My daily routine in the mornings usually consists of waking up, taking a shower, brushing my teeth, getting dressed, eating an apple, and finally taking an hour to read my daily devotional and Bible. This seems to always jump start my day and gets me motivated to conquer the day. Recently I have switched up my routine and instead of reading my devotional and Bible in the morning I decided to read them at night before I go to bed, electing to read motivational books from great coaches and sports figures in the morning. Today it just so happened I read one of my favorite poems about making the most of your day. Coach Bear Bryant always kept this poem with him and it goes like this...
"This is the beginning of a new day.
God has given me this day to use as I will.
I can waste it or use it for good.
What I do today is very important because I am exchanging a day of my life for it.
When tomorrow comes, this day will be lost forever.
Leaving something in its place I have traded for it.
I want it to be a gain, not loss.
Good, not evil.
Success, not failure.
In order that I shall not forget the price I paid for it."
I love this poem! It puts a lot of things in perspective. It seems like that in today's society everyone is in a hurry, and wants to make it to the top as soon as possible. Everyone wants to be Brad Stevens(Butler University Head Coach) the young gun early success story as opposed to Bill Guthridge(Former North Carolina Head Coach) a man who waited his turn behind legendary coach Dean Smith. I find myself wishing for the same early success and allowing my mind to wander to places I want to be instead of focusing on doing my job to the best of my ability now but reading material such as this poem put me right back to where I need to be. Focus on being great TODAY! Don't stress over what is to come tomorrow! Work your butt off and success will come your way in due time. It is all a process that the only thing we can control is the effort we put into life each and everyday.
Regardless of who you cheer for it undeniable to see that Coach Bryant had a firm grasp on how to live each day and make the most of the day God gave to him, which is probably why he is one of the most successful coaches in sports history. Here at Spring Hill we are focusing on making the most out of the days God gives to us and buying into the process of becoming a great team and program.
When schools hire new coaches most of the time it means the new coach will have to be moving his or her family into new living arrangements. This was the case for newly appointed Women's Soccer Head Coach, Christian DeVries, who joined the Badger Athletics family after a successful 12 year career at the University of Minnesota-Morris. Badger Athletics is a family so naturally our basketball team jumped at the opportunity to help our new soccer coach move in! All the players and coaches loaded up in our cars and drove to Coach DeVries new home expecting to see your everyday common "UHaul" truck but to our surprise we rolled up on your everyday common "18 Wheeler" truck! Haha! A running joke within our program when faced with hard work is our sarcastic saying; "You're going to take that and learn from it...so ask Jeeves about it, email Father Salmi about it, Youtube it, type a paper about it, 
and learn from THAT!" Needless to say our player's high spirits about knocking this move out quickly, rapidly turned into a feeling of despair eerily similar to the feeling of a buzzer beater that doesn't go your team's way! Coach T, sensing the drop of optimism amongst the troops, swiftly gave a motivational speech that probably should have been saved for future games. As a unit the Badgers quickly rallied together and worked hard to help their fellow Badger out. Due to our players having exams and classes we were unable to finish all the moving but we were able to get the hard stuff out of the way. We will be back at it again bright and early tomorrow morning. What a wonderful way to start a Friday! Nothing like hard work, fellowship, and helping people in need to start the day off right! 
