Hello from Indiana (no this is not a joke)

HELLLERRR MY FAVORITE LAXERS!!

I am currently sitting in my grandparent’s house in good ol’ Fort Wayne, Indiana (shout out to my girl Kenz!) and attempting to write this blog on what I can only assume is dial-up Internet.  Besides that I’ve just been hanging out with the family here.  The highlight has probably been watching “Dumb and Dumber” with my grandfather.  I really forgot just how dumb (only fitting) that movie is, but hearing my grandfather mumble under his breath about “real actors like Cary Grant” and the “stupidity of this generations movies and music,” made it worth watching again. Btw  you should hear him go off on rap music and the dancing nowadays.  Hearing him talk about “grinding” = priceless ;) On a side note, check out their gingerbread house!!

Back home in VA, I had a phenomenal week consisting of 65-degree weather, Christmas shopping, and lots of red meat.  Kayla should be very proud of the steps I’ve taken to improve my iron since being home.  On the other hand, I am probably 5 steps closer to Type 2 diabetes…oh well.  Of course I’ve been working out too.  The place I’m working out at is quite special.  I may be the only person there who does not qualify for AARP benefits.  Come to think of it, the average person was probably born before AARP even existed…yes, that old.  But I love it, because every day I’m greeted by friendly old men who just want to talk about HOW GREAT NOTRE DAME IS…because of this (I’m sorry Chris) but sometimes I cannot wear ND issue gear to the gym.  A 45 min workout turns into 2 hours because as they say, “You play for the greatest university, and I could just go on about it for hours” (and trust me this is not an exaggeration). Well I could not agree with them more, but still I have places to go and people to see…not really at all, but I don’t think Hunter would appreciate half an hour breaks between circuits.  Don’t worry, I allot at least 10 min of time for each Irish fan who wants to talk…because if celebrities have taught us anything, we owe it all to our fans. What I’m reminded by these old men is that while I believe that I play for the best university in the country, there are people all over who share that belief.  This helps drive me, because it makes me see just how lucky I am to wear the IRISH name on the front of my jersey.  That pride in who we are should be inspiration enough for us as we struggle through Hunter’s incredibly extensive workout packet.

To curtail on what the previous posts talked about, we cannot let low preseason rankings get us down.  In fact, we need to use them as inspiration.  Now any of you football fans out there should have heard about Drew Brees breaking the single season passing record on Monday.  This record was previously held by Dan Marino and hadn’t been broken in 27 years. Drew Brees happens to be my favorite player in the NFL because he went to Purdue (where all my family went) and he is absolutely adorable (see pic). For those of you who don’t know much about Drew Brees, at only 6 ft tall (on the roster, so we know what that means…) many people questioned his NFL potential.  They also thought that he didn’t have good arm strength and only succeeded in college because he had a system perfectly designed for him.  Most of the critics were thinking they were right as he had a mediocre career in San Diego.  What it took for Brees to get his career on the path that he ultimately wanted was a change.  A BIG change.  He moved his family from San Diego to New Orleans.  New coach, new team, new challenges, and most importantly, new opportunities.  Now WE have a new coach, this is a new team from last year, and we’ve already been facing new kinds of challenges and opportunities this fall (and are sure to see plenty more this spring).  We cannot be afraid of these changes.  In our lives we all have to make changes. Some we embrace and some we resist with all our might.  Well we’ve made a lot of changes this year, and they are ultimately, ones that are best for the current team and the future of ND lacrosse.  We cannot just accept these changes, and we certainly can’t resist them.  We must embrace them.  Like Brees, we have to GO ALL IN!!  You all know what that means so I don’t think I need to elaborate further, just please remember that phrase as you push the treadmill incline a little higher and do what feels like your 10,000^th pull-up of the year (really that might not be an exaggeration).

Now I’ve already rambled on too long, but the final point I want to make is about the importance of being a team.  I believe in the clip below Drew Brees drives this point home.  I encourage you all to watch it and think about how it applies to our team this year.  This will come as no shock to many of you, but I had to watch this video more than once because I kept getting distracted by the very attractive man in the background wearing only a towel (the guy on the right NOT the left!!!). I got so distracted the first time that I missed what Brees said.  This is definitely beside the point though. So in all seriousness, it is a great clip that should remind you just how important your teammates are and how lucky we are to have each other.

http://espn.go.com/video/clip?id=7391980

Have a happy New Year, and like Chris would say, “Make good decisions!”

LOVE YOU GUYS & GO IRISH!!!

Emily