Mariota’s Moment

So Marcus Mariota won the Heisman trophy and now he’ll go quickly in the NFL draft, making him an overnight millionaire.

But let’s go back to a day in 2010 when Marcus was just at football practice at his high school. At that point, he was only ranked 3 out of 5 stars and no one was paying much attention. But Mark Helfrich, now head coach at Oregon, decided to make the trip to Hawaii to watch Mariota one particular day.

When Helfrich arrived at practice, the coach had gotten ticked off at something and was making the guys run. So for the first 30 minutes, he just watched him run—team sprints from one sideline to the other and back. The thing that struck Helfrich? Mariota beat everyone on every single sprint.

Then they got the ball out. Within 5 minutes of watching him throw, the conclusion was clear as to the recommendation he would make to then-head coach Chip Kelly: offer this kid a scholarship. So, as they say, the rest is history.

But what if that particular day, Mariota had a bad attitude? What if he would have gotten ticked that the coach was ticked and his own anger affected him? Or he decided he didn’t care that day? What if he would have slacked off in those sprints and not excelled as usual? And what if that would have affected his passing?

Isn’t it interesting, and quite a lesson for us all, that the very reason Marcus Mariota may end up an NFL football star and a multi-millionaire is because he decided it was worth it to work his butt off running sprints?

We never know when a “Helfrich” might be watching us and our whole world could change, if we’re found working our butt off in the details too.

Whoever can be trusted with a little can also be trusted with a lot. —Luke 16:10a NCV




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