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SOUTH BEND — As season-ending injuries have piled up and the stakes have risen for Notre Dame football, still alive in the College Football Playoff and set to face No. 2 Georgia on New Year’s Day, thoughts will drift back to late July and guest speaker Brian Johnson.
As fall training camp was set to open, coach Marcus Freeman and his third-edition Irish roster, the most talented in his brief tenure, sat in rapt attention as the group heard inspirational messages from the author of “Areté: Activate Your Heroic Potential.”
“They gave us the book, plus they gave us the app and T-shirts and everything,” sophomore cornerback Christian Gray recalled earlier this season. “Blew my mind. I’m like, ‘Wow, Bo knows what he’s talking about.’ “
Gray’s most heroic moment in a 12-1 season came on Thanksgiving weekend in Los Angeles. USC targeted Gray all afternoon until he finally rose up, made a goal-line interception and returned it 99 yards for a game-clinching touchdown.
That’s “Areté,” the life-skills concept adapted from the Stoic philosophers and loosely translated, according to Johnson’s website, as “virtue” or “excellence.”
With doorstop-level heft at a brisk 1,060 pages, the bestselling book includes some 451 motivational ideas distilled and updated for the modern world.
“Just thinking about that, I’m like, ‘Wow,’ “ Gray said. “If I have this, plus I have the faith and my relationship with God and Jesus, the sky is the limit.”
Wide receiver Beaux Collins, the Clemson graduate transfer who leads the Irish in receptions and receiving yardage, remembers Johnson’s visit well.
“He was kind of teaching us how to think the correct way, really,” Collins said. “It all starts with your mind and positivity. What I’ve gained from that is just go into every situation with an…
Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/marcus-freemans-embrace-self-improvement-090448037.html
Author : South Bend Tribune
Publish date : 2024-12-26 09:04:00
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