Getty Bears quarterback Mitchell Trubisky
It was subtle, but very likely purposeful. When Chicago Bears quarterback Mitchell Trubisky met with the media via Zoom on Friday, it was the first time he had commented publicly on a great number of things, from the Bears trading for veteran QB Nick Foles, to the team declining to pick up his fifth-year option. Trubisky came out fiery, saying he has a new-found motivation to leave it all on the field. “It was kind of interesting to me. That’s the business we’re in. I think I was pissed off in a good way. I’ve been motivated ever since,” Trubisky said about the Bears’ trade for Foles.
Trubisky noted that he was excited for the upcoming QB competition, and said he’s glad to have Foles’ voice in the quarterbacks room — but he’s not going to act like this isn’t still his team, because he feels as though it absolutely is. “I know we’re gonna push each other, but I feel like this is still my team,” Trubisky declared.
While the fourth-year quarterback had a lot of interesting things to say, one of the stronger statements he made was sitting behind him as he spoke.
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Trubisky Had Huge Poster of Theodore Roosevelt’s ‘Man in the Arena’ Speech Hanging Up in Background
Two things were sitting in the background of the room Trubisky was speaking from: an enormous flatscreen with an image of Soldier Field on it, and a massive framed quote from President Theodore Roosevelt’s famous speech, ‘The Man in the Arena’. One of the most oft-quoted speeches of all-time, it addressed critics and cynics of those who were trying to be positive forces in the world.
“The poorest way to face life is to face it with a sneer,” Roosevelt said in the speech. “A cynical habit of thought and speech, a readiness to criticize work which the critic himself never tries to perform, an intellectual aloofness which will not accept contact with life’s realities — all these are marks, not … of superiority but of weakness.”
For those unfamiliar, here is one of the more well-known snippets from the speech:
“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”
Trubisky’s choice to sit in front of an image of Soldier Field, along with the words of Roosevelt looming large in the background was a nice, subtle way to address those who have been critical of him without actually addressing them. If he can be as sly and deceptively awesome on the football field this upcoming season as he was in his Zoom call, the Bears and their fans may finally have the quarterback they’ve long been waiting for.
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