Rt @DeanKarnazes: Life isn't about how u survived the storm? it's about how u danced in the rain. Make 2011 ur best year ever!

RT @AncientProverbs: A man grows most tired while standing still. -Chinese Proverbs

RT @IamKevinBracy: Until U attempt 2do something beyond that which U've already mastered, U will never GROW.~George Bernard Shaw | Grow Daily or Die Gradually.

Sports_Greats: RT @Oprah_World: Surround yourself with only people who are going to lift you higher. -Oprah | "and broken humanity..." -JHARP

RT Sports_Greats: Excellence is not a singular act but a habit. You are what you do repeatedly. -Shaquille O'Neal

RT Sports_Greats: You don't win once in a while, you don't do things right once in a while, you do them right all the time. Winning is habit. -Vince Lombardi

Sports_Greats: If you are determined enough & willing to pay the price, you can get it done. -Mike Ditka

Congrats to Character Combine Co-Chair & Del Oro Head Football Coach Casey Taylor as the Sac Bee Coach of the Year!

RT @Sports_Greats: "It's not the load that breaks you down, it's the way you carry it." -Lou Holtz | Perspective is everything...I think.

Texas Football Championship Decided on Trick Play

Texas Football is alive. The 5A State Championship Game came down to a trick play.
Ouch, to lose on the that...

Take a minute and watch the play here.



Enjoy the Winter Break. But in the mean time, put Character Combine on the April calendar.

April 30, 2011
Vista Del Lago HS
9-3 PM

Registration opens February 1.

Sports_Greats: The strength of the group is the strength of the leaders. -Vince Lombardi

De La Salle is making it look easy. Up 27-0 after another Houston TD run. Nor Cal up 3 out of 4 Games. Could 4 of 5 Bowl Games go to Nor Cal?

A Coach Tripping A Player...Are You Kidding Me? NO!

I am stunned to see a NFL Coach intentionally trip an opposing player running down the sideline. It reminds me of the coach in the 70's, Bear Bryant deck a player running down a side line.

Regardless, this is insanity.

Sad,

JAS

each other,wounded pride, at USC-UCLA. Here at Sac State for DOro-Oakdale?All cozy, if wet, and good manners #beepreps

DO Wins 28-9. For DO, that will be 28 games in 2 years. Since 2-4, Casey leads them on a 7 game run to Title Game @ Sac State!

Del Oro holds Patt on a 4th & 5 on the 6. DO takes over on 6

2:50 left. DO 28-9. Patt driving. 1&10 @ DO 13

Folsom leads Buhach 42-20; Grant up on St. Mary's 17-8; MTrail up GBay 22-17, though GB driving #beepreps

Patterson scores on 1yd QB keeper. 28-9. DO blocks pat

Grant leads StM 17-8 after 3; Folsom leads Buhach 34-14; GBay leads MT 23-14; PGrove leads Lodi 55-23 (PG's Mark Jenkins 309, 5 TD)

Beginning 4th. DO 28-3.

Beginning of 3rd. DO Received and R on the move. DO 28-3

Mark Jenkins has 230 yards,4 TDs and PG leads Lodi 34-17 at half;Shaq Thompson and Ference Lange both out for Grant

#21 Andri intercepts. 2nd play from scrimmage #5 (soph-jv) runs 74 yd TD. DO 28-3

Big Moe just sat down on DO sideline. #10 Bertrando just picked it on 10yd line and ran it back. DO 21-3

DO punts, patterson fumbles it on 7. 1st play Andri#21 punches it in. DO 14-3

sb_joedavidson: Stunner early at Grant: St. Mary's uses trick play TD pass to QB Walding for 8-0 lead in 2nd. Also a safety. #beepreps

Above the Snub

National cameras are rolling. Thousands of fans are looking on. You know this. The opposing coach offers a hand shake. You refuse. What happens?

Regardless of what the turmoil is at the moment, sportsmanship includes a handshake to the offered and extended hand.

HERE IS THE INSANITY

Character Combine coaches and players...please live above the snub.

JAS

The Ride Premiers on MTV

The Ride is a new program on MTV2 that premiers Saturday. The Ride is shot in the venue called Football University. Eight HS QB's seek a shot at starting in the US ARMY HS BOWL.

CLICK HERE TO READ THE RIDE PROFILE

I love that our many of our area QB's would have dominated the competition.

Give em Jimmy!

Give em Dano!

Sacramento represent!

"Fess Up or Fail"

Busted is not even a strong enough word. Two-hundred students at the University of Central Florida were caught cheating. The 1/3 ratio stunned the professor who has each student's testing digital thumbprint has come up with a solution: Fess Up or Fail.



One student's opinion of "you'd be hard pressed to find someone in this testing lab who hasn't cheated. Everyone cheats."

Mull it over. Check with yourself. Ask your players. Play the story for them and get their feedback. Then ask them questions to lead them to greater understanding.

jas

Georigia D Coordinator shouts “You’re gonna [bleepin'] choke!”

