My Super Bowl XLVII Pre-Game Speech

"Let's Ride Fellas!"

"Gentleman, this is the day that you've dreamed about your entire lives. You can't slow it down because God will only give us the same twenty four hours that he gave us on yesterday to enjoy it. So we must cherish this moment and take full advantage of the opportunity while it's in front of us.

You've dreamed of playing in the Super Bowl since the first day you picked up a football. Now God has chosen you out of the millions of kids that started on this journey with you. There have been others with more talent than you possess, more athletic ability, more style and charisma; but you are the ones that have made it to New Orleans on this day.

Gentleman, you have been predestined to run out of this locker room to show the world that you belong in America's Game. Now that you're here, what are you going to do with the opportunity? It's not enough to just show up, to bring your camera or recorder and soak it all in. God didn't bring you here to have a vacation. So fellas, I ask you, what are you prepared to do this evening?

I've always told you that championships are not won on game day; that the game is only a culmination of events. This championship was won during the off season when the other teams were having a good time and you were putting in work. When everyone practiced for two hours and went home and you stayed and put in 100 extra reps everyday. When everyone was asleep and you got up at 5am to run 5 miles daily in addition to your regular workouts.

The trophy was being engraved when you decided that you weren't going to let others tell you what you could or couldn't accomplish. Your ring was sized the day you cut off friends that weren't going in the same direction that you were going. Your name and picture was immortalized in the book of champions the day that you bought into our mission. Every diamond in the setting of that ring represents the sweat that you put in to get to this very moment.

Aristotle once said, "We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then, is not an act, but a habit."

So as a result fellas, this game is just a matter of formality. It's just another part of what we have to do to show the world what we've already become. CHAMPIONS!

Who's got the intestinal fortitude to last the sixty minutes we've been given to decide this thing? We don't have to be the best team; we just have to be the best team during that allotted time. It's just that simple because nothing has changed. The field is the same 100 yards in length and 65 yards in width that it was when the season started. The goal posts are still 10 feet high and 18 feet 6 inches wide like they were two weeks ago. The refs are still the same guys from Footlocker. If you can remember that when you run out of this locker room, you'll return as champions and become immortals in the football book of greatness forever.

However, if you allow the moment to get too big, you'll fail miserably and 24 hours from now you'll be irrelevant to the rest of the world. You'll have what the ole timers would say, "A face that only a mother could love." So how do you want to handle this? I say we go out there and put ourselves in a position to be relevant tomorrow!" LET'S RIDE!!!!!"

Coach Jay Graves (today) but still Holla At Ya Boy!
Hit me up on Twitter: @jayygravesreport
Champions are made not born! -Jay Graves-