I don't know whether you guys know this about me or not, but this is a milestone for me. First job that I ever had out of college was a teacher at Flint Lake Elementary and coaching. This is my 20th year at Valparaiso Community Schools. I taught at Flint Lake for one year while coaching defensive line here. I then moved to Ben Franklin, taught there for four years while still coaching defensive line, and then I've been at the high school ever since. One of the great things is obviously, as I told you guys at Trine, being able to watch you guys reach your potential. That's why I do what I do.

That's why our coaches do what they do. The fact that this sport has given so much more back to me than probably I'll ever be able to go ahead and give to it, because it's just a sport. It's just a game. But as you are well aware, it is a game that obviously mimics life in itself. So my message today as I sat there on Monday thinking about what message I wanted you to hear is one that simply surrounds itself with this. Break your limits before they break you. All right, we have an unfortunate thing about us as humans where we want to go ahead and sometimes play it safe.

We want to go ahead and keep the guardrails on, all right, just like I saw at bowling, some of you still had to put those little kiddie things up on the side so you didn't have any gutter balls. We do, Sam, we do that in our own lives, but that's what hold us back. And so understanding that success does not live in our comfort zone, all right, and it sure as hell doesn't live with your limitations, especially the ones that you put on yourself. I can't tell you the number of people that told me at 190 pounds as a senior in high school, you're too small, you're too slow, you're not going to be a division one football player. I'm sure you can think right now, how many people have told you you're this, you're that, you won't amount to this, and pretty soon you start to believe it. Every day you're going to hear people say that you can't do this. You're going to hear people say it's Brother Rice.

You're going to hear people say names like King Liggins. It's a hell of a name. But let me ask you, who told you that? And somebody else did. Because the fact of the matter is, the only person who is going to write your story is you. Alright? And if you're the author, why are you writing your own limitations? Why do you let self-doubt trickle in? Why do you go ahead and have those thoughts that are in the recesses of your mind? Throw those self-imposed ceilings? Throw them in the trash. Throw them in the trash tomorrow night. Because really, what do you have to lose? Nobody thinks you're gonna win. Nobody. So throw it in the trash. Who cares? Go out there and play. And more importantly, I was asked this past week, well, Coach Marshall, don't you save any of this stuff for like the locker room speech? Oh, don't worry. I got something for you in the locker room. But more so than anything else, what I want you to get out of this is how you're going to conduct yourself in life. The best players, the best leaders, the best human beings, they didn't start out as the best. They didn't start out with superpowers. Alright? They built themselves. They got uncomfortable. They took hits. They kept pushing. That's what you need to continue to do.

They refuse to be average. If you think you can outwork the grind and go ahead and succeed, you can. You can outwork the grind. You can go ahead and beat the game before it even begins. Because you're not gonna set up this, well, you know, it's because we're too slow. Well, you know, it's because they're 7A. Well, you know, it's because they got this many and that many starters, and this many and that many people going D1.

You've already set the limitations on yourself. You've already set yourself up for failure in life if that's how you conduct your mindset. You've got two options, as I sat and I thought about it. Here's your first. Set the limits on yourself, stay in your safe and comfort zone, stay small, and stay forgettable. Or you can live with this second option and that second option is this, break those limits, get uncomfortable, grow and become unstoppable. Stop setting boundaries to your potential.

Stop measuring your worth by the yesterday you. Start believing that you have a right to be at the table tomorrow night and in your future endeavors. Stop limiting yourselves. You don't change the game without changing the way you think. You will not change your life unless you get the guardrails or your bowling bumpers off of the way you feel. There's only one person who can do it because there's only one person who's writing that story.