Just Keep on Working Your Dream

One of the greatest quarterbacks in the history of this venerable sport was Johnny Unitas. He epitomized the adage that with ordinary talent and extraordinary perseverance, all things are attainable. In fact, as he himself put it, “If you want something badly enough, and I mean badly enough, chances are that you’ll wind up getting it.”

Another less persistent man might have decided that he wasn’t cut out to play football and quit the game. Not Johnny Unitas. Instead, he knew what he wanted to do and he went after it – tenaciously.

His first setback was when the coaches at Notre Dame told Unitas that, at six feet and 145 pounds, he was too small to play college football. His second occurred when he failed the entrance exam when he was offered a scholarship at Pitt.

After finally getting a chance to play at the University of Louisville, Unitas became an outstanding college football quarterback. But when he tried to break into the pro game with the Pittsburgh Steelers, he was cut from the team.

“I was disappointed, but not discouraged. I had enough of a taste of the big game to know I could play if I had the chance, no matter what anyone else thought,” Unitas said.

He called the Cleveland Browns, but Coach Paul Brown told him no, he wasn’t looking for a quarterback.

Unitas kept his dream alive by playing semi-pro football in Pittsburgh for six dollars a game. He also worked as a pile-driver on a construction gang just to keep himself fed and clothed.

“I’d get to the park about nine in the morning, do calisthenics, run four or five laps and then practice throwing to some high school kids if they were around,’ he recalled. “If I was by myself, I’d hang an old tire between the light standards and throw at it. I’d begin at 10 yards and then gradually move back to 30. I’d throw on the run, while moving back after imaginary fakes…”

The work paid off the following season when Unitas tried out with the Baltimore Colts. This time he made the team and the National Football League. He started slowly, but soon rose to become one of the greatest quarterbacks in the history of the NFL.

“Folks are often kind enough to compliment me for sticking with football in the face of a lot of discouragement. They say it was quite a feat to come up from the sandlots at six dollars a game to all-pro quarterback with the champion Colts in just three years. But there is no chance that such praise will make me over satisfied.

All I have to do is compare my lot with my mother’s after my father died and left her with four children, the oldest only ten. She kept my father’s little coal truck business going for a while. She also worked from nine to one at night, scrubbing floors in office buildings. She was always improving her jobs to make things better for us. She left the scrubwoman’s job to work in a bakery, and then she sold insurance. At night, she went to school and studied bookkeeping and got the highest mark on the civil service exam. She has been a bookkeeper for the City of Pittsburgh ever since. She never got discouraged, and she taught us to think the same way. She taught me more about football by example of what it takes to get ahead than any of my coaches, and I’ve played for some good ones.”

It’s been said that life is a grindstone, and whether it grinds you down or polishes you up depends upon what you’re made of. Success on the field or in life is a matter not so much of talent as of concentration and perseverance. That’s what Johnny’s mother preached and, as we all know, Mommas are always right!