True Maroon

]My next to last W-2 job was with a company called Southern New England Telephone company located in Connecticut, affectionally known as SNET. I was hired as a sales manager and given a base salary of $70,000/yr back in 1997 and with commissions they excitedly told me I could earn as much as $90,000/yr. I was not that impressed but since my last employer tried to rip me off when it came to my commissions I was now just happy to be part of a "major" "respectable" company that I knew would play by the rules.

First day of work

I was one of two sales managers hired amongst a group of 30 or so sales personnel. It had been a while since I worked for a major corporation and the plethora of background checks, drug screens, reference checks, credit checks, FBI checks, psychological exams given, medical exam for health insurance, in addition to all the informal "checks" during casual conversation at luncheons like...."well...where do you live? Where did you go to school? Do you have children? And of course if you say yes, the next question is always...."so what does your wife do?"...thats to let you know that at THIS company, if you have kids YOU BETTER BE MARRIED....and again, this was in New England.

So, after all the anal probing and 4 hour meetings on how the benefits worked, 401k, political contributions, Red Cross contribution expectations, real estate agents you should call (so you can live where we want you to live) and on an on...we finally got to a session where we were introduced to something useful when it comes to selling. It was a concept called K.A.S.H.

Now, for those of you that have never heard of this acronym, it stands for Knowledge, Attitude, Skills, and Habits. Successful people are gifted in all of these areas, and the EXTREMELY successful people like Michael Jordan, Bill Gates, Bill Clinton, Mitt Romney, Oprah Winfrey, Shahid Khan and Bob Johnson..just to name a few super successful people...all have these attributes in certain quantities when it comes to the whole of who they are. To be successful, a certain percent of your success will come from how knowledgeable you are about your field, whether your field be selling truck tires, or coaching and/or knowing the x's and o's of football. Also, how successful you are also depends on your attitude about truck tires, your attitude towards your sales team and your customers or your attitude towards your players as a coach or your attitude as a player that affects other players. Another facet of your success will come from your skill level as a truck tire salesman or as a coach or player on a football team. As a salesperson, do you dress like your customers dress? Do you always listen to them thoroughly before interjecting your comments? Do you return all of your calls when you say you are going to return them? Do you send your customers and your sales force cards and gifts on their birthdays and anniversayrs? As a player or coach have your perfected your craft? Do you know how to affectively motivate your players such that they dont make mental mistakes? As a player do you know your coverages? Your technique? And lastly, your personsal habits. As a tire salesman do you get enough sleep so you are alert during the day? Do you drink too much? Do you smoke too much? Are you out of shape and sickly which can affect your moods and feelings? As a player do you study film? Do you do drugs? Do you worship God or do you worship girls? As a coach to you practice what you preach? Are you consistent? Are you fair? Do you lead by example?

Ok...I think I've educated everyone on the concept of KASH so let me get to my point. If you look at the recruiting classes of Alabama, Notre Dame, Florida State, Georgia, Texas, USC, Ohio State, Florida, and even Tennessee and Auburn, theres really not that much difference in their classes and not much difference in the caliber of those players going into those programs...but the difference is what happens to those players when they are IN those programs. All those programs are "good" and will have winning seasons 90% of the time and will be ranked 90% of the time ...just like a good truck tire salesman w/ill earn $250,000/yr-$400,000/yr and will buy a new Corvette, a 5000 sq ft home, a boat, and a BMW z-4 for his wife. An elite salesman will go on to open his own truck tire/truck parts shop and will buy the Jacksonville Jaguars like Shahid Khan. And an elite football program will probably win 3 national titles in 4 years or will be in the run for it...like Bama and LSU.

Whats makes the difference between the good and the elite? To be good you need to be just equally talented in your knowledge, attitude, skills, and habits, in other words if all these attributes added up to 100%, then 25% of your talent would be your knowledge base, 25% would be your attitude, 25% would be your skills, and 25% of your success would be your habits.

However to obtain ELITE status, 80% of your success is ATTITUDE, the other 3 cateragories adding up to 20%. And that is the intagible that we cannot put our finger on when it comes to playing these "elite" teams. We keep scratching our heads and asking ourselves..."how in the hell do they keep beating us EVERY SINGLE YEAR??" Yes, they have great athletes, but so do we. Yes, they have great coaches, but so do we. Yes, they have the home field advantage, but they keep beating us when we have home field advantage...we blame something different every year. Last year it was Chris Relfs fault and our Special Teams fault. This year most of us are blaming Dan Mullen, the Special Teams again, and Chris Wilson...those are all tangible targets...but those are not the real targets.

State keeps losing these games because those elite programs have the right ATTITUDE....and State simply does not...yet. The young kids call it Swagger....the older folks call it faith or belief...but it all boils down to ATTITUDE...those that KNOW they can....DO. Those that only THINK they can have very little chance against those that KNOW they can. And yes, recruiting is part of it...4 and 5 star kids grow up KNOWING THEY CAN WIN...and that attitude becomes contagious throughout the team. And when you combine that with a coaching staff and fan base that knows no different...you really have a juggernaut on your hand.

Saturday was humiliating. But knowing that most of what needs fixing is mental is either a gift or a curse, because its either easily fixed, or damn near impossible to fix....we will have that answer in a few more weeks. I for one think that our players have the attitude and confidence of a good team, but not that of an elite team just yet. That just doesnt happen overnight, or even over a 3 year period...but when our boys were still in that Bama game they did play with heart, confidence and attitude and moved the ball well against what some are saying is the best college football team EVER in this years Bama.....

So while we are not quite there yet....to quote a Dan Mullen cliche....."we're not far off!"