I would be a terrible motivational speaker.

Most of it’s on me. I never matured beyond a 14-year-old so I have a hard time saying anything with any degree of earnestness. If I tried to motivate anyone who knew me, they wouldn’t believe anything I was saying because they wouldn’t be sure if I actually believed anything I was saying. Honestly, and I really mean this in all earnestness, I probably wouldn’t know if I believed what I was saying.

Randy Whitehouse

I’d also be a terrible motivational speaker because I’m certain I’d get about 30 seconds into my speech and wander off on some tangent about Larry Bird or start reciting a Herb Brooks speech from “Miracle.” Personally, I find his words during the gold medal game against Finland more inspirational than his more famous “Great moments are born from great opportunity” speech before the Miracle on Ice. “If you lose this game, you’ll take it to your $^@&% grave!” Quick and to the point. If that doesn’t make you want to run over some guy named Seppo, I don’t know what will.

So I’m probably not the guy to get your football team fired up for this weekend’s regional championship games. Especially since if I was in a locker room full of kids before a big high school football game, the first thing I would tell them is if you lose this game, you’d better not take it to your $*&@&% grave. Because it’s a football game.

If you’re taking anything to your grave from a football game, here’s what it will be: whether you left it all on the field; whether you cared enough about your teammates, your coaches and your town to represent all of them in a way that will make them proud; whether your opponent will shake your hand after the game or 30 years from now during some random encounter and say, “Man, it took all I had to keep up with you.”

This isn’t to say winning isn’t important. Winning makes a special season even more special, but not for the reasons you might think. Winning this week gives you another week with your team and a chance to play in a state championship game. It gives you an opportunity most of your peers didn’t get despite wanting it just as bad as you did. It’s a great opportunity for more great moments.

But the things you take to your grave have nothing to do with what side of the scoreboard you’re on when you leave the field. They are about who you loved and who loved you, who you trusted and who trusted you, whose back you had and who had your back.

Believe it or not, that’s what you find out on days like this. That makes this day one of the greatest gifts life can give you. What are you going to make of it?