Line of Scrimmage Podcast – Episode 2

Speaker 2 (00:25):

Hello, this is the line of scrimmage where we go each week. One on one with the issues facing football today. Hello, I’m Greg quick and we’re powered by offense defense sports camps recruiting during these difficult times is really concerning a lot of people. A lot of people believe that their opportunities are being diminished or the doors being closed. And I like to discuss that today. This is really going to be a two part series, a discussion with you about recruiting and how you can break through and strategies for you, how to attack and create greater opportunity in this challenging time, rather than allow them door to your opportunities that you deserve being shut. So we’re going to study that and discuss that these next two episodes on recruiting, you know, is there a need for players now? I think there’s a need greater than any time in the history of the game of football there’s players opting out there’s players that are finding other venues, other avenues to pursue.

Speaker 2 (01:24):

So there never been a time. It’s a difficult time for coaches to find employers they’re restricted in travel. They’re restricted in their contact. So at no time, has it been a more important for a player to take his destiny into his own hands? That’s really what I’m going to encourage you to do is take your destiny into your own hands. Create the opportunity for yourself. Really recruiting is about two things. It’s about development and exposure development is your persistence. How you pursue your craft. You get better. Coaches want to see you are recruiting you sooner in your careers. So whether you’re six, seven, eight, nine, 10, or 17 or 18 years old, it’s the same. You’ve got to show a development throughout your football career that you continually working to get better. Coaches want players that are going to have that same work ethic when they come into their program.

Speaker 2 (02:18):

So one, your development is really important then of course, the second is exposure. You have to gain exposure so that your abilities, your a tangibles, your intangibles are made evident, uh, to the football community. Your passion is really what’s going to drive your exposure. So it’s your persistence and your passion that are important in this recruiting process. If you don’t persist and, and develop your craft and you have the passion to gain the exposure necessary, and you’re going to gain the opportunities to continue to climb, whether that be from a youth into high school, high school and in college college, into professional football. So it doesn’t change moving from one level to the next takes persistence and passion. You know, as we said, is there a need for players? Sure. There is. But I really believe, you know, can you fill that need? Now, you’re going to have to make a gel.

Speaker 2 (03:19):

You’re going to have to jump through these challenging times, require a type of effort, a type of passion type of persistence. That’s never been seen before. Let me, let me give you an example. You know, uh, if you were a surfer and surfing started almost a thousand years ago, he started surfing, but you know, for a long, long time, the biggest waves that rolling were 25 feet for a long time. And now they go out into these super waves and they’re driven out on a jet ski and taken to the top of the wave. And they’re launched of the waves that exceed a hundred feet. So at one time it was thought that maybe 25 feet was as high as you could go. And now surfers are exceeding riding a hundred foot wave. So the same thing is true in your recruiting life, you have to move from the expectation of a 25 foot wave.

Speaker 2 (04:12):

You’ve now got a copper that hundred foot wave. Let me put it another way for you. You know, snowboarding has got to be very popular sport. And, uh, from the Olympics, uh, through the X games, you know, in 1992, the biggest gap jumped was 40 feet, 40 feet. That was it. 1992. Now the gap that’s being cleared exceeds 230 feet. So from 40 feet to 230 feet, a jump was made and it was all because of persistence and passion. Those surfers moved from the 25 foot waves to this a hundred foot waves because of their passion to gain greater exposure. If they didn’t expose themselves to those bigger waves and they didn’t persist, they wouldn’t have accomplished the task, save the snowboarders if they had been set. So for 40 foot waves or 40 foot jumps, they never would have had the 230 foot jobs, the same type of efforts going to, you have to have, as you are being recruited to gain the exposure that you need to gain the development you need.

Speaker 2 (05:21):

So we have to develop, and we have to gain that exposure to fill the need that the coaches have, that the game has no matter whether you moving from youth to high school, high school college at college professional football, you’ve got to make a bigger jump. You’ve got to extend yourself farther. So every day when you train, you’ve got it. You’ve got to jump a little bit farther, half inch inch, uh, you know what? I used to get my guys in the weight room, why I asked them to get an Apple a day stronger is if they got an Apple a day, that’s not that heavy, right? An Apple, I could easily toss it up in the air, catch it that Apple a day stronger over the course of the off season, they would become more than two tons stronger in your primary lifts just by getting an Apple a day stronger.

