of a family. It is through my family that I hope to live on for a few generations. When they remember me, I live on. All the experiences we have had, the laughs and the tears create the memories that forestall my second death. If I have done a good job then I will be remembered for one generation, maybe two ... but eventually they are going to say, "What was his name again?"

If you think about this it is absolutely correct. Can you name your great-grandmother? How about your great-great grandfather?

If we are a family we create a rope that connects each of us to one another. It allows us to build traditions that connect us and make us a family.

Adapted from the book .... Have a Little Faith

Why "East Football Tribe?"

A TRIBE is a group of people connected to one another, connected to a leader, and connected to an idea. Human beings have been a part of tribes for millions of years. A group needs just two things to become a tribe: a shared interest and a way to communicate.

We already have the shared interest (the success of Patriot Football) and now via this blog we have a way to communicate. The individual emails that allowed us to respond to our Winners Manual readings now will be done on this blog with your comment posts.

"Tribes also need leadership. Sometimes one person leads, sometimes more. You can't have a tribe without a leader - and you can't be a leader without a tribe. Every tribe is different. Every leader is different. The very nature of leadership is that you're not doing what's been done before. If you were, you'd be following, not leading." Seth Goodin

Patriot Football needs each of you to choose to lead. The easy thing to do is be a follower, to compromise, or to give up. Don't! Our challenge is to be different. Our responsibility is to attack the status quo. To lead our tribe!