Hello again from fall camp 2009, or, as well call it around here, “Groundhog Day.”

We’re only 3 weeks away from a huge challenge in traveling to Boise St, and I couldn’t be more excited!

Our players are doing a great job in practice every single day. Fall camp is a very, very difficult thing, and our players are facing that challenge head-on, and winning every day. We’re at the point where it’s easy to let physical and mental fatigue overwhelm you, but our players are learning how to strain, and battle through. We have guys battling illness, injuries, you name it, but they’re still making the choice to get better every day, compete with their teammates, and I couldn’t be more proud.

Every night, our team gets the opportunity to have meetings and listen to guest speakers educate them in areas outside of football. We had a fantastic speaker the other night in Howard White, VP of Sports Marketing, Jordan Brand at Nike. He is the creator of “Believe to Achieve,” Nike’s youth motivational program, and he also wrote a book by the same name.

Howard, or “H,” did an unbelievable job speaking to our team about too many things to list here. At one point, he asked our team how many of them made their beds every morning. It may seem like a pretty trivial question, but he made the point very clear to us that it’s the little things that count in your life.

Getting up every morning and taking just a little bit of time to make your bed even when you’re tired, even when you don’t feel well, builds three things: Habits, discipline, and structure. These three things will make us better in everything that we do for the rest of our lives.

We’re doing a much better job lately of paying attention to the small details that will help us become a better team, and I bet if “H” ever comes back to see us, he’ll see a lot more hands raised when he asked who made their bed this morning (including mine).

Don’t forget, get out here and watch us practice! Our players and staff love having you around. 2:15pm every day but Sunday, and Saturday is our first scrimmage of fall camp. It’s going to be exciting for us, and I hope you can make it.

Win the Day,
Chip Kelly