Miles
Well-known member
- Mar 18, 2019
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Then when Manning wrapped up his speech, Ware realized something.
"Well, OK then, what am I actually going to do to follow this guy?" Ware recalls thinking. "What am I actually going to say?"
To some degree, Ware had a plan. He had spoken the night before the AFC Championship Game and delivered a rousing speech that climaxed with the unveiling of one of the franchise's previous Lombardi Trophies in front of the team. It worked that time, so he would bring it back out for an encore.
"This is our good luck charm," Ware says. "We're bringing this damn thing."
Ware's speech was also remembered for its emotion and fire.
"I pulled the trophy out and I stuck it on the table, and I sat there and looked at it," Ware says. "And I looked at all the guys' eyes and seeing, just getting a gauge of, Do y'all want this or not? And I said, This year, our motto was iron sharpens iron, and another man sharpens another. And from all the ups and downs we went through, the fire that we had to go through, we have molded this steel — which is this Super Bowl trophy right here. This isn't ours, but we have an opportunity to live forever by building a piece of armor that we can take to battle with us every single day for the rest of our lives. … And I said, The Carolina Panthers are going to come here and try to steal our trophy. They don't know what we've been through. They don't know what we molded this season.
"And I said, It's time to go to battle, fellas. We have our armor right here already. We're prepared. Before you guys go to sleep tonight, I want for you to go touch this trophy. I just want you to touch it and go to bed, get some rest and I want you to dream about holding this trophy up at the end of the game."
His teammates may have done that, but they also dreamed about their two leaders holding that trophy, too.