It’s not when you’re winning Super Bowls.
So very, very true.
Because there have been a lot of good times.
It’s been all good.
But, as Vrabel so correctly pointed out, it’s different when you get hit in the mouth.
And I’ll add, kicked in the nads.
So last night’s disastrous result in the National Title game was surely going to test Freeman’s culture.
Some men are motivated to avoid pain.
Others accept it as a necessary evil on the way to achieving true greatness.
Winners accept that suffering is good.
It heightens the senses.
Increase your heart rate.
Get blood to your extremities and oxygen to your brain.
It’s a superpower to be used, not eliminated altogether.
Some men seek comfort over fear.
But the ones who change history treat it as a friend.
Some are unwilling to peer into the abyss.
The true warriors stare into it until it stares back.
All this is precisely what Freeman was doing in this moment.
Letting it sink in.
Committing it to memory.
This is him as Bruce Wayne, watching his parents bleed out in an alley.
Peter Parker holding Gentle Uncle Ben as he imparts the lesson about power and responsibility with his last breath.
He’s Achilles watching Patroclus die outside the walls of Troy.
Vengeance will be his.
And Notre Dame’s.
Next January can’t come soon enough.
