There’s a reason why Peyton Manning has the most MVP awards of all time: he likes to win. Apparently, and unsurprisingly, he has been that way for his entire life.
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The Sheriff was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame earlier this month, as the world of football celebrated one of its most influential players. Before the ceremony, the LA Times asked some of Manning’s former school teammates about their favorite memories with him.
One of his friends had an interesting story about Manning’s time as a basketball player in grade school. He played for a “bitty basketball” team which was coached by one of his teammate’s father, who also happened to live near the Mannings.
Apparently, the coach was more focused on making sure the kids had fun and not so much on winning. As you can imagine, the juvenile Peyton didn’t exact agree with his ideology.
Peyton Manning Blamed a Loss on his Coach
After the team lost a game, the coach tried cheering them up, saying something like “Well, we didn’t play our best, but we’ll get ‘em next time.” Manning begged to differ.
“No, the reason we lost is you don’t know what you’re doing as a coach,” he shot back.
Obviously, the former Colts and Broncos QB regrets what he said, but believes he took an important lesson from the incident. “My dad couldn’t hear what I was saying,” Manning said. “He just saw me pointing my finger at the coach, and he could tell that I was out of line.”
“Made me go over to the coach’s house that night and apologize. I remember I was crying. I was bawling and my dad was saying, ‘I’m not going to let you play next week.’
“The coach was very nice, accepted my apology and said, ‘No, I want you to play.’ It was a good learning lesson for me of what’s right and what’s wrong, being coachable and keeping your mouth shut. That was the most valuable lesson in that. My dad straightened me out real quick.”
