On Wednesday, June 18th Tim Russert was laid to rest. A lot of significant things happened at his memorial service. A lot of great words were spoken, people expressing their feelings, telling stories, and having a really grand Irish funeral. But the most impressive part of the funeral to me was Tim’s 22 year old son, Luke Russert, who gave the eulogy. His uniqueness showed up before the eulogy was even given when Luke Russert asked the presidential candidates, Barack Obama and John McCain, to sit side by side in a show of unity as they move towards the presidential election in November. I thought that was more than symbolic, because I think we have the chance this year to show the heartfelt feelings and greatness of our country, which should not be steeped in hatred just because one is liberal or one is conservative, one is Democrat or one is Republican. We’ve had far too much of that.

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I played football in the National Football League for 18 years, four years of football at the University of Georgia and four years of football at Athens High School. I had a couple of coaches in high school – Waymon Sellers and Billy Henderson. They were instrumental in my understanding of life, as well as developing as a football player.

They worked us hard. They made us practice the fundamentals over and over again. Those were important, but they were not nearly as important as this lesson: They instilled in me that in playing the team sport of football – it wasn’t about me. It wasn’t about my accomplishments or how many passes I could complete or how many runs I could make. It was about my teammates. My mission was supposed to be about my teammates. My job in a team sport was to make my teammates better. If I had that understanding and that attitude, and my teammates had that attitude, we had a much better chance of winning. My mission then, not only in high school and college and pro football was just that – it wasn’t about selfish ME. My focus and my mission had to be about making my teammates better, and if I made my teammates better, then our team had a much better chance to win.

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