If you’re reading this, you’ve been there. You’ve probably received the speech and given it. For us paddlers, we get it or give it at the top of rapids, halfway through Godforsaken portages, or maybe, like in the photo above, wet and cold and tucked out of a gale behind the last bit of shelter before an exposed stretch of unforgiving shoreline.
“I don’t know what to say, really. Three minutes to the biggest battle of our professional lives. All comes down to today, and either we heal as a team, or we’re gonna crumble. Inch by inch, play by play, until we’re finished. We’re in hell right now, gentlemen. Believe me. And, we can stay here, get the shit kicked out of us, or we can fight our way back into the light. We can climb outta hell… one inch at a time.”
That’s Al Pacino as Tony D’Amato, the head coach of a fictional professional football team in Oliver Stone’s 1999 classic American sports film, Any Given Sunday. In my opinion, it’s the most inspirational pre-game speech of all time.
D’Amota is present and honest. He speaks to his players directly, looking them in the eyes. He cuts ties from the past; what’s happened before doesn’t matter now. D’Amota reminds his players they will only be remembered for the way they play today.
“On this team, we fight for that inch. On this team, we tear ourselves and everyone else around us to pieces for that inch. We claw with our fingernails for that inch. Because we know when we add up all those inches, that’s gonna make the f***ing difference between winning and losing, between living and dying!”
“On this team, we fight for that inch. On this team, we tear ourselves and everyone else around us to pieces for that inch. We claw with our fingernails for that inch. Because we know when we add up all those inches, that’s gonna make the f***ing difference between winning and losing, between living and dying!”
The last 18 months have been crazy for businesses everywhere. The difference between living and dying was measured in inches. Paddlesports manufacturers, shops, schools, outfitters and media have struggled through parts and raw material supply issues, increased demand, staffing challenges, travel bans, and shutdowns. And, let’s face it, the printing of magazines about canoes, kayaks and paddleboards isn’t exactly an essential service during a global pandemic.
For anyone running a management, production, customer services or sales team, every day has been game day for more than a year. Here at Paddling Magazine, I’ve made my fair share of pre-game speeches, but I’m no Pacino.
Nineteen business days ago, we stared at our FUBAR annual production calendar. We had four weeks to publish this issue and get ourselves back on a regular schedule heading into 2022. It felt like an impossibly short timeline to create a regular issue of Paddling Magazine, essentially from scratch. There were too many inches between us and the metaphorical end zone we call print day.
“I’ll tell you this, in any fight, it’s the guy who’s willing to die who’s gonna win that inch. And I know, if I’m gonna have any life anymore, it’s because I’m still willing to fight and die for that inch because that’s what living is—the six inches in front of your face,” said D’Amota to his team.
“Now I can’t make you do it. You’ve got to look at the guy next to you, look into his eyes. Now I think you are gonna see a guy who will go that inch with you. You’re gonna see a guy who will sacrifice himself for this team because he knows, when it comes down to it, you’re gonna do the same for him. That’s a team, gentlemen, and either we heal, now, as a team, or we will die as individuals. That’s football guys, that’s all it is. Now, what are you gonna do?”
Shrug. It wasn’t exactly like that. But the team of media professionals whose names you see in the masthead on the opposite page dug in hard.
Inch by column inch, they raced the clock and pulled it together. Before the final whistle, they created our first-ever, cover-to-cover, special how-to issue.
For the next 18 months, on any given Sunday, you don’t have to watch football. Instead, you can learn to roll, manage a blister, survive a moose attack, perfect your forward stroke, brainwash your children, avoid hypothermia, become a legend… whatever.
Scott MacGregor is the founder and publisher of Paddling Magazine. Watch Al Pacino deliver the full Any Given
Sunday Inch by Inch speech here, paddlingmag.com/0110. Then, paddle on.
This article originally appeared in Paddling Magazine Issue 65. Subscribe to Paddling Magazine’s print and digital editions here, or download the Paddling Magazine app and browse the digital archives here.
