I work for Strategic Financial Partners which is a Financial Planning Firm associated with the Mass Mutual Financial Group. We are having a company meeting in Memphis today and tomorrow. At today's meeting we had a new successful young advisor who has worked for us for 4 years give a presentation. He was Barrett Jones, who is from Memphis, and played on the offensive line for 3 national championship teams at Alabama from 2009-2013.
In his talk he related a few anecdotes about his football playing days at Alabama. One was this short 5'8" guy coming to his house in Memphis in 2008 and eating dinner with his family and talking about "the process" at Alabama. The "short guy" was of course Coach Saban.
The other story was a conditioning drill that all the new players would have to do when they got to campus in June '09. They would have to run 15 110 yard sprints in 17 seconds (faster for other position groups) with a 43 second rest break between each sprint/run. He said he practiced that at home for about 4 weeks and thought it would be no problem.
On the first day the coaches told everybody to get on the bus to go over to Bryant-Denny stadium and he thought, how cool, we're going to do it in the stadium! When they got there the temp was 90 degrees, and with all the empty aluminum seats reflecting like an oven, the heat index was about 110.
The S & C coach told them that if anyone bent over, even just slightly, then that run wouldn't count and everybody would have to do it again. After about 10 or 11 someone bent about 2 inches and the coach said "do over". After a couple more someone else "bent over" and there was another "do over". Now there was a "do over" after every run.
After 22 runs Barrett said he puked up everything he had eaten for the last 3 years.
One thing I was impressed with about Barrett was his integrity, grit, and determination. And also he does not look big enough to have been an All-American at an FBS school, much less Alabama. I guess its not just the size of the dog in the fight.....
In his talk he related a few anecdotes about his football playing days at Alabama. One was this short 5'8" guy coming to his house in Memphis in 2008 and eating dinner with his family and talking about "the process" at Alabama. The "short guy" was of course Coach Saban.
The other story was a conditioning drill that all the new players would have to do when they got to campus in June '09. They would have to run 15 110 yard sprints in 17 seconds (faster for other position groups) with a 43 second rest break between each sprint/run. He said he practiced that at home for about 4 weeks and thought it would be no problem.
On the first day the coaches told everybody to get on the bus to go over to Bryant-Denny stadium and he thought, how cool, we're going to do it in the stadium! When they got there the temp was 90 degrees, and with all the empty aluminum seats reflecting like an oven, the heat index was about 110.
The S & C coach told them that if anyone bent over, even just slightly, then that run wouldn't count and everybody would have to do it again. After about 10 or 11 someone bent about 2 inches and the coach said "do over". After a couple more someone else "bent over" and there was another "do over". Now there was a "do over" after every run.
After 22 runs Barrett said he puked up everything he had eaten for the last 3 years.
One thing I was impressed with about Barrett was his integrity, grit, and determination. And also he does not look big enough to have been an All-American at an FBS school, much less Alabama. I guess its not just the size of the dog in the fight.....
