The Poppinga Brothers!

Last week I received a desperate phone call from Carsten while he was at school. "Mom I need you to bring my football jersey to school right now!" I couldn't understand why it was so important that I come RIGHT NOW with his jersey. "Carsten, why do you need your jersey?" "Some BYU football players are coming and I want them to sign it!" "Well are they coming right now?" "I don't know!" "Carsten ask your teacher when they will be there." He put the phone down and asked his teacher and lucky for Carsten they wouldn't be coming for several more hours. I told him that as soon as I was finished with my doctors appointment I would go home, get his jersey and bring it to the school.

When I got to the school the SPECIAL 3rd grade assembly was just starting. I walked into the gym and decided to stay. I was curious about who theseBYU football players were.

One of the cute little 3rd grade boys started off the assembly by introducing the 3 speakers. First to speak would be his dad Casey. Casey played football for USU and BYU and then went on to play in the NFL having the opportunity of going to the Super Bowl. The next speaker would be his Uncle Kelly. Kelly played football for BYU, played in the NFL and also went to the Super Bowl. Kelly is now a BYU football coach. And last to speak would be his Uncle Brady. Brady played football for USU and BYU, he currently plays for the Green bay Packers and had the opportunity of going to the Super Bowl just a few weeks ago! All three brothers played for BYU. All three brothers have played in the NFL. And all three brothers have played in the Super Bowl! Wow! How often does that happen? And they were all raised in a small town in Wyoming! And did I mention that their dad, this cute little 3rd graders grandfather, back in his day played football for BYU too!

It was a lot of fun listening to each of them speak. They talked about having dreams, setting goals and working hard to achieve them. They told the kids to never listen to anyone who says they can't reach or achieve their goals. We can do anything we set our mind to! They talked about the importance of staying in school and gaining a good education. They talked about making good choices and about how everyday we have important choices to make.

My most favorite story was told by Brady Poppinga who currently playes for Green bay. He told the kids about playing against a guy named Larry. Larry was huge and scary! He referred to him as being BURLY! He was afraid of Larry and really afraid of playing against him. He told the kids that he had a choice to make. He could either go ahead and play against Larry even though he was huge and scary or he could run away from Larry. He goes on to tell a very comical story about going up against Larry. He learned that he was capable of a lot more than he thought possible. He told the kids that they will all have "Larry's" in their lives. They will all have huge, difficult, BURLY things to do and decisions to make in their lives. The question is, what are they going to do with "their Larry"? Are they going to face their problems head on? Or are they going to run away from them? He promised the kids that if they face their "Larry's" head on, they will learn more about themselves and realize they are capable of much more than they ever thought possible.

After they all spoke they gave each of the kids autographed pictures of themselves as gifts. Carsten along with a few other boys had them sign their football jerseys. After school when Carsten got home from school he couldn't quit talking about the Poppinga brothers. He was most impressed with Kelly because Kelly played for the Arizona Cardinals. I guess that just goes to show that you can take the boy out of Arizona but you can't take Arizona out of the boy!

So in the end, even though when Carsten called asking me to race down to the school to bring him his jersey I was a little less than thrilled to do it... I sure am glad that Carsten called! Listening to those brothers was a real treat and well worth my time! Now I just hope that Carsten can remembers some of the messages that were shared because they were all so good!