Whether you know this or not about me, I am an avid reader, and some, probably my critics, would say I shouldn't have spent last week reading this book; I should have been watching more film, whatever.

I got this book, and I think our captains probably remember I got it at Peddler's, so it's very ironic we're having Peddler's tonight, from a good friend of mine, Paul Condry.

Paul Condry, for the last 30-plus years, has been calling high school football games across the state. He did our state finals game, and he said it was one of the most memorable, exciting games that he's ever watched.

His friend, by the name of Ryan Lutz, who is an author, a family man, and a pastor, is the one who passed along this book to me. I'm not going to have you read it; when's the last time you guys actually read a book honestly?

6th grade.  
6th grade.  
You heard it.  
Solid.  

All right. So anyway, here's what it's called. It's called Rooted Influence.  It's a quick and easy read, but I'm just going to give you the main characters. OK, So the basis of the story is as follows.

First and foremost, Coach Malone. He is the head football coach at Central University. Again, these are fictitious things. He is following the shadows of a former Hall of Fame coach, Coach Tillman. He is winning, except for against his rival. He has not beaten State University in three years. People are calling for his head. All right. He has turned into a very angry, very upset, very belligerent coach because of the pressures that he is feeling.

Another gentleman by the name of Brad is in this book. He was a former quarterback for Central. In fact, he's the record holder for all records at Central for a quarterback. Currently, in the book, he is stuck in a mid-level sales job. He feels that he is continually being overlooked for promotions. And the biggest punch in the face is that the guy he's employed by is the number one donor to Central Football. And he has this feeling of, "Dude, don't you know who I am?" every time he walks into the office, but he's been stuck now in this mid-level sales job.

There then is Trey, another former Central Football player who has now come back to his alma mater to coach running backs. The biggest thing about Trey in the book is that he has the youngest segment of running backs, meaning the youngest players, yet they are the most tight-knit group in the entire program, and they are excelling far and above everybody else.

And there is Tate. Tate was an All-American, all-pro, wide receiver who spent a little time in the NFL, if I'm not mistaken. Tate is riding high. He is one of the upper CEOs of a real estate company. He's got a lot of cars, a lot of wealth, and a lot of aspirations to keep climbing that ladder and open up his own business one day.

Lastly, the character is Coach Andy. Coach Andy is not a coach. Coach Andy has been the equipment manager for the last 30 years at Central University.

All right, the book is about what it means to be a leader, what it means to be rooted in influence.

And I started our conversation on Monday after practice with you about what it meant to be tough. I challenged you guys. I said some of us, it's not even a word or a phrase, but we got out-toughed against Penn, some of us. Again, we don't need to bring up specifics or highlight certain individuals, but we did. We got out-toughed.

So I'm gonna ask you, and again, there is no wrong answer, but this goes right along with toughness. Part of being a man is being tough to some degree. But my question to lead us off for tonight is this:

What is it to be a man? In your words, you're all young men, with the exception of our managers—what is it to be a man? 

Answers from the crowd ranged from Dependable, to Raising a Family, to Reliability.

So the reason I ask that of you is because of this. The story that revolves around this book deals with men. There are no females, no women in this entire book, okay? But it deals with what it is to be a man, a man who is rooted in influence.

Coach invites Thomas Burda to demonstrate something for him.

Thomas, you've got 20 seconds. I want to see your best possible tree that you can draw on this whiteboard. I want you to draw a tree, okay? We're going to see how good Thomas is as an artist.  All right, here we go.

He's got 19, 18, 17, 16, 15, 14, 13, 12, 11, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, done. 

All right, so Thomas fell prey to not only being rushed and not being an artist, no offense, all right, but he fell prey to what we all fall prey to. We know what a tree looks like. All right, here is the problem, though. 

What is missing about that tree?  
Don't say a bird, don't say a nest.  
Roots.  
What else is missing?  
Branches.  
What else?  
Who said dirt?  
Dirt.

So, here's the thing I want you to understand. You guys didn't know you're going to get horticulture lesson in this as well.

The largest and longest-living tree in the United States is the General Sherman tree located in California. It is 275 feet tall. Its circumference is 103 feet around. It is 37 feet wide at the base. Its largest branch is taller than me in its diameter. That's its largest branch. Its roots go 12 feet down and 150 feet wide. And it is recorded to be between 2,300 and 2,700 years old.

