As Coach Finamore wrote on his facebook page: Michigan State men's basketball team is struggling this season. Here's an open letter to the team from a former Spartan player, Tim Bograkos. Great read coming from a guy who gave everything he had to the Green and White!
Here is that open letter:
As a former player at Michigan State and part of what I consider the greatest program in all of college basketball, I have had the chance to play, talk, laugh and grow with the players from all different generations and teams. I have spent countless hours telling and listening to old stories from men who have been here from the beginning. Guys who laid the first brick at the beginning of the MSU basketball journey, when nothing about the program was elite. Players who shed their blood, sweat and tears to put the green and white in the position it is today and who take tremendous pride in the fact that we laced our shoes up every day as a SPARTAN and left it all on the court.
That’s what makes this season so difficult for everyone both physically and emotionally. I must first clarify that I will always have unwavering support for Coach Izzo and you guys. I know the amount of work that has gone into the off-season workouts and the countless hours of practice and film work that you guys and the coaches are continuing to put in. No one in the country is going to outwork the MSU basketball program and that has been proven over the years. I feel a sort of defense mechanism when it comes to the constant criticism that this team is getting. I feel an overwhelming urge to defend our program and the players. It’s like listening to someone talk about your little brother, you want to stand up and fight to defend your family.
At this point I find myself straddling a very difficult fence. On one side, I am extremely proud alum of Michigan State and our basketball program. On the other side I’m very disappointed in some of the things that seem to be happening this year. It appears that, in some sense, this team has forgotten what kind of program they signed up to play for. I prided myself as a player who protected the core values that our program stands for every time I stepped on the court. At this point, I’m far less concerned with wins and losses and all I can hope is that we finish the season with the same intensity as Scotty Skiles, with the swagger of Steve Smith, and the true grit of Antonio Smith and Mateen Cleaves.
I hope you all realize that you have a group of former players who will always be there through thick and thin, who have gone through tough seasons, dealt with the relentless media scrutiny and will never turn our backs. This program is bigger than any one player and bigger than any one season. Remember, as this quote says, you are the men in the arena… just make sure when you feel triumph or failure, you have done so with your face marred by dust and sweat and blood due to your unwavering EFFORT.
“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.” – Theodore Roosevelt
