Vince Lombardi once said, “The harder you work, the harder it is to surrender.” Those are words I have tried to live by for a long time now. They are words, an idea that I have given to my players over the years. How can anyone, after working so hard at something, just surrender, just give up? I mean, that is what surrender means: I quit. I give up. I don’t want to do this anymore. You win. Here, you do it.

The idea of quitting at something is very foreign to me. Oh I readily admit I’ve had those feelings before. I’ve been at places in my life where all I wanted to do was give in and not have to fight anymore. Times where I was exhausted with the task at hand and where the devil was tempting me to toss in the towel. However, it was at those times that another voice kicked in.

There is that voice in all of us that says, “Keep going”. Why do we listen to it when others choose not to? Perhaps it is our work ethic, maybe the fear of being called a quitter or looked down on by others. Perhaps it is just our own sheer determination to succeed, personal pride, or ego. How can you put a ton of time and effort and personal sacrifice into some endeavor and then give up? Or maybe, just maybe, it is because we know something that everyone else doesn’t. Something about ourselves that others have over looked: The fact that we are winners and winners never surrender.

For the past four to five years my wife, Karin, has been a struggling romance writer. I personally don’t read the stuff but she does. As it turns out, so do a lot of other people as over 58% of all paperback books sold are romance novels. I have watched her toil away at the keyboard night and day over the years. I’ve even acted as a technical advisor and helped with some dialog and done some editing for her. But she has always been the dominant force, refusing to back down even in the face of rejection after rejection.

There have been numerous books, varying plots and plot twists through the years, a wide variety of hero’s, heroine’s and bad guys. Too many locations to recall with too many different endings. Throughout it all there has always been one constant theme, one true idea: that she would one day write well enough to be published.

Well, almost five year’s of vigilance has finally paid off for her. Last weekend, my wife, Karin, got a two-book deal from a large, recognized publishing house. Her first book will be on the store shelf in January. Five year’s is a long time to work at anything. Especially when you are constantly faced with rejection. She has almost enough rejection letters to wallpaper a small room and yet she pushed on. Never gave up. Yes, there were the times she wanted to but one or the other of us wouldn’t allow it. No surrender. In the end, as always, to the victor go the spoils. You might want to check out www.karintabke.com.

If you have a dream, a goal, something you are working towards and the going is sometimes rough, remember that you are not the first to go down that bumpy road. Remember that anything worth having is not without sacrifice or even rejection. Sometimes the fight is long and hard and the end difficult to see, but it is there. And it is worth reaching. To surrender is to submit, to yield, to give in, and to die. Linemen are the last of the Gladiators, and linemen never surrender.

A warm welcome to the players who have recently registered for LinemenInc 2005, from the following schools: Alhambra High, Martinez, CA, Crespi Carmelite High, Encino, CA, Dayton High, Dayton, NV, Gardena High, Gardena, CA, Hug High, Reno, NV, Lassen High, Susanville, CA, Will C. Wood High, Vacaville, CA, and welcome back to Yerington High, Yerington, NV. It’s June guys; so, see you at the end of the month!