Georgia D Coordinator shouts “You’re gonna [bleepin'] choke!” while grabbing his throat to opposing team's kicker as he lines up for a field goal.
“I’m aware of it and I’ll just say that emotions run high and people do things that they probably wish they didn’t do,” Head Coach Richt says.


Coaches, let's coach to encourage and inspire. Think twice when you may want to curse out that ref or even opposing team. Be examples to those you are leading!

Check out full story here. http://tiny.cc/ex2ci

Creativity Changes Everything

Sometimes the mind creates parameters. Self imposed rules of what "must be" based on what has always "been." Teams think because its always been done a certain way, it must be against the rules to mix it up.

A friend of mine is an incredible coach in Louisiana. He once said to me "the rules define the time of the game and the dimensions of the field. Everything else is up to me."

Granted there is movement, procedure and a few other items that make the playing field level, but creativity can change the score.

Take this video for instance:



Mark your calendars...Sacramento's Character Combine is April 30! Registration begins February 1.

Peace.

JAS

CIF HS FOOTBALL BRACKETS POSTED

The CIF HS Football Playoff Brackets are up.

CLICK HERE

Lets do this.

JAS

The Hardest On the Planet

It is known as the hardest on the planet. Badwater.

135 Miles.

135 Degree Heat.

Many have asked how we faired running, pacing, and crewing the last of 3 races in Ray Sanchez' pursuit of the elusive Badwater World Cup.

This video shows a level of pain, endurance, and tenacity that words can't describe.



Moving forward, don't lose site that in addition to these three races, in between, he raced an unheard of 20 other races. An insane year for Ray. An insane year for Be Change.

Today, look to your horizon. Look for the audacious. Then go for it.

Jharp

Small Man Makes Big Impact

The NFL is notorious for monster sized players. Often its thought,"if they are bigger, then they are better."

Its not the case here.

Only listed at 5'7" and 150 means he is probably 5'6" and 145. Again, bigger?

Let him run.

Coaches. Think inclusion. Think of the players that are waiting to hear that they too have the potential to be great...through you.


Much hope.

You Quit On a Play? GET FIRED!

Randy Moss is drama. He quits on a play and the Vikes said, "where done."

Good riddance.

Go be a slacker on someone else's millions.

Here is the whole story from yahoo sports.

Pass it on to all the prep stars who think hustle doesn't matter.

Camo'd Competition

The Army unveiled their new uniforms as they make a push towards a bowl bid.

Donned in complete a 'complete camo' set-up. Hoping it would, and it did, help propel them to a 29-7 win over Virginia Military Institute. Now at a 5-3, they are one win from securing an automatic birth i n the Armed Forces Bowl. This season may be their best showing since 1996.

For Character Combine, we support the men and women of the armed forces. Recently, Character Combine solidified a strong partnership with Battle at the Capital weekend football showcase. The Battle at the Capital is a 6-game series over the 2-days of Labor Day Weekend, 2011. The Battle at the Capital pits top teams on a performance platform of high value exposure for some of the West Coast's top football players.

Over the course of 2-days, thousands of fans pack into see a complete 'bowl-game' experience at the beginning of the season. Sports vendors, all branches of the Armed Forces, a cheerleader showcase, and Character Awards are just a small portion of the weekend's festivities.

As the premier football showcase event on tne West Coast, BAC brings awareness to the service and sacrifice of our soldiers, top-notch football, and raises significant funds for the Wounded Warriors Project. The Wounded Warrior Project assures that soldiers upon their return are cared for physically, emotionally, and where needed financially.






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And the Hit Goes Boom: Hitter or Hittee

So much talk these days about to many hard hits in football. No one is excusing helmet to helmet or flagrant hits. However, to just say theat players are hitting to hard is going to be hard to regulate.

How can a guy coming through the line regulate inertia. Coming through the line, it is impossible to expect players to regulate pop.

Sometimes your the hitter.

Ray Lewis


Sometimes your the hittee.

Ray Lewis


Go hard.

jas

Legs of Steel. Heart of Gold

Crazy how something can move you. My friend Chris T and I share a similar passion. We both love endurance sports. Yet in our journey's we have also discovered that we are both moved by incredible moments within the sports community where adversity and tenacity create a "feel good" moment that redeems perspective.

Before your big game today. Before a review of X & O's occurs, let this story from Colorado rile your purpose and stir the champion in you.

Buckle up.

CLICK HERE: LEGS OF STEEL. HEART OF GOLD

Much hope.

JHARP

John Daly Plays Better Drunk...?

As if he has credibility to give insights to what makes him play better. Sadly this article from yahoo.com tells the whole story.

"I've done everything right and haven't played worth a" darn, Daly said. "It's unbelievable. I'm giving myself the chance to play good. It seems the more I work, the worse I get."

Daly was asked what he's learned about himself through the years.

