The 2007 Secret Society pin has been named after the 2100 minutes that we asked you to give to the team this year as you prepared for fall training camp. In addition the pin also highlights our central theme for this season: RELENTLESS. Other notable features that should be easily identifiable to you include CIF 2007, LA JOLLA FOOTBALL and the defensive time of day 11:30.

Of course there are additional letters and phrases that are not so easily identifiable and these features compose the riddle of the pin. In many respects the pin is probably the simplest one in recent memory. As you know the team has failed to solve the riddle for two consecutive years so we thought it best to be simple and direct. In certain respects this is probably good for us because it has been our goal this season to get down to work and be relentless in pursuit of our individual and team goals.

All of you have special responsibilities to our team and it was good to see that many of you have made a sincere effort to give us the 2100 minutes we asked for. In this regard our 2007 team has made great strides. It was good to see most our returning starters taking the initiative, working hard and offering no excuses. This is an intelligent decision on your part and the important thing now is to keep working hard to get everyone on board and never giving up. When we start fall camp it is important that we exhibit sincere team enthusiasm not only during practice but throughout all four quarters of each and every game. As you know the formula for success has nine important ingredients and our final product will not be what we want it to be unless all nine ingredients are present.

We are especially pleased to see what we believe is a sincere friendship among all of you and we are equally pleased to see that you seem to respect each other for who you are and what you have to offer the team. No one individual is more important than another and we expect our more accomplished players to lead by example. Everyone knows who our more accomplished players are and there is no need for you to call attention to yourself. We would much rather have you speak through your intensity and positive attitude than through meaningless words that have no direct impact on the team’s success.

It is the responsibility of our senior, junior and sophomore leaders to lead by example. You need to accept and respect everyone as a teammate. We are stressing this because we did not handle this aspect of team chemistry well last season. As such we intend to test your attitude early. We are going to ask our returning starters to take a special leadership role on a weekly basis once our season starts. We are selecting Robby Beathard to lead us during week one against Santa Fe Christian. Robby has proved himself to be a self-motivated individual who is willing to dedicate more than just 2100 minutes to bettering himself and bettering the team. Self-motivation will be the key word during week one. It is the key to success and it is certainly something we will need to exhibit if we are going to give a better account of ourselves against the defending CIF Champions.

After reading the preceding paragraph if your first thoughts were centered on being critical of our selection you failed your first test. Yes there are a number of deserving seniors that could have been selected to shoulder this responsibility, but we wanted to see if there are players on this team who are willing to check their egos in at the door and accept their coach’s decisions trusting that what you are being asked to do and accept is what is best for the team. You will all get an opportunity to lead as the year progresses and when your time comes we are hoping that you will do it with class, humility and a sincere desire to do what is best for the TEAM. If you accepted this selection without reservations and without second guessing this decision you are not far away from finding true success in 2007. Did you pass the first test?