Joe Namath didn t hold the ball for kicks. John Brodie s answer teaches us several important lessons about leadership, and it is the subject of my speech tonight. The first lesson has to do with the recognition that leading is never far from doing . If a job needs to be done, and you re best equipped or best positioned to do it then by all means do it. There s a story about George Washington that illustrates this point.
Most people today don t know what an imposing physical specimen our first president was.
He ranks with Abraham Lincoln as one of our tallest presidents, but his height was powerfully distributed along a sturdy and athletic frame. And so, encountering a group of soldiers grunting and groaning and utterly unable to budge a cart that had gotten stuck in the mud, George Washington immediately knew that the right place for a large general at that moment was not on a fine white horse. He dismounted, waded into the mud, dispersed the normal-sized soldiers, and shoved the cart onto dry ground. If I didn t do it, it would fall over. I ve seen this attitude in Coast Guard men and women for my entire career, and it has always been a source of inspiration and encouragement.