After watching this interview on ESPN today, I felt compelled to write something that supports and praises him. Think about how powerful that statement is. I have never met this man, don’t play football for him, probably will never get an opportunity to get to speak to him face-to-face (if someone wants to hook it up though, I’d appreciate it) and I feel compelled to write something strongly in support of him. Compelled. I feel that strongly about this guy and he hasn’t even coached a game yet.
There are a lot of lessons that I learned in my athletic career (as short as it may have been). One that particularly sticks out in my mind is when my high school varsity basketball coach pulled me and a few fellow seniors aside before our first practice and “dropped some knowledge” on us. “Some people are leaders of men and some people aren’t… plain and simple. It takes a special type of person to be a leader of men.”
Everything that I’ve seen from Bill O’Brien (or BOB for those new to the site) in the past 2 days affirms that he is unquestionably a leader of men. Remember when people were upset about his hiring because he wasn’t a “Penn State Guy”? BOB exemplifies everything it means to be a Penn State Guy. Listening to him speak and preach about the things he believes in, I now understand all of the tweets from current players and prospects saying “Coach O’Brien has my back and I have his”. I want to run through a brick wall for this guy. And even though he’s only been around for 6 months, he’s already running through brick walls for us, too.
Coach O’Brien has all of our backs. I just can’t wait for Sept. 1 to show him that we all have his, too.
