It’s football season and the debate about who will win the National Championship is in full swing. The debate is so passionate and polarizing you would surely think we would remember the big time winners from the past. After a quick test of your recall of a few big time moments, you'll see the big time in a whole new light.
Who won the last five National Championships in college football?
Who did the eventual champion beat?
Who were the last five Heisman Trophy winners?
Who finished second in the voting?
If football is not your passion, how about movies?
Which movies won the last five Academy Awards for best picture?
Football or celebrity watching not important to you? How about something more global?
Name five Nobel Prize winners from the last five years.
Do you work for a big company?
Name the last three CEOs of your company.
How did you do? Ask a few friends and you are likely to find they too had some gaps in their recollection. Even in winning coveted awards, trophies, and championships their importance and significance quickly fades away.
Here is a more important question.
Name five mentors or coaches who have positively influenced and shaped your life?
“The real measure of me is not what I can do in comparison to others but what I can do in comparison to my own best self.”
-Frosty Westering
Ask people to name the top ten winningest coaches in college football history and it is unlikely Frosty Westering’s name will be mentioned. Say Frosty and you are much more likely to think of the snowman or the desert from Wendy’s.
Frosty’s 305 wins make him the tenth winningest coach in college football history. In addition to being a hall-of-fame coach whose teams won five national championships - Frosty was a mentor of the potential he saw in everyone he met.
Ask young men and women who encountered Frosty during their time at Pacific Lutheran University and it is almost certain he would be identified as one of the five most influential people in their lives.
“The big time is not a place; it’s the state of your heart. It’s not something you get; it’s something you become.”
-Frosty Westering
How did Frosty have such great success and impact working from what most would see as a small platform. Frosty had plenty of opportunities to use his success as a springboard to larger and more prominent head coaching positions. Frosty said,
“You don’t do your best and then become content. You are content and then do your best.”
Whatever platform you have today, its the big time. Wherever you find yourself at this moment, it is the big time! Whatever stage of life you are in at this moment, it is the big time! What are you going to do in comparison to your own best? Whatever you do today, make an impact worth remembering.
Were you able to answer a few of the questions or did they stump you?
Leave a comment and tell us who used a small platform to make a big time impression in your life.