Being the GOAT By Michael Omar

The other day I was watching the top 100 players of all time countdown on the NFL Network. As they got to number one I was surprised to see the name of the guy I thought deserved the top spot. I was surprised because during the countdown I did not agree with most of the rankings. For example, Peyton Manning is ranked #8, while Tom Brady is 20 something.

Who has more Superbowl rings? Anyways, Jerry Rice is ranked as the NFLs top football player of all time. And I was wondering to myself, how is a wide receiver the greatest of all time or (GOAT)? So I did some research and the answer was simple, he’s the GOAT because he trained and worked harder than anyone else ever did and it paid off during game time. His training routine went something like this: 6 days a week wake up, eat breakfast, and run. One hour warm-up of calisthenics, followed by 2 hours of continuous hill running which consisted of 10 sprints at the hour mark, a minute sprint every ten minutes, and an all out sprint for the last 800 meters.  When he was done with the hill he did a couple sprints; six 100s, six 80s, six 60s, six 40s, six 20s, and sixteen 10s with no rest in-between reps and 2min rest between sets. Pretty easy right? Now you would think that was enough but nope, not for the GOAT. For his pm workout he headed to the gym for strength training. His training routine alternated from upper body to lower body every other day. No matter what he was working on the volume was always the same, 3 sets 10 reps each of 21 different exercises. That’s 630 reps a day. At night he stretched and went to bed. He also managed to fit in 5 big well balanced meals every day. That’s what he did 6 days a week during the offseason to get ready for the regular season. It might not seem like he had much of a life outside his training and football, but that was his life, he was the GOAT and everything else didn’t matter to him. Always showed up to camp 2 weeks before rookie minicamp, which was a month before he was actually supposed to be there. He played 20 years in the NFL, holds every NFL receiving record, every receiving postseason record and has 5 Superbowl rings. It must be nice being the GOAT.