Coming off of a tough week, Coach Marshall delivers some inspirational words to get the team focused & energized for this weeks battle against Merrillville.

We played a game; I wouldn't say we played an entire game, but we played a game against Crown Point.

After that game, I spoke with you. I told you I was proud of the effort, couldn't be more proud of the effort. In fact, it was the execution that ultimately got us.
I spoke to our Varsity group on Monday. And my message to you was this: If you were to look at any season in any sport, there are always at least one, but sometimes more than one, defining moment.

A moment when a team, whether it is just by talking through it, whether it's about buying in, whether it's about just coming together and camaraderie, I'm not saying those things are lacking in our program; I'm saying there are defining moments.

I have been around this program for 18 years. I've been at the collegiate level for four, and I've played football my entire life, as well as basketball and baseball throughout high school, middle and elementary school. Every season I've ever had, there has been a defining moment.

Friday and Saturday of this week you have yours, and now it is time for you to define the moments. What I mean by that is: What is your response?

When we look at life, and I'm serious about this, and there are probably people in the room older than me, when you look at life, Lou Holtz was quoted in saying this, Your life is 10% of what happens to you and 90% of how you respond to it. Think about that.

Ten percent of what happens to you is your life. Things that are outside of your control, things that you can't plan for, things you can't stop from happening, things you didn't even know were coming. But ninety percent of it will be in how you respond to those moments. And that is this defining moment. This moment of which I've pulled a three-minute clip that I'd like you to listen to, and then after that, we're going to talk through it a little bit.

A few things come to mind regarding our team during that three-minute speech. 

There is "How can we move forward?"

I think that's a simple solution. I think you understand what it takes and what it's going to take to continue to move forward.

The second thing is how can we move past this? It is in the past... it's done... it's over... you're not gonna get another shot at Crown Point.

Crown Point doesn't matter. They are insignificant right now in your longevity in this sport.

How can we be better? "How can I be better?"
Look at it from both perspectives.

How can we and how can you be better moving forward from those moments? And then what can we learn from this?

One of the most compelling things that they say is "You are a mere Shadow right now of what you could be!"

This next part I borrowed from a podcast that I listen to. It's called the Born Primitive Podcast. The gentleman who is the owner and CEO of Born Primitive made our outstanding Patriot Night t-shirts a few years back. He is a veteran and he also now is in charge of a multi-million dollar business but before that he played football at Yale and he was a graduate from Valparaiso High School who played football.

In his podcast that just was published this week he tells of a phenomenon about people not taking back their lives. About finding those off-ramps; finding those excuses; not reaching their goals. They do so because they basically provide themselves with those safety nets or off ramps:

• This isn't set up for me to succeed
• They don't respond
• They have that exit strategy
• They settle
• They have that off ramp

It doesn't matter whether it comes to not getting a job or losing weight. They fail to put in place what needs to happen to succeed at those goals especially after facing adversity.

So in this podcast, and it's very fitting since we're going to be facing the Pirates, he talks about the phrase "Burn the Boats"

Okay, now how many of you have heard that before? Burn the Boats? The person who is given I guess the claim to fame of “Burn the Boats” even though we could argue where it came from was the Conquistador Cortez.

Now by no means am I sitting here telling you that I want you to go conquer a foreign land and kill and pillage and do all those things. But the psychology of this statement; the psychology behind what “Burn the Boats” means is this: when they arrived they were going to go ahead and try to wipe out the Aztecs. He's a conquistador!

They land and they find that they are far outnumbered.
There is not a chance that they can go ahead and have success.
So he tells those entrusted to go burn the boats. Now there's no off ramp. Now there's no exit strategy. There's no "uh you know the fighting really isn't for me... I'm gonna jump back on the boat and I'm gonna go ahead and sail back to where I came from and to safety.

The story of Cortez relates a lot to us.

You can't go back.

There is no going back; you started this season!

You see what happens to those who have decided to go back; those who have already hung up their helmet and shoulder pads and turned their stuff in.

There's no coming back from that.

Our identity right now should be to burn those boats.  Have no more excuses, No more off-ramps, no more settling. No more rationalization.

We know what to expect and it comes down now to execution.
There's no more off-ramp.
No, it's Do the job!

Those who continue to operate in that manner and in that light will be the ones that continue to lead us to that success.

We can't sit here and continue what we have been doing and expect to get different results... that's not how life works.

We have to move forward.

That defining moment as I told you it is going to be this week.

“Burn the Boats!”