This past week my football team started our off-season weight lifting schedule to get us ready for spring ball and next season. Right now, we are divided into two groups. The heavier guys are comprised of the lineman and linebackers, which is the group I am, while the more skilled positions are grouped together. Along with traditional lifting Monday through Thursday, which is our workouts such as bench, squats, etc., we run twice a week in order to improve our speed. Just this morning when we were running, our final run was to push a board along the turf in a relay style. The ground had frozen over the night before so as we pushed our board along, all the ice began to accumulate on the board and froze our hands. Sadly, my relay team got last since I had most of the lineman on my team. I really like this program because it sets a time for me to dedicate to football in the mornings and it wakes me up before my classes.
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| Cold Morning here in Portland! |
Also last week, our head coach invited an old friend of his to speak with my team on Thursday. The old friend turned out to be Charlie Denson, the former president of Nike. It was an amazing experience to listen to him talk about his past work in the company. He talked to us about some of the really cool athletes he has worked with such as Kobe and Tiger Woods. The biggest thing I took away from his talk was to just find what you love and pursue it. Our whole team was really grateful that he came out to talk to us about life after football.
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| Charlie Denson speaking to us. |
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| Group picture at the end of the talk. |
Along with these things, the rest of the week was consumed by classes. Even though it was only the first week of full classes and labs, it already feels as if I’ve been here for a month. Maybe it’s just because it is so normal to be back here on campus. Hopefully this next weekend I will be able to get away to go snowboarding at Mt. Hood. It’s been snowing up on the mountain, while the weather down here on campus has been very bipolar. One minute the sun was out shining and then the next it was pouring rain, but that’s Portland weather for you. I hope everyone is having a good week, stay tuned for next week.
-Remington