The college basketball season is over a month away, and yet, we might already have the best inspirational speech of the year.
When it comes to college athletics, and how much the landscape has changed over the past five or so years (with NIL and what not), many have assumed it’s hard to motivate players in the modern day. After all, they used to play for pride, and now many of them are playing for lucrative paychecks.
That being said, there’s still one way to light a fire under a college player: Talk about time. Wake Forest Men’s Basketball Head Coach Steve Forbes cracked that code, and a video posted by the Demon Deacons program of the coach’s pre-season speech to his team is now going viral online.
During practice, Forbes used an hourglass – one that he keeps proudly displayed in his office – to talk to his team about how quickly time passes, and how time is the one thing that we humans can’t get back once its gone:
“You guys have seen that in my office. It’s been in my office since I got the head coaching job here. It’s a symbol of your career, and of your season. Turn over this hourglass and watch the sand fall. This is how quickly the next six months are going to go. For you, your teammates, and this team.
For some of you, this will be the final grain of sand that falls for your college career, because it’ll be over. So embrace the hard, cherish the reps, enjoy the time in the locker room with your teammates, take advantage of the road trips on the bus and on the plane. These are things you’re never ever going to get back. Be where your feet are.”
Some of the best advice you can hear.
And that wasn’t all. Forbes revealed to his team the biggest fear he has as a coach, and left them with one final challenge – and a hard-hitting reminder about how fast time flies:
“When your college career ends, you don’t get to flip that thing back over to start again. That’s why I continue to tell you my biggest fear as a coach is ten years from now, five years from now, that you come to me and say, ‘Coach, if you just would have coached me a little bit harder, I would have been a better player.’ I refuse to let that happen.
Because I know this: Your time is short. I know how important it is to you and your family. Before you know it, it’s going to be February or March. Practices will be gone, games will be over, and for some of you, your college career will be done. The sand is already falling. Don’t waste it. Don’t wish it away. Don’t leave any regrets… make every grain of that sand count.”
Powerful, moving, potentially life-changing for some of those players… or anyone else that hears the head coach’s words. It’s easy to see why it’s racking up hundreds of thousands of views online… it’s a message that anyone can apply to their daily life and benefit from.
