Rick Thompson of Shoffner Mechanical Services and TAPHCC State President |
Greetings From your President... “Are you ready for some Football? It’s Football Time in Tennessee! Gentlemen, start your… Oh wait… wrong sport.!” The month is September and the time is Football Season. I don’t know about everyone else, but I have been looking forward to this time of the year since back in January. Besides just the enjoyment of watching the sport, football season is a great way to spend time with family and friends. I enjoy all levels, from youth to middle school to high school to college and to the Pros. |
| Another way to have some fun is the rivalries and competition experienced through playing Fantasy Football. What if you could change something about the sport? More than 130 years ago the first game of American football was played. Sure, the game has progressed from the first years but the structure is still basically the same. All levels of football are governed under sanctioning bodies determined mainly by age, education level and experience. Those bodies include the AYF for youth football, TSSAA for high school football, NCAA for college football and the NFL for professional football. To play in those leagues you must become an eligible member and abide by their structure, guidelines and rules. But there have been groups in the past that have tried to form a football league of their own, mainly at the professional level. The USFL, WFL, XFL and most recently the AFL are some of the leagues that have tried and failed. Their rules and structure were set by their owners, coaches and officials. To me, this was like the little kid who said he didn’t like the way the game was played and he was taking his ball and going home. Maybe you have known one of these little kids or maybe you haven’t. It seems many people today want to take a great idea and put their own spin on it. They want to make it “Their Own.” But the bottom line is, “You can’t change the sport of American Football without losing the integrity of the sport.” Spectators and fans are the reason the sport is successful. The players do the practice, playing and hard work, while we as fans experience the excitement. Sure, players enjoy the sport, but without spectators would they still be playing the game? That is the basic idea behind our PHCC association. PHCC is 126 years old and is the oldest construction trade association in America. PHCC is structured on a federation base where local, state and national memberships are the levels of being a PHCC member. Each level is important in its own way, but without the federation structure, each individual level would be like the kid who took his ball and went home. The integrity of the federation is questioned anytime a member wants to change the structure and rules. We all need to remember that the association is about our industry as a whole, not about an individual member. We have heard for ages that teamwork and strength in numbers always yields a winning result. The spectators and fans that enjoy the result of the PHCC association are our companies, our communities and our society. PHCC National is our governing body nationally and TAPHCC is our governing body for the state. The coaches and officials at these levels help guide and direct the PHCC associations and members. For the federation of PHCC to excel, it takes each member working together as a team with our focus on the group as a whole. Are you doing your part or are you the little kid, the XFL, who wants to do his or her own individual thing? Staying with the football analogy, I will leave you with a quote from one of the most successful and popular football coaches in history, “Individual commitment to a group effort - that is what makes a team work, a company work, a society work, a civilization work.” - Vince Lombardi |
