The Pregame Speech

In honor of March Madness, I would like to share excerpts from one of the best pre-game speeches I’ve ever heard. Pat Riley recalled it in his book The Winner Within:

“Sometimes you have a feeling that you’re about to embark on the most important trip of your life…That’s how I felt right before game two of the 1985 NBA Finals, the single most important game the Lakers played during the eighties.

It’s a beautiful moment when you know the team is just sitting there, waiting to take in something special. They’d heard my voice before, until they were sick of it. But there was no eye-rolling today. They were open, ready to listen and believe.

‘I know there’s a lot of you in here who probably don’t think you can win today. A lot of you don’t think you can beat the Celtics. And it’s been proven. The record is undeniable. I want each and every one of you to close your eyes. Just sit back and listen.’ And they did. I had their total, undivided attention.

I started to talk to them about my past and my father. When I was nine years old, my dad told my brothers Lee and Lenny to take me down to Lincoln Heights and to get me involved in the basketball games. They would throw me into a game and I would get pushed, shoved, and beat up. Day after day, I ran home crying and hid in the garage. I didn’t want anything to do with basketball.

One night I didn’t come to the dinner table, so my dad got up and walked out to the garage…He picked me up, put his arm around me, dusted me off, and then he walked me into the kitchen. My brother Lee was upset with him. “Why do you make us take him down there? He doesn’t want to play. He’s too young.”

My father stood up and, staring at Lee, said, ‘I want you to teach him not to be afraid. Teach him that competition brings out the very best and the very worst in us. Right now it’s bringing out the worst, but if he sticks with it, it’s going to bring out the best.’

And I told the players, ‘I thought I was never going to be able to get over being hurt and afraid, but I eventually did get over it. And before too long, I was sending other kids home to their garages to lick their wounds. That’s what competition is about. That’s what the Celtics and Boston Garden are offering up today.’

I told them of a time I saw my father in 1970. It was at my wedding. I had just been cut by the San Diego Rockets. The Portland Trailblazers, another expansion club, had invited me and twenty-nine other players to their training camp. That looked like my last shot. I was $5,000 in debt, and I was about to take on the responsibilities of marriage. It was a great day. But I needed a voice.

As his car was driving away, my father yelled at me, ‘Pat!’ His arm came out first, gesturing, then his head. I began to chase after the slow-moving car to hear. ‘Just remember what I taught you. There will come a time. And when that time comes, you go out there and kick somebody’s a**. This is that time, Pat.’

I told [the players] that I did not realize as the car pulled away, that those were the last words I would hear my father say. He died soon afterward.

‘I don’t know what it’s going to take for us to win tonight,’ I said. ‘But I do believe that we’re going to go out there like warriors and that would make our fathers proud.’”[1]

The Lakers won the game, 109-102.

Have a great weekend,
Ro