When Adversity Strikes
We’ve all been there. We’ve all been put in challenging situations that have tested our confidence and purpose. Situations in which we’ve had to take a step back, and honestly reevaluate our lives and what we should be doing for ourselves. How we respond to this adversity will ultimately determine our fate and the level of success that we experience during our lives.
The other day, I watched my beloved Texas Longhorns football team give perhaps the worst offensive performance that I’ve seen in my over 25 years of watching football. Arch Manning, the most recent generation of the Manning quarterback legacy that began with his grandfather Archie Manning in the late 1960s at the University of Mississippi, gave an historically disastorious performance against an University of El-Paso defense that lacks the natural talent and athleticism boasted by several defenses that the Longhorns will face later this season within college football’s Southeastern Conference. While watching the national broadcast of the game, it was apparent from the beginning of the contest that Manning was totally overwhelmed and noticeably demoralized while operating Texas head coach Steve Sarkisian’s pass-heavy offense. Most of his throws were inaccurate and completely off the mark, failing to even give his receivers an opportunity to make a play on the ball.
In the lead up to the beginning of the 2025 college football season, Manning had been excessively hyped by mainstream media. He had been marketed as the next great Manning quarterback. The nephew of two Super Bowl winning quarterbacks in Eli and Peyton Manning, Arch Manning was expected to be the leading candidate for this season’s Heisman Trophy and the starting quarterback for a Texas Longhorns football squad that was expected to compete for a national championship.
To largely the surprise of not only the Texas Longhorn fanbase, but also to the American public at large, Manning has played exponentially below preseason expectations. During the Longhorns’ opening game of the football season, playing on the road against the defending national champion Ohio State Buckeyes, Manning seemed shellshocked. A formidable Buckeye defense confused the young quarterback throughout the game, notably denying a quarterback sneak by Manning on a fourth down goal line stand at the Ohio State 1-yard line. During the following week’s home opener against a much lesser opponent in San Jose State, Manning struggled once more but gave a better performance that gave many the false impression that he was on track to significant improvement. However, Manning’s dreadful performance yesterday against UTEP was a drastic setback. At one point during the second quarter, Manning threw ten consecutive incompletions, including an interception. He finished the first half of the contest by only completing 5 of his first 21 passes. Arch was booed by a dissatisfied and infuriated home crowd at Darryl K. Royal Memorial Stadium on a blistering hot, September afternoon in Austin, Texas.
Manning, in the wake of his nightmarish performances thus far this season, has much soul searching to do. Things have most certainly not gone according to plan. Adversity has struck the young Texas quarterback. And it has struck mercilessly.
Each of us, male and female, young and old, wealthy and poor, of all races and creeds, face adversity in our lives. We are pushed into an uncomfortable, and sometimes even frightenening, corner. And we are forced to be decisive. We are forced to make difficult decisions. It is within these trying situations that we find out what we are made of.
I would argue that these episodes of adversity are blessings in disguise. These are moments in which we can prove, most importantly to ourselves, that we are made of “the right stuff”. That we do have what it takes to overcome great odds and emerge as better, improved versions of ourselves. That our enemies and doubters were wrong all along. Adversity is truly a blessing.
Arch Manning, like all of us, is facing some major adversity as a young man. Hopefully, he can look deep within himself, and discover a pleasant surprise. That he can take all the negativity of the present moment, and transform it into an asset and a strentgth. Into something that he can look back upon, as a more mature version of himself perhaps years from now, as a watershed moment that propelled him to his most treasured dreams and aspirations. One can only hope.
