HOT CORNER
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What: “Laying it on the Line.”
Author: Howard Griffith.
Publisher: Sports Publishing, LLC.
Price: $22.95.
There’s a reason why so many former NFL players have gone on to become successful in business. Mostly it’s because the work ethic and teamwork needed to excel on the gridiron can just as easily be used in most corporate settings.
Former Denver Bronco fullback Howard Griffith takes this theory and runs with it in his book, “Laying it on the Line: Notes of a Team Player,” which could also be described as a 274-page autobiography/how-to-succeed manual.
“I believe that the personal and professional experiences shared in this book will offer strategies that can be used in any team situation, whether it’s a corporate sales force or a family unit,” the nine-year NFL veteran and two-time Super Bowl winner says on the back cover.
Success in football was never guaranteed for Griffith, a Chicago native who had problems making the grade in high school and thus was not recruited by any big-time Division I university.
Griffith, who spends his time these days traveling the country making speeches to corporations, schools and other social organizations, ultimately excelled in college, scoring an NCAA-record eight touchdowns in a game while a senior at Illinois. But first he had to earn his place on the team as a Proposition 48 walk-on, which required Griffith to prove himself academically and forgo his freshman year of eligibility.
“The facts were the facts ... I was working from a deficit position,” Griffith says in the book. “And I needed to formulate a game plan.”
Former Bronco running back Terrell Davis writes the book’s forward. In it he calls Griffith “the ultimate team player,” and someone who “considers great team achievement more important than getting credit for individual performance.”
-- Steve Rom
