“Who do you play for?”

Of the many movie lines that have stuck in my brain over my lifetime, that is one of the more prominent ones.  

When I started my website a month ago I said I would only be doing one blog post a month because I want them to be meaningful, relevant, and inspiring.  

I have been thinking for weeks about what I wanted the topic to be for my second blog post, knowing that it would coincide with the 4th of July.  This weekend while starting to cut the grass those words hit me as I put on my old worn out Yankees cap and headed out of the garage….who do you play for?  

The irony of thinking of lines from Team USA’s famous hockey coach Herb Brooks while going out to endure Florida’s scorching heat brought a wry smile to my face for the first pass or two of the front lawn, but it really is such a fitting tie in with my worldview of putting country over party.  

There’s so much that’s been said over the years about the 4th of July and our nation’s declaration of independence, and rightly so, because just like that miracle on ice 43 years ago, what our fledgling nation did in 1776 was audacious, inspiring, and timeless.  

Both put the greater good over individual goals.  Both were Davids taking on Goliaths, and won.

During the 2004 movie Miracle, Coach Brooks played by Kurt Russell is constantly asking players who they play for, and they say “Boston College”, “Minnesota”, etc.  It isn’t until he puts them through a grueling practice after a game they should have won that one of the players finally gets why he’s been asking them who they play for and says he plays for the United States of America.  Here is the clip:

Years ago when my daughter was taking karate her instructor told us all that his two favorite holidays were the 4th of July and Thanksgiving, because they were holidays that all Americans could celebrate together, regardless of their backgrounds, religious beliefs, etc.  That really stuck with me.

So this year, while you’re celebrating our nation’s birth, I ask you to think about how we all have far more in common than we do that divides us, about how throughout our history the big things we’ve accomplished we did them together by putting differences aside, about how a declaration is just a starting point….it’s up to all of us to do the hard work and put in the effort so that this thing we call the American Experiment will continue to flourish for generations to come, and in the rest of the days of the year ahead, long after the fireworks are done, keep asking yourself “who do you play for?”