Winning the 5th Quarter - life lessons

The NFL did a study a few years back and surveyed 1000 players who had been out of the league for at least four years. What they found was staggering: 87% were either divorced, having serious financial issues, or were dealing with drug/alcohol problems!

When I graduated college and stopped playing football, my finances too were depleted, and to the point that the State of Ohio helped me with welfare assistance.  But by applying the lessons I myself learned on the football field, I have since become a highly successful entrepreneur, have spoken to groups in ten countries, and am a published author a couple times over.

In my latest book, Winning in the 5th Quarter, I write that, “Football Players are told from grade schools to the professional level that the most important quarter in football is the fourth quarter. The only quarter that matters at all however is the 5th Quarter. This is the quarter we all play in, when the game ends and life begins.”

When my oldest son Robbie started playing football, he leveraged the life lessons the game could teach him. “To even play the game of football you have to execute the core principles of success,” I write in Winning in the 5th Quarter. “If you carry those principles forward to the 5th Quarter (Life) you will be successful and happy. When my son decided to dedicate himself to try to achieve a Division I football scholarship I had to ensure that whether he did or did not achieve his goal, he understood the true secret of football: winning… in the 5th quarter.”

According to the National Sporting Goods Association, statistics show that close to twenty million Americans over the age of seven participate in some form of organized football play.  But football is more than just a grueling physical sport; it is a microcosm for life.  “This book is nothing less than a guide for lifelong success,” says Grant Teaff, Executive Director of American Football Coaches Association. “The messages and concepts are timeless. They will have a profound impact on everyone who reads this book and more importantly uses it to create a foundation for happiness and achievement.”

Football player or not, we all need to understand how to leverage the principles of success that football offers us all.  Parents and coaches need to learn how to stress the life lessons football offers to their children and players. Players need to learn how to apply the lesson they learn on the field, off the field.

My goal in life is to reach out to as many players, coaches, parents, and people as possible to share my experiences and help them and their families realize their dreams.  Through the book, Q5 Workshops, personal life coaching, and a TV show my team and I are working on, I am on a mission to help people understand just how to use football as a foundation for lifelong success.

Head football coach of Rice University, David Bailiff, says, “We tell players that attend Rice University they are attending for fifty years not just four. We talk to them about the 5th Quarter their first day here. Bob Beck has expressed this message in the exact way I would like every player and parent to understand. This book will become part of our culture.”

Winning in the 5th Quarter
By Bob Beck