College football fans have several days they circle on their calendar every year: the first days of spring and fall practice, the first game of the season and conference championship games. But one of the biggest days in a college football fan’s year, and one of the biggest days for college football, period, is National Signing Day.
If you’ve ever seen “American Gangster,” you’re familiar with Frank Lucas. In one scene, this man who became rich by importing and distributing drugs throughout New York says his brother’s new suit is “too loud” — that it was drawing too much attention to his brother. Lucas says that “the loudest [man] in the room is the weakest [man] in the room.” This might have been one of the more unexciting parts of the violent action movie, but it should not be ignored.
When I was a kid playing Little League Baseball, I used to complain to my dad constantly about how terrible the umpires were. I’d moan about how they didn’t call any strikes when I was pitching, or how they called too many strikes when I was hitting. There used to be some car rides home from the fields when my dad wouldn’t say more than a few sentences because I’d fume the entire way. On the occasions that he did speak up, it was always the same thing. “Worry about yourself son, not what the umpire is doing,” he said. Unfortunately, I was too stubborn to listen to his advice, my temper was constantly becoming my worst enemy as I became enraged over what umpires and opponents would do on the baseball field that I didn’t like. My fixation on the flaws or wrongdoings I saw by others consumed me to the point that in high school I came within inches of being kicked off the baseball team. The common theme throughout all of this was that I ignored my dad’s advice of worrying about what I was doing rather than worry about what someone else was doing. In my last column of the year, I’d like to pass on the advice that I chose to ignore up until this past year, when I finally started to control the things I could control and let the other things fall into place. We worry so much about the actions of others, how they affect us and how we’re always victimized by some cruelty or another. I always hear, especially during exam week, about how difficult classes suddenly have been all semester, how terrible it is to be studying intensively for a few days and how people can’t wait for summer freedom. Complaining about things that bother you doesn’t fix anything and only spreads negativity to others around you. The only real solution is to ignore the fact that things are going to get bumpy in the next few weeks and grind it out, putting in your best effort because if there’s one thing that you can control for yourself, it’s your effort. Ronnie Coleman, the world famous body builder, one of the most physically imposing men on the planet, once said something prior to squatting a startling 800 pounds: Everybody wants to be a bodybuilder, but nobody wants to lift the weight. That’s a man who’s worried about what he can do, rather than letting the things others do drag him down. There’s no reason we should be fixated on the lives of others and what they’re doing, unless it is to celebrate with them on their own personal triumphs. This summer, put aside the excuses about how other people are bringing you down and making life tough for you, focus on yourself and what you can control and everything else will fall into place.