Speaker 2 (06:11):

So we’ve got to expand. We’ve got to grow. We have to have greater pressure, greater persistence than we’ve ever had before in our lives to fulfill a need of the game of football right now. So if you’re really concerned about moving to the next level youth, the high school, high school, college college to pros, if you’re really, really passionate, you’ll get the exposure that you need. And if you really persist and you get better every day, if you get that Apple a day better someday, you’ll be jumping that 230 foot Chaz. And someday you’ll be riding that hundred foot wave on the football field. You’ll make the play that’s never been seen before. That’s really what it’s going to take as we continue to move forward. You know, what distinguishes you from others? Uh, you know, we talk about tangibles and intangibles. What’s character. Everybody talks about cure.

Speaker 2 (07:00):

Well, character is a combination of qualities that make you different. What makes you different? Also character is a quality and being determined and able to deal with difficult situations. So what makes you different? And have you shown that you can handle difficult situations? That’s what we’re dealing with right now. And that’s why our characters so important. We got to establish what makes us different and what in these difficult times are we able to do? And it really it’s about your brain. What distinguishes you from others? What is your promise statement? What can you say? What illuminates to the coaches, your unique attributes or benefits, can you deliver it consistently? How do you, what type of voice do you have when you deliver that uniqueness, that statement of what can you promise the coaches? What makes you unique? What makes you different? Just like offense. Defense is unique in the world of camps.

Speaker 2 (08:01):

It’s made a jump 25 years ago, very few, just a small mirroring of camps. And now on offense, defense offers in the fall elite camps, then the winter bowl games and in the spring developmental camps in the summer showcases opportunity after opportunity, after opportunity to develop and to gain exposure, just we’re talking about recruiting. So during these difficult times, one of the answers to the recruiting question, how do I fill that void? How do I show my passion gain that exposure? How do I show my persistence of my development? One way is too often, Steve folks, football camps, whether it be an elite camp in the fall ball game, in a winter developmental camp in the spring or a showcase in the summer, these are great opportunities really to meet your goals, to make that jump. How do you go from 25 feet to a hundred feet?

Speaker 2 (08:57):

How do you go from 40 feet to over 230 feet? How do you make that jump? One way is through offense defense football camps. And we’re really appreciate the empowering the live scrimmage. You know, let me give you a couple of examples. When I talk about unique attributes and the promise that you eliminate your coach to the coaches, what is your character? What is your voice? Um, you know, let me tell you a little story about myself. You know, I came out of high school. I was a little skinny guy. I never thought I was going to have a chance to play with my high school coach. Jim Smith believed in me and he took me to college campuses every Saturday across the Midwest. Eventually I followed a little school in Ohio to attend. I went into camp that first day and I was number 13 on the roster.

Speaker 2 (09:47):

Number 13, the bottom line position, etc. I was at 13th center. Well through the exposing the passion I have and developing and getting better every single day fighting to move ahead, fighting goal from, you know, running a five, five to five flat over the course of the next four years. I moved up that chart till that five. And the last game I played, I was one of those starting 22, when we raised a national championship trophy and sang the school fight song in that locker room. So from that little skinny high school player to that college player volt in the national championship trophy, it was persistence and passion that drove me throughout that time. Let me tell you about another young man. Frazier was a finest defensive player in Canada two years ago, and we trained him in combine training. And one of the things we talked about is what’s separated him.

Speaker 2 (10:47):

What made him unique? What made him different? What was his brand? And what he determined was that he was intelligent and disruptive. And when you turn to Phil on, you saw his passion, by the way he played. And he could, you could see that he continued to develop his talents over time. He moved from 25 feet to a hundred feet. He worked every single day to get better. So he was in the interviews at the combine and one of the coaches, right? Point blank asked you what makes you different? Why should we draft you over any of these other players? And without hesitating, Frazier said, I’m intelligent and I’m disrupted. And that’s exactly what they were looking for in his, the way he delivered that message with that passion and the persistency and shown how we played, gave him the opportunity to move from being a college player, to a professional player.

Speaker 2 (11:42):

Your intelligence, your ability to be disruptive on the field can make help you in moving from being a youth player to high school, high school, to college, or if you’re a college player on, in professional football, worked with familiar young man stables. And, uh, you know, we, he was asked the same question and he said, what separated him? What made him unique was his courage and his range. He was a free safety. He could play sideline to sideline. He showed his development and persistence. He got faster and gained greater range throughout his college career. But really it was his passion, his courage that separated him. And I asked him, how are you going to prove that you’re as courageous as you say, you are, it’s really an intangible. Well, established went out and you record a video and posted that video. It was a video of him, cliff diving off the rocks and the Pacific ocean into the water.

