Illustration: A Visit from a Back-up

I remember not too long ago when the Denver Broncos won their first Super Bowl in 1998. There was a lot of fanfare and a great deal of excitement.

One other thing I remember is that the high school of our little town actually received a visit from one of the back-ups from that team. I noticed something very interesting about that visit. The speaker was Patrick Jeffers, who was a back-up wide receiver for the Broncos that first year they won the Super Bowl. If you look at the career of this man, his stats were not all that special. They weren't hall of fame caliber, you could even say that they were barely even Pro Bowl caliber.

But one of the things I noticed in my little high school is that people started talking about him and idolizing him even though he was at best average. They talked about good he was and different things.

The moral of the story? Sometimes people don't care what you know until they know that you care. The very fact that he took the time out of his busy schedule elevated him in the minds of many of our high school's athletes.