After the loss to East I went home and thought about what I wanted to say to you tonight. For those of you who have been to my house you know that there are a lot of stairs. My room is located on the Northeast side of the home and it takes a fair amount of stairs to get there.

From my bathroom there is a large window that looks out at the mountains surrounding Utah valley. Right next to this window there is a mother in law’s tounge, (how many of you know what that is?). It’s small house plant that Tasia has had for about 10 years. The plant has stayed alive the whole time but hasn’t grown much in height nor health. It’s about a foot high by 1 foot wide. It’s pretty much stayed the same and will always stay the same.

When I went to my mother in law’s house to feed her dogs while she was away I noticed a large, beautiful plant that filled a huge pot in the corner of her living room. Plant was probably about 3 feet high by 4 feet wide. I was amazed at the awesomeness (yep that’s a word, I looked it up - an unmeasurable amount of awesomenimity something can produce) of this plant and somehow it looked familiar. I asked my wife what kind of plant it was and she told me it was the same plant as we have in our house. The one in our upstairs bathroom.

The only difference between the two plants was the size of the pot. Some of you may already realize that the Uncle Rico pot of your current high school experience is too small for your potential, your future, life and success on my team. My goal this year was to develop strong enough roots for you players to get ready and be willing to be transplanted into the much bigger pot of life. If you don’t know who Uncle Rico from Napoleon Dynamite is, he’s a middle aged man who lives in a van at his mother’s house and dreams of past high school aspirations. 

"How much you wanna make a bet I can throw a football over them mountains?... Yeah... Coach woulda put me in fourth quarter, we would've been state champions. No doubt. No doubt in my mind. Ohhhh, man I wish I could go back in time. I'd take state."

I believe you all were meant for much greater things than a couple extra wins in soccer. I know I’ve stretched you guys both physically, psychologically, spiritually, socially and any other ly that can be stretched. I’m proud of you and look forward to staying in touch with you the rest of your lives. Though the pot may seem big, you will be amazed at the growth you will experience as a person if you give it your all in every aspect of this life.

Thanks for letting me be your coach.

Before our last regular season game I wanted to point out something about the potential of our team. Here are some of our accomplishments this year so far:

Been outshot only twice this year – Murray, Skyline 1^st time

Tied Pleasant Grove #5 team in 5A – PG beat the #3 team in 5A
Tied Copper Hills who lost golden goal to the #1 team in 5A
Beat Murray #5 team in state twice, 7-2 goal differential –  They beat #1 team in 4A, tied #2 team in 5A and beat undefeated in region play Taylorsville also 5A
Lost 2-1 a man down for 75 mintues to the #4 team in 4A
Lost 3-2 a man down 75 minutes of play
Leading the next ranked team in our region in goal scoring by 10 goals
Only 6 total goals less than top scoring team in region
One of 2 teams to score 2 goals on #4 team in the state, the only other team is the #1 team in the state
Won every overtime we’ve been in
Have players on both leaderboards (scoring, shutouts)
3.8 GPA varsity squad
Not one ineligible player
Not one sportsmanship card

Let's go out and show this state what we are capable of!

There are a couple terms for people that can see into the future - clairvoyant, fortune teller, psychic, prophet, seer, etc. and one scientist Professor Bierman, a psychologist at the University of Amsterdam has been studying this extra sensory perception for years. He has observed that horrible accidents with trains and planes usually occur when the trains and planes are unusually empty. When talking to the people that decided not to go on these trips they all experienced a "sick feeling" and for no reason other than this feeling decided to take a different route. I had this feeling right when the game started when I put a certain player in the game instead of another. I ignored the feeling and played him anyway. About 5 minutes into the game I found out why I had had that feeling and wanted to spray myself in the face with a fire hose. Then, you'd think I would have learned, I was riding my bike home and had the same feeling to go to my grandparent's house, but ignored it because I needed to get back to my family. Turns out my family was at this grandparent's house. I am not claiming I can see the future, but I do believe we are given insight into our lives by powers beyond us. I have seen and felt these promptings countless times in my life. When I follow them, seems like things work out a lot better, when I don't, well I have a couple emergency room visits and huge regrets from not listening.

