SPORTS QUOTES

I spend hours at hockey games every week working as the assistant trainer. (Appa said it would great on my resume for med school. I don’t think he realized I’d spend most of my time bandaging up sexy shirtless boys, but I’m not complaining).

Whenever I have to pick something off the floor I bend down, keeping my legs straight. Dutifully touching your toes fifty times every day is a crashing bore. But there are almost as many times when something has to be picked up anyhow — or a lower drawer has to be opened — so I automatically do it in a manner that keeps me fit. I try to make a graceful gesture out of reaching for things on high shelves, too. I don’t make it easier by dragging out a little step stool.

Patrick Sharp remembers how bad it was. He remembers hosting a blood drive with Duncan Keith in 2007, the two future stars wandering around Millennium Station wearing bright-red Blackhawks jerseys with their names on them, trying to hand out free tickets and failing miserably. Even with their own names on the backs, nobody knew who the hell either of them was.

Jason Gesser took over as the starting quarterback at Washington State, and with him the Cougars found success. In 2001 and 2002 Jason Gesser led the Cougars to back-to-back 10-win seasons for the first time in program history, culminating in a trip to the 2003 Rose Bowl.

There's an old saying in Hed: "Tell a stranger you hate Beartown and you'll have a friend for life." The smallest child in Hed is quick to learn that it's important for Hed Hockey to do well, but that it's even more important that things go really badly for Beartown. Partly in jest, obviously. The stands are full of screamed threats about "hating" and "killing" each other, but of course they aren't serious. Until all of a sudden they are.

There will be tough workouts when the athlete has to really dig deep, believe, and not give up when the pain seems too much. The athlete can respond in one of two ways: Yield to the pain and self-doubt or decide that fear will not determine his or her potential. It's hard (and usually uncomfortable) work breaking through old barriers and self-defeating thought patterns to see meaningful progress, and fear is an absolutely natural response, but you can't let it become a limiter.