The hardest days to win

Back in August during fall camp, Fox Sports announcer Gus Johnson addressed the Oregon football team.

“You are the CEO of YOU,” he told the players at the end of practice. Managing your business, he went on, getting good grades, using your time wisely, keeping your nose clean, is the heart of that business, the essence of making it successful.

The message got a great response from a hopeful football team with a promising season ahead of them. They’d been rocked over the summer by suspensions and scandal, eager to gather themselves for a big showdown with LSU and the opportunity to compete for their third conference championship, the North division’s berth in the inaugural PAC-12 Championship Game. Anything seemed possible.

You know what it is: coaches can teach technique, strategy and tactics, squeezing as much instruction as possible into 29 preseason practices, but ultimately, every player is in charge of his own business (Corvallis Gazette-Times photo).

You know the rest.

Tonight the college football season just ended with an artless anti-climax. The Alabama Crimson Tide became the sixth straight SEC team to claim the national title. The Ducks stumbled twice this year in a bid to return to college football’s biggest game, but no one among Duck fans could be disappointed. In a year LaMichael James, Darron Thomas, John Boyett, Michael Clay and Josh Huff all missed games with injury, Oregon won their first Rose Bowl in 95 years. In the bad old days one injury like those would wreck an entire season. The 2011 Oregon Ducks took care of their business.

They did so with such artistry and commitment that, despite the loss of James to the NFL, the most productive running back in school history, beat writers and columnists from all the state’s major newspapers have weighed in with columns and retrospectives, each one of them looking ahead to 2012 and using the n-word: National Championship.

The Ducks could be the team that returns excitement to the BCS title game, if they can get past USC in their own conference. Twice. Who knows, maybe the balance of power could shift westward in 2012. It could be that the Trojans and Webfoots would be #1 and #2 by November 3rd. This year’s Game of the Century could be played in the Los Angeles Coliseum, with a rematch in December.

But for that to happen, the Ducks again have to take care of their business. The last two off seasons have been marred by off-field incidents, suspensions, focus problems and embarrassments.  Oregon doesn’t need that now. Opportunities to reach the top rung of college football don’t come along every year, not even for the country’s most elite teams. Several elements have to come together: a favorable schedule, early national recognition, leadership in the senior class, depth and talent. It’s a tough and precipitous road. Ask Oklahoma, this season’s preseason number one, which finished the season 10-3, settling for a win in the Insight Bowl over 7-6 Iowa.

These are the hardest days to win in college football, the long weeks between the bowl game and the start of spring practice. In the afterglow of an historic win everybody is telling you how great you are, what a sure thing success will be next season. Nobody’s cheering when you go to the weight room at six in the morning, or when you have a nine o’clock class on Monday morning. There are parties. Girls want to meet you. Coaches can’t attend voluntary workouts, and the effort you bring to them has to come out of your character and will.

One of the hardest things to learn in life is the principle of delayed gratification. Some never do. To succeed at anything, a young man has to learn to motivate himself when no one is watching. When the reward is a long way off. To keep doing the right things when progress or success or significance is not apparent. Making a championship effort even when somebody else is winning the trophies, getting the starting job, or getting the recognition.

This is the time of year that sets the tone for next season. Teams either recommit, implode, or merely fail to maintain the discipline and desire that brought them success. It’s up to every new group of seniors to accept the role of leadership, to sacrifice and challenge each other.

This fall, the Ducks have a senior quarterback and two-year starter. They have a favorable schedule and excellent depth, with 34 of 42 returning from the two-deep, including standouts like Michael Clay, Dion Jordan and John Boyett. They’ll be three-touchdown favorites in every game through October, with one of the country’s most potent offenses and a defense that flies to the football.

But none of those advantages matter if they don’t take care of their business. Between now and September 1st, when they meet Arkansas State in Autzen Stadium, every Duck player has to remember, “You are the CEO of YOU.” And they must run their company well.