Visualize Victory…

The truly great see victory before the game begins

Given all the changes that have occurred recently it may seem like it happened forever ago, but in reality only two years have passed since this scene played out at the NBA finals.

As his 7-foot-1, 325-pound frame would suggest, Shaquille O’Neal is as dominant a player as the NBA has ever seen.
In 2006, four years after O’Neal had won his third NBA Title with the Los Angeles Lakers, Shaq was playing for another championship – this time with the Miami Heat, who had acquired him in a trade two years before. But Shaq “Diesel” was no longer the talk of the NBA. O’Neal’s new team was heavily overshadowed by the up and coming Dallas Mavericks and their 7-foot superstar Dirk Nowitzki. In fact, in a best of seven series most didn’t think the Heat were capable of winning a single game.

What off-season…

The truly great are always working towards the next game… The goal is what’s ahead, and there’s always something ahead.

Tennessee’s Pat Summitt is no stranger to hard work. In fact, it’s the only kind of work the legendary head coach has known over her 34-year career. Growing up on a farm with three older brothers and a father who didn’t take no for an answer, Summitt didn’t really have much of a choice. After all, as she was told, “Cows never take a day off.”

But it was her mother, who Summitt says worked harder than any of the men in the family, that taught her hard work isn’t always good enough. To be the best, she would have to out-work the rest.