Excerpt from Under The Bar
"Rip ...or be ripped."
It was something Coach Shoop used to say to get us fired up. I always liked Coach Shoop because he was a weightlifter, as well as an intense and passionate football coach who never gave anyone something other than his best. He is also the one who -upon learning of my failure at BGSU- looked me dead in the eye and said:
“Dave, you are not stupid, you have never been stupid—you’re just lazy and do not care.”
He went on to tell me how I had just spent 10 minutes telling him very detailed training information I had collected from books and journals. I had found the information, read the information, retained the information, and then applied the information. He told me that I already had all the skills I needed—I just wasn’t using them for my other courses of study. If I placed half the effort into my classes as I did my training, then I would be an “A” student. It all came down to the fact that I did not care enough and was too lazy to try. He told me that I might have to work twice as hard as the next guy to get the same results, but that was my reality—which nobody cares about. Nobody cares how hard it will be for you; they only care about the end result.
After another two years I received my degree with close to a 3.5 GPA. I also received A’s in both the classes that sent me home from BGSU years earlier. I now see failing those classes as one of the best things that ever happened to me. If I hadn’t flunked out, I wouldn’t have been in the parking lot that day. Up until that point in my life just getting by was good enough, after that day I knew I had to change my way of thinking.
I know the true strength of a man is not in how much he can lift but how high he can lift others. I may have beat Coach’s bench press, but I still aspire to be the man who helped me that day in the parking lot.
Thank You Coach Shoop
Rip or be Ripped Gear