Speaker 2 (12:40):

Now you shouldn’t try and sit. I’m not suggesting you do this. He was, he’s a trained swimmer and he died all his life. But that video made a difference and made him one of the most desirable players in the draft because he gave him the opportunity because of the development range and how he played the game. But more importantly, he could show his passion and gain exposure through his courage of that video of him diving off the cliffs into the water. So really your courage is those qualities that make what makes you different and how, what voice do you use? How can you demonstrate that you’re determined and able to deal with difficult situations? You always share one last story with you here this week. And it’s about, Hey, Egan hanky, who was an MBA assistant coach, but more importantly, he was a basketball player and he was trying out for his high school team and went through all the trials.

Speaker 2 (13:41):

You went to school, a warning after the last practice and to look at the list and see if you’ve made those 12 players. He looked at number one, two, three, four, still hadn’t made it team five, six, seven, still eight, nine, 10 name was still not on the list. He didn’t even want to look at 11 and 12. And when he got to the 11 and 12, there was no hanky. Get on the S on the list, not one through 12. There was none to him that listed 12 was like that surfer looking at that a hundred foot wave, never thought he’d if he hadn’t swam out to that way and giving it a try with, to him, that was a hundred foot wave in funnel. You went home that night and tears. And he told his aunt, he said, you know, they don’t have it in there.

Speaker 2 (14:34):

The coach told me that they didn’t have enough jerseys. And he was the 13th guy. And you only have 12 jerseys. They’d love to have them be a manager, but they never enough jerseys for him to be on the team. He only had 12 jerseys and he was the 13th player. So he told his ass and he went to bed in tears at night, all night long. There was a humming in the other room when he got up and a warning lay on the kitchen table was a number 13 Jersey. His aunt had sewed, spent the night and sold that Jersey. So he went the next day with great excitement, ran into the coach’s office. He said, go check and be on the team. And the coach looked down pause, and he said, what are you talking about? Hey, lay up 12 jerseys and a Hank, reach a backpack and pulled out the number 13 Jersey.

Speaker 2 (15:20):

And you know what, because of his passion and his aunt’s parents, but his passion for the game is persistence. The coach allowed him to be on the team. He jumped up, he wrote a hundred foot wave. He jumped at 230 foot Chaz. And he got that 13 spot in that roster. Well, the rest is history hate without playing in high school, played in college, coached in college, coached in the NBA. And the other 12 guys that run that team about 20 years later, came together and Hank brought them together in a restaurant in New York city where they’re all from. And they sat down and each of them had a number 13 Jersey at their seat. And what they did was they collected money in every year that 13 player, their high school was awarded a college scholarship and they paid the tuition for that player to go to college.

Speaker 2 (16:13):

And those monies have been raised and continued. But because of the exposure, the passion persistence, the development that hae experienced in what he had, that allowed him to go from being an unknown player to a high school player, to a college player, to the NBA. It allowed now hundreds of players to go on to college. So really what recruiting is right now, what’s important to you is that you have got to show what makes you different? What font do you have? You know, what can you develop? What do persistence? How can you improve your game? And then how you gain exposure? What happens you have, you’ve got to demonstrate that passion. You gotta have the quality of being determined and able to deal with difficult situations. And you’ve got to be able to fulfill a promise to those coaches of what you can do on a consistent space is what makes you different?

Speaker 2 (17:18):

What do you bring to the table that nobody else? And that’s what you have to demonstrate. You know, as I spoke earlier, powered by offense defense, one of the ways that you can show your passion and show your persistence is through ODI football camps, go to odesk.com, check out the elite camps. The bowl games is winter next spring, the developmental camps and the showcases next summer there’s opportunities across the country for football players of every age, whether you’re six or you’re 17 or 18, whether you’re a youth player looking to move to the next level in middle school or junior high school or junior high, or moving to high school or high school on a college or a college Blair, move it on to the professional football offense, defense football camps, as an opportunity for you to demonstrate your passion persistence from the game of football.

Speaker 2 (18:13):

The last thing I like to talk to you about today is this game, how we’re in battle today. You know, politicians have sent a message about the game of football. And I think it’s important that we send a message to the politicians. I’m going to ask each of you to, to send out on social media, hashtag strong together, hashtag strong together, put it out there, let people will. The game of football is well. And that together, all of us that believe in the game of football are believe that we’re stronger together. Hashtag stronger together, send it out, get the word out. Offense. Defense football camps powers is podcast, but it also is powering the resurgence of football and our country hashtag stronger together. This is the line of scrimmage. This is Greg quick. We’re powered by ODI football camps, zip. So one, the two part series on recruiting. Next time, we’ll talk more about how you can more directly affect your development and your movement from one level to the next. Thank you. And God