And you're all at this point, "Coach Marshall, what in the heck does a tree have to do with us?"

Right? So here's my answer to that. If you take this analogy of a tree, roots are as follows.

Your roots are what you do, what you think, what you say, and what you have been through.

And most importantly, how you treat people.

When it comes down to it, your roots are who you are.

And sometimes it's even things that are unseen that people don't realize about you. It's what defines you as who you really are.

Some of these you can't control, OK? Because right now, you've all been through experiences.

I don't know whether you know this or not, but we have four seniors in this room who are going to be joined by parents that they have lost, and they're going to join them in spirit. That's something many of us haven't experienced, but four of our seniors are going to be absent a mother or a father that they're going to walk with tomorrow, and they're going to be with them in spirit.

All right? Those are roots. It makes you who you are, what you have experienced, good or bad.

But who said dirt? Lavon, you said dirt. I'll tell you what, you're on your A game tonight. Here's the thing about roots. Roots are only as healthy as the soil that they grow in. This means the soil has got to be bigger than the roots.

All right? What's the trunk? The trunk, interestingly enough, is your reputation.

Unfortunately, we as men, and probably as humans in general, spend too much time focused on the trunk.

We spend too much time focused on what people think of us.

That's the part you've got the least amount of control over: how others perceive you.

However, if you focus on the roots, the deeper and the wider they go ahead and go, what's going to happen to the bark and the rings of that trunk? They're going to get wider. They're going to get bigger. People's perceptions of you, if your roots are deep enough and your roots are wide enough and you're being nourished by that soil, nothing that anybody says or thinks of you is going to mean anything because you're rooted.

All right, think about a tree that is 2,300 to 2,700 years old. Think about what it has seen, what it has gone through: droughts, floods, without a doubt fires, high winds, and yet it's still standing.

Your reputation isn't who you are. Who you are is what's in the roots.

Branches are those opportunities. Branches are opportunities that all of you have. Opportunities to lead, opportunities to learn, opportunities to connect with people.

These opportunities sometimes are the result of your reputation, good or bad.

If you don't have a lot of branches, you probably got a bad reputation. If you have a bunch of branches, you probably have a great reputation. What you decide to do with your opportunities will also then determine what you are going to do and how people will look at you in regard to your reputation.

If we continually focus—you're gonna hear me keep going back to this—if we continually focus on those roots, the depth, the width, the soil, all right, what you have gone through, your opportunities will be more abundant and you will be more successful at those opportunities.

And last but not least, in regards to our tree—and Thomas didn't get to that because I only gave him 20 seconds—whether you call it seeds, pine cones, cones, fruit, acorns, whatever, that is the influence. That is the influence in this tree analogy. 

Every day you drop acorns.

Okay, every single day you encounter another human being, you are dropping acorns. You are influencing the people that you come across, the people that you are with. You are providing someone else influence in your family, in your friend groups, and your teammates.

And what that looks like is I drop an acorn here. That is the root system for somebody else to go ahead and deepen those roots. Now, again, you probably learned more about a tree than what you wanted to. But I'm going to go back to that sequoia, that General Sherman.

Sequoias are unique, and here's why.

They utilize a system that is called root grafting.

What that means is their roots that are 12 feet deep, 150 feet in length, allow them to share nutrients with other trees. They share their influence and their nutrients of that soil through other trees.

It allows the trees to support one another. So in areas of drought, areas that don't have drought, they can provide water to those trees. It is their link to survival. Sequoia trees are interconnected through those root systems.

Right now, 28 out of 31 of our seniors have made this program, this sport, part of their roots. And in turn, this sport, and I hope this program, has provided them the nutrients, the soil, as well as their parents and their coaches, and equally as important, other teammates, to go ahead and drop those acorns for you underclassmen.

Underclassmen, tomorrow, we're celebrating those 31 seniors that I mentioned.

Use them. Spread roots from their influence. Have them be your guide.

Let them do the root grafting to you, because that is how this influence is spread. All right?

The analogy of a tree, remember, is just this: The deeper and wider your roots are, the less likely in life that you are going to be able to be on earth.

The constant winds and destruction that our world can provide on any given day are not going to stand up to those unified root systems that you all now possess being a part of this program and the foundation of the root system that those seniors have left us with.

Beat Andrean!

#JobsNotFinished