Playing to Win

By Matt Woolfolk, Field Representative & Commercial Marketing Director

September is here and coming with it is the most exciting time of the year: college football season.  In the south there’s really only two seasons of the year: football season and waiting for football season.  I think people across the country love college football, but it takes on a whole new meaning in the south.  After going to school at two different SEC institutions, I can say with confidence that alumni of SEC schools are a different breed.  Football games are not a hobby or a weekend pastime, but rather a lifestyle.  The actual game can be an afterthought to the tailgate party and social gatherings.  There is one thing that fans of all SEC schools have in common, no matter the outcome on the field they will stand behind their school and continue to support the players and coaches who represent the school they love.

I think there are a lot of similarities between beef cattle producers and a college football team.  Success in both areas requires outstanding leadership, top-notch teaching and coaching, the ability to develop a winning game plan, and the team work to execute that game plan.  Having all these pieces in place can take a team from the bottom of the league to championship contenders.  One example that quickly comes to mind is the transformation of my Alma mater, Mississippi State (MSU).  When I was a kid, the Bulldogs were the punch line of a lot of jokes.  They couldn’t beat anybody and some weeks had more players arrested than points scored.  An enthusiastic young coach named Dan Mullen was brought to Starkville to rebuild the program into a winner.  From his opening press conference, Mullen preached the importance of having young men that worked hard to become better football players and took pride in playing for Mississippi State.  While rival fans and the national media laughed, he constantly talked about competing for SEC and national championships at MSU.  He had a plan in place to take his new team to the top, and he was not afraid of the challenge.  In his first season, the Bulldogs won five games, but still lost seven.  The following season they won nine games and progress was being made.  Three more seasons of winning records showed that MSU was getting better.  Last season, Mississippi State did what nobody (including a die hard State fan like myself) thought was possible.  The Bulldogs rose to the number one ranking in the country.  A team that once was bad enough to lose to schools like Maine and Troy State was now considered the best college football team in the nation.  While many called the Bulldogs an “overnight success”, State fans knew this was just the realization of a plan that was laid out six years earlier when Dan Mullen was hired as the coach to turn the program into a winner.

Like Mississippi State football, I think the Beefmaster breed is poised for unprecedented success.  We may not have a head coach, but we have countless leaders who believe in Beefmaster cattle and are creating the game plan for our continued growth.  We have breeders who are willing to work hard to breed better cattle and take great pride in being Beefmaster breeders.  The past year has seen many successful bull and female sales, fueling the interest of commercial cattlemen.  I’ve had several breeders tell me that just a few years ago they couldn’t sell a Beefmaster bull.  Now, they are turning customers away because they have sold out of bulls!  We’ve come a long way in a short time.  All the pieces are in place to take the next step from “good to great”.  If we continue to work towards the goal of breeding better cattle, we too can be number one: the NUMBER ONE pick of commercial cattlemen!