“I’ll never quit, I’ll never lay down…”
Dateline: Attitude
“If you aren’t going all the way, why go at all?”
– Joe Namath
I sat in a chair watching former Pittsburgh Steeler Head Coach Chuck Noll squirm and make all sorts of faces.
“Be still please…”
“Grrumph…”
Every few seconds he would shoot me a sideward glance and grimace, I just smiled back, he was a big man.
“Pla-ese…”
And then when the makeup powder went in his mouth, he was done getting made up for his moment on stage…this stage not of ESPN or a Pittsburgh TV station, this stage was resting on the grass of Canton.
The day before I spent most of the day with him for the TV show we were doing. I filmed and listened into several interviews all pretty much asking him the same question in various ways, “Coach, what do you ascribe to as the secret of your success?” or some sort of nonsense like that.
Coach would always furrow his brow, just his jaw out and give the reporter the kind of answer expected of someone soon to be immortalized in the NFL Hall Of Fame.
During a break we sat and drank some Cokes and just made small talk. After one long swig he looked over at me and mumbled exactly this, “You want to know the real secret to my success, huh?”
I just shrugged my shoulders, the more nonchalant you act the better the answers you get, let them make the point, not you.
“Here’s the secret to my success, my teams scored more points than the other guy did.”
And with that, we clinked cans of soda.
“Oh, and this, we played every damn second of those 60 minutes on the clock, every second, every minute, every damn one.”
“…see, I’ve promised myself that I’d never let me down, so…”
“Sports do not build character. They reveal it.”
– Heywood Broun
Four-Eight-Oh, 480, that’s how many minutes, barring a weather delay, 480 minutes is the length of this game we have, this game called Bassmaster Elite Series tournaments.
As the morning sun lights up the lake, Dave Mercer stands near the end of a dock and says exactly this, “Three…two…one…go!”
Then 100-and-some Elite anglers take to the field of their game, a game they have 480 minutes to play each tournament day, and that my friends is with no commercial time outs, no between plays standing around, no quarters or halftimes to regroup.
It is eight hours of competition times four days.
When that winner stands on stage on Day 4 he will have competed for 1,920 non-stop minutes (and I’m counting driving to and fro from spots competition because that is a huge part of the game) or 32 hours.
Eight hours short of a 40-hour work week, with no lunch breaks or a 15 minute smoke out back.
And you know what? Coach Noll would expect each angler to compete every damn minute of that.
Me too.
“…I’ll never give up, never give in…”
“You just can’t beat the person who won’t give up.”
– Babe Ruth
“My goal is to win every single event I fish in, that’s what I think when I take to the water, inside I’m very humble and grateful for the opportunity to be here but I’m never satisfied if I come away with anything other than first place.”
Brandon Palaniuk has just woke me up from a nap, I told him to call me as soon as he came off the stage on Day 1 of the Lake Dardanelle gig.
“Sorry db, had to get tackle ready for tomorrow.”
“No problem.”
“Did you just wake up?”
“I will soon.”
Brandon and I have been close since he sat on a Classic stage as the B.A.S.S. Nation Champion and blew a whistle in honor of Brian Kerchal, another B.A.S.S. Nation Champion who won the Bassmaster Classic (the only one to do so) and who died in a plane crash shortly after the win.
I was on the Classic floor when he did it and turned around to watch this unknown on stage, I even asked James Overstreet, “Who the hell was that?” and I think he told me some kid from Idaho, or something like that, I only manage to understand half of what Overstreet mumbles in his Arkansas drawl.
I watched Brandon from afar his first year, I don’t do stories with rookies, those who have done something in the sport come first, but I did notice something with this kid from Idaho.
Kid got game, kid got the soul for sports.
Let’s see if he’s got the chops.
“db, I can tell you this, I have no coast button within me.”
Oh my, he do have them chops.
He do.
“…never let a ray of doubt slip in…”
“I can accept failure, everyone fails at something. But I can’t accept not trying.”
– Michael Jordan
On the street we would call Brandon, “a wirily dude,” meaning back when I was young if I met him in a dark alley I wouldn’t be to concerned about getting after it but there would be some long drawn out tussling going on.
