Feelin' Down

I didn't want to post this week because I felt DOWN. We worked hard and should have won our last game. We knew Olympus' every play and we knew how to exploit their weaknesses but we didn't get it done. So there is why I was feeling sorry for myself and the team. What a mistake... I was reading an article writen by Lee Benson of the Deseret News that lifted my soul. I'll sort of tell the story and paraphrase it for you.
" When Art Berg broke his neck in the summer of 1983 he had no idea it would help the Baltimore Ravens win the 2001 Super Bowl.

He was traveling across a lonely stretch of Nevada freeway, a 21 year old Californian on his way to Utah to get married, when the car he was riding in smacked head on into a car traveling in the opposite direction. One minute he was on top of the world, the next he was in a Las Vegas emergency room with doctors shaking their heads. He had broken his 5th vertebra in his neck rendering his arms and legs useless. To medical science he was a Quadraplegic, tethered to his wheel chair for the rest of his life. No sooner did he regain conciousness than he began hearing all the things he wouldn't be able to do.

Incredibly Art, He layed there Paralyzed and began to tell himself all the things he could do.

Amoung the many inspirations he turned to were the words of a 19th century English poet named Williqam Ernest Henly who, when facing a crisis of his own, wrote a poem called "INVICTUS," which is a latin word for "unconquered, unsubdued, invincible."

The poems last stanza goes like this:

"It matters not how strait the gate
How charged with punishments the scroll
I am the master of my fate;
I am the master of my soul."

Holding to that thought, Art embarked on a journey that took him to heights he may never have visited if he hadn't been tethered to his wheelchair. He became an accomplished athlete (he ran numerous marathons and played on a nationaly ranked wheelchair rugby team), A fulfilled Family man (the woman he was engaged to waited for him and they had two children), A sucessful businessman (he was named Young entrepeneur of the year in 1992), and he was one of the country's most sought after motivational speakers (at age 39 he was in the National Speaker's Hall of Fame).

Art Berg, Champion paralytic, rolled into the Baltimore Ravens pre season camp for a 7:30 in the morning speech. Dozens of football players in the midst of two-a-days sprawled in front of him in various stages of repose, These players had heard half time speeches and rah rah talks since they were probably Gremlins. Now what was this man in a wheelchair going to tell them that they hadn't already heared?

Then the man in the wheelchair told them about "INVICTUS". He told them not to worry about the negatives that would come along during the season, but to prepare for how they would handle whatever they turned out to be.

He told them what he did.

In the first preseason game after the speech, the Ravens were in a deep hole at half time. David Modell, the teams president, told Art, who was sitting next to him in the owners box, that if the Ravens some how could pull out the win, He was going to put the word "INVICTUS" on the scoreboard.

The Ravens won. There after, following every win, "INVICTUS" was put on the board.

During the teams only real slump, a three game losing strek at mid season, Coach Brian Billick called the players together, Pulled out Henley's poem, and disected every line.

They would not lose again that season.

Later The Ravens called Art at his home in Highland, Utah and invited him back to training camp. When he arrived, he went to lunch with, amoung others Modell and Billick. There, they pulled out a large jewelry box. Inside was the Baltimore Ravens XXXV Super Bowl ring, with Art's Name on it.

The $28,000 14 carat gold ring has 40 diamonds and a ruby eye, with a football field back drop of white gold.

And there on both sides, in bold, beautiful letters, there is the single word: "INVICTUS"

Now I to feel "Unconquered, Unsubdued, Invincible" regardless of the loss.

(Thanks to Coach Taylor for sharing this story with me)