The Making of A Champion

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The message on my voicemail this morning had a familiar voice, yet I knew I had never met the person before, Jim Tressel, the current Head Football Coach of the Ohio State Buckeyes. The message said:

“Hi Mitch, this is Coach Tressel, from The Ohio State, would you kindly return my call sometime today or tomorrow preferably between XX AM and YY PM. My private phone number is XXX-YYY-ZZZZ, Looking forward to speaking with you. Thank you.”

Now, I am not a graduate of The Ohio State, nor do I know why this message was left for me. If it were not for the fact it was clearly his voice, my assumption would be this was a prank call. Not knowing why this call was placed to me, I returned the call and found out.

For those who do not know, Jim Tressel has run one of the most successful Division 1 Football programs in the country for many years. His program has produced a number of NFL players. Read more here on Jim Tressel http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Tressel.

This is why sports fans were pretty shocked to learn about recent developments, where a few issues are going on with some major, star, Division 1 athletes who are starters for The Ohio State Buckeyes’ Football team. Read more here on The Ohio State sports  http://www.ohiostatebuckeyes.com/SportSelect. They must each sit out a number of games this upcoming Fall Season. In addition, the Head Coach must sit out a number of games as well. Basically all you need to know as the details would take quite a long time to cover. All of the details and more are readily available at www.espn.com.

Most people wonder what type of learning or lessons would be provided by the NCAA, The Ohio State or anyone in the football program to reset the mindset of these star athletes and their Head Coach.

On the phone, he was not really specific, however, clearly someone who knew Jim Tressel, had a daughter at The Ohio State currently as a student. While conducting research online for a course on business networking, apparently she came across my blogs on the subject throughout the month of March. During her research, she read where I work with Senior Executives, Competitive Athletes and others on what matters most to them in life among other highly productive and life enhancing topics. It seems she may have been discussing this topic online with her family and this is how Jim Tressel, supposedly, heard about me.

One thing I am not going to do is to jeopardize our potential business relationship. What I will say is this, my workshops on Effective Personal Leadership and The Making of A Champion are perfectly suited for instilling the right thinking and behaviors necessary for success in business and in life for participants. There is really not much more I should say about what we may be working on, where and for how long. The facts are, if we work together, the Head Coach and the players, we will make great strides in the lives of these young men and everyone else who takes part in the workshop.

See the weekly ezine, no joke, each of my newsletter subscribers read this last Tuesday, free, no joke, here:  www.thementorguy.com/ezine/March29-2011.html

*This is a fictional story just for fun…Happy April Fool’s Day!*