"That I was happy when I was a miserable drunk. I played better when I was drunk," he said.

Daly paused, smiled half a smile and gently shook his head.

"I don't know," he said.

It might sound crazy, but it makes a little bit of sense when you think about it. When Daly was really hitting the bottle hard, he won two majors and two other PGA Tour events during that time. He was a golfer known for his long driving, but he had incredible touch around the greens.

While alcohol was most likely the reason his life spun out of control towards the end of the '90s, it sure seemed to work for a short period of time. Now, as Daly said, he is doing "everything right" and can't seem to find any success on the golf course. Daly hasn't had a top-10 finish on tour in four years, and hasn't won since 2004, when he got up and down from a bunker to win a playoff at the Buick Invitational.

He still is a guy that golfers will follow because we as humans can relate to the guy.

WHOLE ARTICLE

Winning, Losing and the Scoreboard

Oklahoma Coach Bob Stoops through in the towel with 2 mins to go against Mizzou. Down by 9, and rather than risk giving up another 7, he punted on 4 & 10. Essentially, that punt was equal to saying, "we give up." Or is it.

For Stoops, he made a rare admission that the polls and ranking system played into his decision. Losing by 9 is better than losing by 16 and he realized 2 scores was impossible given the remaining time.

TWO QUESTIONS:
1) What would you have done in your respective sport? Give in or go for it?

2) Was it a breach of character to essentially give up?

What's you opinion.

Think about it.

CLICK HERE FOR THE WHOLE STORY

Dwarfed Dreams?

Sometimes dreams get dwarfed. Sometimes they seem impossible. But what happens when people look beyond the "why will he? or "how can he?" and choose to dream.

These guys did.



Today, what dream is dormant? What dream is destiny unleashed?

Dream.

JAS

Another Coach Does the Right Thing

Pittsburgh Panthers coach Jamie Dixon did what some other drivers did not do on a busy stretch of interstate on Saturday night -- he pulled over to help trapped passengers in a car that had turned over against a guard rail.


The vehicle had flipped over while going on I-279 North near the McKnight Road exit in Pittsburgh and was on its side when Dixon, who was driving on the same highway, pulled over to help.

Read the full story! Click Here.

Punished for Pink

What in the world? Is there NO DISCERNMENT within leading ranks of referee officials? How in the world could these refs be punished for doing the right thing?

On behalf of the Susan B Komen Foundation, HS Refs used pink whistles. Now they may be suspended and lose pay. The Washington Officials Associations said they broke the rules...



Come on people...get a clue.

WOW!
Valley Christian (Cerritos) wins in five overtimes: Game features 134 points and more than 1,200 yards; http://bit.ly/dra5qa

To those teams that won- Great job. For those who came up short, let adversity and tenacity drive you. The best is yet to come!

CONGRATS

Character Combine representing and Del Oro vs Granite Bay. Other games to watch Pleasant Grove vs Oak Ridge HS. After 1Q- no score.

The Cost Just Went Up

Looking at Tiger's high profile marriage meltdown, I wonder if he ever new it would cost this much?

According to Radar Online, Elin Nordegren, formerly Elin Woods, is going to get a pretty nice lump of cash out of this whole "Escalade-waitresses-porn star" debacle that happened to the top golfer in the land nearly a year ago. Radar is saying that Elin will get $110 million from Tiger when the papers are signed, a sum that has been tossed around ever since news hit that the two would be splitting."

Some times the cover up, cost more than the crime.

PLAYERS FINED players fined total of $175,000 after weekend of violent hits http://on.cnn.com/a41v6Q

3 #NFL players fined total of $175,000 after weekend of violent hits http://on.cnn.com/a41v6Q

Now posting Blogs Blurbs from the Blackberry!

Razzle Dazzle

Part of the fun of every season is seeing the great plays that are collected from around the country.

The old razzle dazzle....

A fun 30 second look at a great play...



Got to love it.

Have a great day.

JHARP


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Amidst a Season

Coaches and Combiners' |

Hopefully your Fall Season is unfolding well. There is so many great things happening in the lockerrooms across this city. Because of coaches like you, student-athletes are playing with increased integrity and character.

Here are a few highlights

* Many coaches have reported that the overall actions of their players are revolving around character. Sportsmanship and competition have increased across our city with fewer player or coach ejections, on-field fights, and high-lighted by post-game cohesion and cooperation.

* Character Combine will travel to Hawaii for an Island Invasion of Integity and Character, 2011

* Character Combine will be hosted in Los Angeles in the Spring. Al Adamsen and his team from So. Cal will produce a high octane event for coaches and captains!

* Travis Cole joined the Character Combine staff to develope a Player's Platform where top athletes of character are highlighted and propelled to the next level.

* Character Combine launched its twitter page : Follow us @ www.twitter.com/sportscharacter

NEXT COMBINE:

Saturday, April 30, 2011
Vista Del Lago High School

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Character Combine 2011