Nevada County Picayune and Gurdon Times Newspaper Archive

Five factors make a champion Braden tells athletes at banquet

Five factors are required to make a champion.

This is what the packed house at the McRae Middle School cafetorium was told at the annual Athletic Banquet, Tuesday, May 11. Marv Braden, a former National Football League coach, was the keynote speaker.

During his career, Braden coached 13 players voted to the Pro Bowl, assisted in coaching teams making the playoffs in seven different years, including three AFC Championship games, Super Bowl XXII and was a scout for Super Bowl XXXII.

The five ingredients for being a champion, he said, start with the knowledge that, if need be, a person can make the decisions and be completely alone. Others, he said, may say it's a foolish idea, or can't be done, but once a person makes up their mind and sets a goal for themself, they could wind up on their own.

The second ingredient is being willing to welcome healthy competition. Here, Braden talked about the Olympic games, saying each and every athlete competing is special and the best in their nation at their event. "If they weren't the best, they wouldn't be there," he said.

Third is being able and willing to think under pressure.

The fourth part is having a game plan.

Braden tied the third and fourth parts together saying when the plan doesn't work, a person must be able to adjust and think under pressure.

The final part is learning to live with pain  not injury. When a person is injured, he said, they need medical attention. Living with pain, though, is different. "You need to be able to perform when it hurts or you're not feeling good."

Braden used two examples of superior athletes who persevered and became champions. The first was Bruce Jenner, whom he first learned of when he was coaching at San Jose State in California.

When he went to the office early in the morning, he saw a young man stretching. Later in the morning he noticed the same young man running laps. Still later in the day, this same young man was working on the high jump, pole vault, shot put and discus.

Braden asked another coach who the "nut" was and was told it was Jenner, who was training to win the Decathlon  10 Olympic events in five days. Because of his dedication and work, Jenner won the Decathlon.

His second example was Jesse Owens, who spoke at an event Braden attended.

He pointed out Owens and another black teammate weren't allowed to stay in the athletic facilities with the other members of the Ohio State University track team when they competed against Michigan. Owens and the other man had to stay at a private home and take their meals there.

However, Owens won seven events in the meet, leading OSU to the title.

Owens also participated in the Olympic games prior to World War II. This was when Adolph Hitler was touting the superiority of the Aryan race.

All Owens did was win five gold medals for the United States and drive Hitler nuts with his performance.

Still, Braden said, Owens held no hate in his heart, but was a giving man.

"There are three words on every Olympic stadium, no matter if it's an old one or one just built," he said. "They are: higher, swifter, stronger."

Today's youth, he said, are bigger, stronger and faster than young people before, and records are meant to be broken.

"The military," he said, "has a term for those who are something special, like Olympic athletes. They're said to be a cut above', or have the right stuff'."

Pat Tillman was at the peak of his professional career, Braden said, when he chose to quit football, join the Army and go to Iraq where he was killed. Tillman turned down a $3.6 million contract to become a soldier.

However, he said, Tillman never considered himself a hero, but he had all the qualifications of a champion.

The NFL draft was recently completed, he said, and many will get the chance to play professional football. Others, though, will go home with nothing more than a cap and T-shirt because they don't have what it takes to perform at the NFL level.

Braden also spoke about the Fellowship of Christian Athletes, saying he would like to see a huddle at Prescott High School next fall. The FCA, he said, is protected by federal law as it is sponsored by a faculty member, but is student led.