Mike Dubose at Gridiron

Monday night at Gridiron we hosted the new coach of Millsaps College in Jackson, Mike Dubose. As many of you may remember, Mike used to coach at that OTHER university in Alabama. (Although I can't bear to mention the town in which that university is located, I will point out that it begins with a "T" and ends with a "loosa.") Mike played there under Bear Bryant in the early 1970s, was part of the coaching staff under Gene Stallings, and was named the head coach upon Stallings' retirement at the end of the 1996 season. After leaving this NAMELESS school in 2000, Mike returned to coaching at Millsaps in 2002 and was named head coach a couple of years later.

Coach Dubose mentioned a couple of things in his talk that I wanted to share here.

First, he said that the most important factor in determining the success of any program is COMMITMENT. Without commitment from the top on down to the very bottom, no program will be able to sustain success. While any program can get "lucky" and hit it big in any given year, long term sustained success requires commitment from the top of the school, university, athletic program, football program, etc., on down to the players, assistant coaches, trainers, AND fans and supporters.

As Coach Dubose said, this kind of commitment is rare (not only in football...it's rare in EVERY organization or aspect of life today). In his estimation (and I tend to agree), we are producing (and may have already produced) a generation of quitters. Commitment is a foreign concept today. But without it, he reminded us, we will not know sustained "success" in whatever it is that we are doing.

Second, Coach Dubose cited a quote from Gene Stallings that I wanted to pass along. He said that Stallings used to repeatedly tell the coaching staff and players that they should "never confuse work with accomplishment." This is a timely reminder for us today. Our day in one in which we are in danger of violating this very principle. We are coming dangerously close to confusing work with accomplishment. And so we are busy, busy, busy, even frantically so. All the while, we are accomplishing less and less.

Good reminders for us to think on today. Comments?