19 September 2014, Austin, Texas, USA
Lauren Mickler: Hey Joaquin, I'm out here with Apollos Hester, wide receiver for the Patriots. You guys had one heck of a game tonight. How did it go? I mean it was going a little back and forth. You guys knew it was going to be a tough job to fight out there and it was, so what were you guys able to do to come back and win this thing.
Apollos Hester: All right, well at first we started slow. We started real slow, and you know that's all right, that's okay, because sometimes in life you're going to start slow. That's okay. We told ourselves hey, we're going to start slow. We're going to keep going fast. We're going to start slow, but we're always, always going to finish fast. No matter what the score was, we're going to finish hard, we're going to finish fast.
Yeah, they had us the first half. I'm not going to lie. They had us. We weren't defeated, but they had us. But it took guts, it took an attitude. That's all it takes. That's all it takes to be successful, is an attitude, and that's what our coach told us. He said, "Hey, it's going to be tough. It's going to be hard. You're going to go out there, you're going to battle, you're going to fight, you're going to do it one another. Do it for each other. You're going to do it for yourself, you're going to do it for us, and you're going to come out with this win," and we believed that, we truly did.
It's an awesome feeling. It's an awesome feeling when you truly believe that you're going to be successful regardless of the situation, regardless of the scoreboard, you are going to be successful because you put in all the time, all the effort, all the hard work, and you know that it's going to pay off, and if it doesn't pay off you continue to give God the glory. If you still lose the game you continue to get each other's back, and that's what we realised. Win or lose, we realised that we were going to be all right and it was going to be okay. We're going to keep smiling. It was awesome. Awesome.
Lauren Mickler: Apollo's always got a smile on his face. Talk about attitude, this guy's got attitude if you guys can't tell. We met earlier this week and this was the enthusiasm I saw.
Apollos Hester: It's a mindset, yes ma'am. Hey, you can do anything you put your mind to. Never give up on your dreams. Keep smiling no matter what you're going through. If you fall down, just get up. If you can't get up your friends are there to help you out. Your mom is there, your dad is there. God's there. Hey, I'm there to help you up. You're there. It's going to be all right. Keep smiling man.
Lauren Mickler Man, along with all the football highlights you guys have gotten tonight some motivational speaking courtesy of Apollo Hester. Great game tonight, buddy, so I'm happy for you guys.
Apollos Hester: Thank you.
Lauren Mickler: This guy with one touchdown and a whole of sass coming out here for the East View Patriots. All right, guys, we'll send it back to you.
Speaker 3: Wow. All right, a couple of comments that come to mind immediately. Number one is that's in the interview hall of fame.
Speaker 4: Can we please have that guy on every single week?
Speaker 3: Can we have him on every show? The second thing that comes to mind is ... I don't know about you, but I'm ready to run for a brick wall.
Speaker 4: If he doesn't make it as a football player, he should be an inspirational speaker. That is incredible.