Some of you may know what the idiom "to eat crow"  From Wikipedia - "eating crow" is an American colloquial idiom, meaning humiliation by admitting wrongness or having been proved wrong after taking a strong position. Crow is presumably foul-tasting in the same way that being proved wrong might be emotionally hard to swallow. In other words I'm sorry for not playing the player I felt I should have played. Would we have won? I don't know, but in any case sometimes in life you make the wrong decision and since I'm on an idiom kick, hindsight is always 20/20.
We outplayed, outshot, out-passed and almost beat Orem down 2 goals and down a man. That's a pretty respectable accomplishment. I still think it was the wrong call with the red card but as I said after the game, we could have still won.  

I’m proud of all of your efforts.

Player of the Game: Ammon Nimmer – he won so many headers, backed up his defense and communicated well. Also on a much more important note – I found out he’s been shoveling my grandparent’s driveway in the wintertime. My aunt was at the game and recognized his dad and told me the whole story. What a great family. This was one of those moments that made me proud to be able to serve.

Goals: Griffin Bodine, Griffin Bodine
Assists: Ben Jenson, Ben Jenson

I think the Olympics would be the most difficult sporting event of any sporting event on earth. These athletes spend hour upon hour, year upon year to compete in an event that lasts in some cases less than 1 minute. Any error in the skeleton, for example, will cost you a medal. The difference between the gold medalist and the last place individual in the 2014 Sochi Olympics was barely 1 second. Could you imagine, 1 second quicker and you would be a gold medalist. What proper and correct training for these athelete does is gives them an opportunity to perform up to their potential for the length of their event. They prepare physically, psychologically and in some cases spiritually for their one chance of being the best in the world. Their training increases their ability for them to perform to their maximum potential.

I have been waiting all year for the game where I believed all of our hard work would show our potential as a team on the field. Murray was this game. I saw our one touch passing disassemble their midfielders, I saw our fitness frustrate their forwards, I saw midfielders finish from outside the box, I heard us talk, move, pass and sprint back to our positions. Had we not done early mornings and so much training, we would not have been capable to perform at this level. Murray and just recently Alta are the only two teams in the state that have played Bingham (Ranked #2 in state 5A) and not lost. Murray was ranked in the top 5 4A teams in the state even after we beat them the first time. They are a great team and we made it look easy.

Great job guys, now let's show Orem

Player(s) of the game: Seniors you really stepped up and I couldn't be more proud. You guys were the difference.

Goals: Dallin Delgado, Parker Richards, Ben Jenson, Preston Chapman (inside joke)
Assists: Ryan Steggel, Nathan Conrad

2 mistakes, game over. We've lost twice this year to teams that we are better than on mistakes - Orem and Springville. Orem is definitely not the better team in this match and the score isn't indicative of how the game went. However, the beauty and controversy of soccer is that many times a game can be won or lost on a single play. Possession helps win games, but in and of itself it doesn't. Another Mel Gibson movie (not a huge fan of his acting but he does star in a couple great one) illustrates the point I would like to make about leadership. In the edited version of this movie the troops are falling back into a retreat because they are getting badly beat at first, but Benjamin grabs the American Flag and yells "hold the line, hold the line!" The retreating troops turn around and push forward to win the battle. I was hoping someone would've stepped up and said "This is our game, this is our home, we win this game." It takes a lot of maturity and confidence to believe that you can be the difference in a game like this. I think we've realized this and will from here on out step up to the challenge. Who is going to hold the line and who is going to be the one who sacrifices a little comfort to step up when it counts?

Player of the Game: Dallin Delgado - when he got in he gave it his all - the pass through to the halfbacks was stopped because of his marking.

Rumor has it that a 2-0 lead at halftime is the most dangerous lead in soccer. Well, we realized that about 45 seconds into the second half and even more so 10 minutes later. The overtime buildup to a goal is how we should play all season, Caden to T, T to Ben, Ben to Aaron, back to Ben, to Griff.....ryan to ben to ryan, shot, rebound T to Nate to Griff - Goal!!!!!!!!!! The system works.

Player of the Game: Caiden Brown - if you watch the game film you'll know why.

Stats:

Goals - Griffin, Ryan, Griffin
Assists - Ryan, Dallin, Nate

The last 10 minutes of the Olympus game showed how capable of a team we are when we really want it. We can beat anybody if we keep our heads and play our hearts out for the entire 80 minutes. No special insights to this game since we all know that getting off to a good start at anything greatly increases the chances that it will be successful.

Player of the Game: Ryan Steggel, hustled the whole game, never gave up, scored a goal.