A great Jerry Rice story. Oh yeah, and Golf.

So about 7 years ago I'm in San Fransisco at a trade show with a good friend and he knew Jerry Rice the NFL Hall Of Famer from the San Fransisco 49s….We ran into Jerry and talked and when he left my friend asked me a trick question…he said "In the NFL what was Jerry MOST famous for?"  I of course answered "stats…games played..touchdowns..Super Bowl rings...etc etc?  

Nope. 

He said that is what he was known for outside the NFL…..what he was known for inside the NFL is this story…..

"On the first day of practice of his rookie season the wide receivers coach set up a basic drill on about the 20 yard line.  The idea was a quarterback drops and throws a simple pass to a wideout….who returns the ball and gets back in line and the drill continues.  Jerry catches his first pass......and then runs all the way, 80 yards, through all the other drills and cheerleaders and all the noise to score a touchdown.  Then runs back.  The coach blows his lid and grabs his face mask and yells at him "#$%^!!!! The heck you doing son????!"  And Jerry replies……

"I intend to be the best wide receiver in the history of the game sir, and in my mind every time I catch a ball I want to score a touchdown….so that’s what I did sir…"

The coach told him not to do that again and the next catch…..touchdown.  Every play.

The story is he did that every catch of every practice his entire career and they eventually had to design practices to allow for it without Jerry running through the other drills.  So who has the record for all time touchdowns in NFL?  Jerry flipping Rice at 208.

So how do I see this relating to golf?  Today I was talking with a player of mine, and we were finding the chunks of straight putts that are on all greens.  She was super excited about how much lower she would score but expressed concerns with how to do this at "practice with the other players". Etc etc.  We talked about playing from the tips of every course she ever plays unless it's a tournament.....we talked about the practice before a qualifying round......asking the coach if she could leave so she could go learn the greens at the course to be played the next day.   She said "there is no way I can do that compared to the way things normally go- what do I do?"

I said "Be Jerry Rice …..be like Jerry Rice."