Saturday night was a great night for the Union Christmas Parade. The weather was perfect, as the temperature was very mild 65-70 degrees, about double what it was last year for the parade.
Even though the parade was going on, I’m pretty sure several Alabama fans at and in the parade were not as concentrated on ringing in the Christmas season. They were watching their sports score apps or perhaps was even streaming the game on their mobile devices.
I even remember one paradegoer yelling out the score to someone riding in the parade when the Tide’s Jalen Hurts ran in the game-winning touchdown about 6:40 p.m. on Saturday.
The 2018 SEC Championship Game will go down as one of the most-entertaining games of this year and one of the most exciting championship games in SEC history. The game had plenty of teachable moments for both teams, some of which we could all be reminded of a few lessons.
The most obvious one surrounds Hurts himself. While I’m not an Alabama fan, I was really happy to see the spotlight shine on him. He led the Tide to the Playoff Championship in back-to-back seasons. In one, he lost by one to Clemson and Deshaun Watson. The other, he played in the first half where the Tide fell behind to Georgia. He was benched in favor of Tua Tagovailoa, who led the Tide to 26-23 overtime win for the title.
Prior to the season, Jalen dealt with a lot of internal and external influences that were telling him to stay or transfer to another school. At times, even coach Nick Saban didn’t seem to be open to talking with him about his future with the Tide and offered some unusual comments at SEC Media Days this year.
Ultimately, he decided to stay on board and even burn a year of eligibility backing up Tua, who will be in New York this week for the Heisman Trophy presentation. Jalen didn’t stop working, but he kept improving and working with coaches and his teammates to get better while his chances of seeing playing time dwindled. He even suffered an injury midseason and was unavailable again until Iron Bowl week.
Then in the biggest game of the year, Jalen’s number is called, as he must enter the game with the Tide trailing 28-21 because Tua was injured. The junior quarterback came in and faced third-and-12.
This reminds me of a similar situation of when Auburn starting quarterback Stan White was injured in the 1993 Iron Bowl with the Tigers facing a key third-down play and a 14-5 deficit. On that play, backup quarterback Patrick Nix came in and threw a touchdown strike to Frank Sanders and led Auburn to a 22-14 win in the Iron Bowl, capping Auburn’s first undefeated season since 1957.
Like Nix, Hurts found tight end Irv Smith for a 13-yard gain and then eventually capped the drive with a 10-yard touchdown pass to Jerry Jeudy.
Then after a questionable fake punt by Georgia at the midfield stripe, Hurts took the team down the field in five plays, including his 15-yard touchdown run with 1:04 to play.
If Hurts hadn’t believed in the process, he wouldn’t have been prepared to go into the game in crunch time when his team needed him the most.
Haven’t we all had an opportunity in our lives when we’ve been riding the bench? We do the same things that others do, but yet the spotlight never shines on us.
It’s easy for us to get down on ourselves or throw a pity party because we aren’t getting the respect we deserve. However, the bench should teach us that we have to continue to do the work that we do each day in our lives. Win the day by getting better. Find a way to improve each day.
As the old Frosty The Snowman song says, put one foot in front of the other, and soon you’ll be walking out the door. The opportunity to get better is to take one step every day.
You may ride the bench, but your effort can make a difference because you push your teammates to do better. That’s what both Tua and Jalen do to each other. They make themselves better each day because they keep working.
That’s the lesson we should all learn.
Brent can be reached at bmaze@newtoncountyappeal.com.
