Rhetorical Analysis Of The Team Speech

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The Mantra of Michigan
If you have ever been to the Big House on a “football Saturday” I would bet that you have heard Bo Schembechler’s iconic “The Team” speech. Bo Schembechler was the University of Michigan’s head football coach from 1969-1989 and is considered to be one of the greatest coaches in Michigan’s history. He gave the speech to the University of Michigan football team before their rivalry game against Ohio State University in 1983 and it quickly became one of the most inspiring sport’s addresses ever made. Bo Schembechler uses specific diction to exemplify the values that he wishes to instill into his players and carefully creates the everlasting motif of The Team, while using repetition to create a speech that is regarded
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Throughout the address, Bo uses unambiguous diction to promote the principles that he believes his team must possess in order to win. He begins by expressing, “…but there's gonna be one Team that's gonna play solely as a Team” (Schembechler). The conciseness of this declaration along with the use of words such as ‘solely’ and ‘one’, promotes the idea that there is a definite way to win and it is to accept one of the purest principles: team work. This statement alludes to the fact that if the Michigan football program is willing to embrace the idea of team work they cannot lose. Schembechler later says, “everything that you do, you take into consideration what effect does it have on my Team?” (Schembechler). He conveys the ideals of accountability and selflessness by clearly stating that every action of an individual player will influence the entire football team. In “The Team”, Bo Schembechler is able to emphasize every aspect of the everlasting “Michigan Man” tradition and establish the values of what it means to be a member of the University of Michigan football team, which is one main reason that this speech stands as the best in Michigan’s