One morning during a recent trip I got up to work out in the fitness center of the hotel we were staying in. As I got on the treadmill, I noticed something interesting.

The treadmill had increments of incline from 0% (which is level) all the way up to 15% (which is like walking up a steep hill). I immediately thought, “Well, there’s no way I’ll ever be using the 15%, that’s for sure!”

So, I started out at 1% grade, walking slowly to warm up. After a few minutes, I bumped the incline to 2% grade and started walking a bit faster. A little while later I was walking even faster. The grade was now up to 7% incline.

When I was growing up, I couldn’t wait until the day I made it to the seventh grade. Seventh grade was the year in which football was first offered in my hometown and I longed to play football.

It wasn’t until about twenty minutes into our first practice that I realized I suffered from “3S” … I was skinny, slow and scared! For those of you who aren’t familiar with football, this is a combination that does not make for a good player. More often than not, it makes for someone who spends more time as a tackling dummy than anything else.

I’ll never forget the day that I finally got to play in a real game as a member of the kickoff team.