Gordon Taylor

Really good teams that condition a lot in season are winning IN SPITE of the conditioning, not BECAUSE of it.

Name a football opinion that’ll have you like this…

Name a football opinion that’ll have you like this…

Name an education opinion that’ll have you like this…

TRANSFERRING DOESN’T ALWAYS MEAN “QUITTING” The easiest thing to do when a student-athlete transfers is call them a quitter. It’s also one of the laziest opinions in college athletics. Yes, some athletes leave because they’re unhappy with playing time or because the grass looks greener somewhere else. That happens. But pretending every transfer fits that stereotype ignores how college sports actually work today. What gets overlooked is how many student-athletes never truly choose to leave. They’re “encouraged” to enter the portal after a coaching change. They’re told they no longer fit the system. They’re informed their scholarship won’t be renewed. They’re recruited over. They’re asked to do something very than they were never promised. Some programs need to free up roster spots, and someone has to be the casualty. Is that quitting? Or is that survival? The conversation also conveniently ignores the role coaches play in creating today’s transfer landscape. We criticize athletes for entering the portal, but many coaching staffs have made the portal their primary recruiting strategy. If coaches continue filling significant portions of their roster through transfers every year, why would we expect fewer players to enter? The portal exists because there’s demand. If coaches stopped relying on it tomorrow, you’d see the numbers change faster than most people realize. There are countless other reasons athletes transfer that have nothing to do with toughness or commitment. Family illness. Personal health reasons. Financial realities. Academic programs. A coach who recruited them leaving after one season. Wanting to be closer to home. A toxic team culture. Broken promises. Personal growth that changes priorities. Life doesn’t stop because a young person agreed to play a sport at a college or university. The people most eager to label transfers as quitters are often the same people who applaud coaches for leaving one job for a better opportunity. We call it career advancement for adults but question the character of a 19-year-old trying to make the best decision for their future. Why do we attended college in the first place? To prepare us for careers. That double standard has never made much sense to me. Every transfer has a story. Some are admirable. Some aren’t. Some are not quitting and some are. But assuming you know which one it is because you saw a name enter the portal is irresponsible. Before we judge, we should remember there’s usually far more happening behind the scenes than a press release, a social media post, or a database entry will ever tell us. Student-athletes deserve to be evaluated as individuals, not reduced to a stereotype the moment their name appears in the transfer portal.

Tom Brady reveals the brutally honest talk he had with a Michigan sports psychologist that turned him from a benchwarmer into the GOAT. Brady's transformation started with one change: the way he thought. "I sit on the bench my first year, and I really had—I would call it—a lot of self-defeating attitudes and behaviors. I always had an excuse. 'Coach doesn't want me in there.'" "I had a sports psychologist. His name was Greg Harden. I would go into his office every Tuesday, and he would say, 'Tom, I like you. You work hard, but you have a shitty attitude.'" "'How about you start worrying about what you can control and stop talking about the other quarterbacks, stop talking about the coaches not putting you in.'" "If they give you three reps, you do the best with the three you get. Quit bitching about you only getting three or you going in there with the backup receivers. No one cares.'" "'You treat practice like it's a game. If you throw a touchdown in the two-minute in practice, you celebrate like it's the game.'" Brady never approached it that way before. Then "sure enough" everything changed. "Mmy energy started getting way better. I was bringing juice; I had the right attitude." "Then all of a sudden, I'm bringing the juice, man. Every day, boom." "That [mindshift] really helped me get better." The road to 7 Super Bowl rings didn't start on the practice field; it started in that very office…