He’s the undersized, slow, middle linebacker who will meet the runner in the hole and stick his helmet through the runner’s chest. Hall of Fame running back Barry Sanders stood only 5-foot, 8-inches, and that was a lie, try and grab ahold of that dude in his prime.
I have no idea how tall Brandon is, but I always think of Barry when I watch him out on the water battling through whatever.
Turns out the skinny kid from Idaho won two state high school wrestling championships, one in his sophomore year, one in his senior year, the other two years he finished fifth and second in the state.
Wirily he.
“I’m past the fear of failure db or what people think of me, I want them to know that when I launch, no matter what, no matter what spot I’m in it’s balls out.”
I have to drop the journalist face at that quote, God I love that, if you are going to take to the stage take to it to blow the roof off, or take a seat in the audience.
I’m in the Coach Noll camp on how to play the game.
“…and if I fall, I’ll never fail…”
“You don’t play against opponents, you play against the game of basketball.”
– Bobby Knight
I’m going to do something extraordinary here, something that may have me meeting the kid in an alley up in New York when I rejoin the tour.
This is what I’m going to do, I’m going to copy and paste the text messages between me and Brandon over the last couple of days, they are not out of the normal between the two of us, we usually talk before every event, take a photo together every event (we call it the “db ain’t dead yet” photo) so this is pretty much standard operating procedure.
Here goes:
Brandon: Missing you this week. Hope you’re feeling better.
Me: Hey man good luck today do you have time to do a quick interview after weigh in tonight let me know good luck
He said, “yep.” That night, Friday, we talked and I wished him well for Day 2.
Then this was his next txt: Moved into 12th today. 2 more days…no coast button
And Sunday, when he made the 12 cut, second tournament in a row he’s done this I got this text: Balls out tomorrow!
In case you want to know this is exactly what I told him I wanted to do the interview about: i want to do a story about you still giving it your all even though you have a Classic berth locked up
His exact response: That’s the only way I know how to do it!
Brandon had no idea I would use those texts, in fact I didn’t know I would until a couple of paragraphs back when the thought hit me.
There you go.
“…I’ll just get up and try again…”
“The game has its ups and downs, but you can never lose focus of your individual goals and you can’t let yourself be beat because of lack of effort.”
– Michael Jordan
“db, if you give it your best and try to win and you don’t that’s not failure, not failure at all, failure is not giving a s*** or not trying every minute to win the thing.”
In seven seasons with the Elites Brandon has won three events.
The wrestler from Idaho has been in 82 tourneys and finished in the money 53 times, a db batting average of .646.
And currently OK TIFF BLACK THE NEXT SENTENCE OUT NOW… Brandon stands third in the AOY race this year.
I’ll explain that bold stuff, Tiff is Brandon’s girlfriend and this is why I bolded it in the story, this txt message from Brandon about the AOY mention:
Tiffs gonna block out the AOY part so I can read it, I know I’m up there cuz of my finishes, but by not physically looking it feels like I don’t know.
Consider me a fan of the kid from Idaho.
“…never lose hope, never lose faith there’s much too much at stake…”
“Do you know what my favorite part of the game is? The opportunity to play.”
– Mike Singletary
Make no one you see from afar, a hero, true heroes are those who raised you, who put food on the table for you, who sit with you when you are sick, who cry tears of joy when great things happen to you, and who walk you down the aisle or read to you from the family bible.
Do not make Brandon a hero, make this young man a role model though, and there’s a difference there, while the kid from Idaho is a great dude, his life calling is not to run into burning buildings to save you, it is not his life calling to run toward what you are running from, those are heroes, but in my book Brandon is an athlete you should look up to, and here’s why:
Brandon: “I think that we all out here should give it our best in what we do and all of the time, and I also think that we should do that in life, that if you yourself be the best you can be then that is the version of you that will always show and if everyone was like that don’t you think it would be a better place for all of us.”
Look up to that, that young dudes out there reading this, is how it is supposed to be.
Give it your best no matter what you are giving it to.
When you step onto the field of play, do so to score more points than the other guy.
And go balls out every second.
Every. Damn. Second.
“…upon myself I must depend. I’m not looking for place or show, I’m gonna win”
Win
Brian McKnight
db
“It’s not so important who starts the game but who finishes it.”
– John Wooden