Community building insights from Jalen Hurts

Last month Jalen Hurts and the Philadelphia Eagles won Super Bowl LIX. While football is a different sport than running, it is only the Eagles 2nd Super Bowl (and I am an Eagles fan). So, at the risk of bragging, I wanted to highlight the Eagles Super Bowl win in this week’s newsletter.

To understand the most important player in the Eagles recent Super Bowl victory (Jalen Hurts), we must rewind back to January 2018. At the time, Jalen was winning the college football national championship with the Alabama Crimson Tide.

Although he won the championship, the national championship game did not go according to plan for Jalen. In front of 80,000 fans and 28 million more watching on TV, Jalen threw for only 21 yards in the 1st half. With his team losing 13-0 at half time, Jalen was benched. In the 2nd half, Jalen’s backup (a freshman QB from Hawaii) threw for 3 touchdowns while leading Alabama back to win the game 26-23.

Jalen stayed on the sidelines during the entire 2nd half. While on the sidelines, Jalen showed incredible composure, especially for a 19 year old. He cheered for his teammates and supported the team as they won the game, and the championship.

7 years later, Jalen not only won the Super Bowl with more than 125 million watching on TV. He was awarded the game’s most valuable player trophy.

While being an NFL quarterback is quite different than organizing races for our communities, Jalen’s track record of resilience, leadership and winning means that his wisdom is likely applicable to much more than winning football games.

So, with race season around the corner (more than 80% of running races in the USA take place from April to November), consider utilizing some of Jalen’s insights when organizing races that unite our communities (shoutout to The Daily Coach for highlighting these in a recent edition).

Insights into Jalen Hurts mindset:

• “Growing every day, attacking every day, trying to get better every day.”

• “10% of life is what happens to you. 90% is how you respond.” - Charles Swindoll

• “I had a purpose before everyone had an opinion” - Jalen Hurts

• “We have a standard for ourselves and it only rises.”

• “You either win or you learn.” - Nelson Mandela

• “Keep the main thing the main thing.”

-Ian

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