Overall Championship Quotes

Permian had established itself as perhaps the most successful football dynasty in the country—pro, college, or high school. Few brands of sport were more competitive than Class AAAAA Texas high school football, the division for the biggest schools in the state. Odessa was hardly the only town that nurtured football and cherished it and went crazy over it. But no one came close to matching the performance of Permian. Since 1964 it had won four state championships, been to the state finals a record eight times, and made the playoffs fifteen times. Its worst record in any season over that time span had been seven and two, and its winning percentage overall, .825, was by far the best of any team in the entire state in the modern era of the game dating back to 1951. All this wasn’t accomplished with kids who weighed 250 pounds and were automatic major-college prospects, but with kids who often weighed 160 or 170 or even less. They had no special athletic prowess. They weren’t especially fast or especially strong. But they were fearless and relentlessly coached and from the time they were able to walk they had only one certain goal in their lives in Odessa, Texas. Whatever it took, they would play for Permian.

The living room walls were crowded with trophies for excellence in the martial arts. Hundreds of them. Gleaming first-place cups and championship belts from exhibitions and tournaments all over the United States. Best All-Around. In Recognition of Excellence. Black Belt Master. Over-All Champion. “Don’t worry about this stuff,” I said. “The guy probably bought’m.” Pike said, “Uh-huh.

Amelia Boone (TW: @ameliaboone, ameliabooneracing.com) has been called “the Michael Jordan of obstacle course racing” (OCR) and is widely considered the world’s most decorated obstacle racer. Since the inception of the sport, she’s amassed more than 30 victories and 50 podiums. In the 2012 World’s Toughest Mudder competition, which lasts 24 hours (she covered 90 miles and ~300 obstacles), she finished second OVERALL out of more than 1,000 competitors, 80% of whom were male. The one person who beat her finished just 8 minutes ahead of her. Her major victories include the Spartan Race World Championship and the Spartan Race Elite Point Series, and she is the only three-time winner of the World’s Toughest Mudder (2012, 2014, and 2015). She won the 2014 championship 8 weeks after knee surgery. Amelia is also a three-time finisher of the Death Race, a full-time attorney at Apple, and she dabbles in ultra running (qualified for the Western States 100) in all of her spare time.