On the TUNNEYSIDE of SPORTS, February 8, 2016 #579 Up Next…” Reaching for the Stars”
After further review…Brian Holloway, a former offensive tackle for the New England Patriots who played eight years wearing number 76, is a masterful professional speaker. He tells this incident that followed the 1985 AFC championship game, when the Patriots defeated the Cincinnati Bengals 34-23. Following that game, Holloway told me this story:
“As I left the locker room and walked upstairs past a group of special guests and family members, a woman reached out to me from behind the security ropes. She seemed excited, and calmly but enthusiastically asked for an autograph for her two boys. As I looked at her I recognized that she was Christa McAuliffe, the woman astronaut who, as America’s Teacher-in-Space was about to head into space on the Challenger!
“‘Absolutely,’ I said. She smiled brightly and, then without hesitation, I grabbed a piece of paper and said, ‘Would you be so kind as to give me your autograph?’ I knew what we had done as a Patriots team was a triumphant moment. We were making a run for the Super Bowl (XX), yet the accomplishment that eclipsed in my mind by a schoolteacher with a million-dollar smile and the courage, commitment and driving passion to inspire schoolchildren, teachers, national leaders, all of America, and most of the world by living her dream.
“A few weeks later I was in Hawaii for the Pro Bowl. On Tuesday morning, January 28, 1986, I was in my hotel room watching the run-up to the Challenger liftoff and remembering Christa McAuliffe’s easy friendliness, and marveling at her grit. Then liftoff came and, ‘Oh, my God, NO!’ as plumes of white smoke appeared. 73 seconds into the flight, tragedy struck as the Challenger blew up!
“I sat on my bed, head in my hands, and cried. I opened my briefcase, pulled out the piece of paper she had signed, taped it to my mirror and left the room. As I walked down the beach thinking of her smile and courage. I tried to make sense of it all. I walked for hours. When I stopped, I didn’t know where I was, but looked across the Pacific Ocean and repeated the words she had written to me: ‘To Brian, Reach for the Stars, I’ll be there.’”
Will you remember your priorities and “reach for the stars?”
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