The history books quietly bypassed is that Barack Obama, during the most pressure-saturated nights of his presidency, would retreat alone to the Treaty Room on the second floor of the White House residence — not to strategize, not to take calls, but to handwrite personal letters to ten ordinary American citizens every single night, a practice he maintained with almost monastic devotion across all eight years, selecting the letters himself from the 40,000 that arrived daily at the White House, and his longtime correspondence director Fiona Reese confirmed that Obama would often weep privately while reading certain letters, folding them carefully before writing responses so personally detailed and emotionally present that recipients frequently described the experience of receiving them as the most significant moment of their lives, with one Ohio steelworker writing back to say that Obama's letter had physically stopped him from making a decision that would have permanently altered his family's future. What makes this practice almost unbearably moving is the detail that surfaced later — Obama never used a computer for these letters, always a black felt-tip pen, always legal yellow paper first as a draft, always rewritten onto White House stationery by hand a second time, because he believed, as he told historian Doris Kearns Goodwin in a rare private conversation later recounted in her 2018 work, that the physical act of pressing pen to paper forced a quality of attention that typing simply could not replicate, a philosophy rooted in his years as a constitutional law professor at the University of Chicago from 1992 to 2004 where he developed the conviction that democracy only functions when its leaders remain genuinely, uncomfortably close to the specific gravity of individual human suffering rather than processing it from behind the insulating distance of institutions and screens."
These are our obligations as human beings…
1. Carry your own weight
2. Realize your potential
3. Stand up to bullies
4. Enjoy the gift of life
5. Leave this place better than you found it
130 schools said no.
He led the losingest program in college football history to a national championship anyway.
Fernando Mendoza was a 2-star recruit from Miami.
He tried to walk on at his hometown school. They passed.
So did FIU.
So did FAU.
So did everyone else.
At 17, he was sitting in his bedroom, crying over a silent recruiting inbox—after driving to 18 camps with his dad and sending highlights to more than 100 programs.
Not one FBS offer.
His only option? Yale. No scholarship. No NFL path.
Everyone told him to be “realistic.”
“Know your place.”
“Be grateful.”
He didn’t listen.
Because Mendoza understood something most people miss:
The worst outcome isn’t failing.
It’s never getting the chance to try.
Two weeks before signing day in 2022, his phone rang.
Cal needed a body. One offer. Out of 134 schools.
He took it.
He arrived as the third-string quarterback.
Spent a year on the scout team.
Lost his first four starts.
Got sacked 41 times behind a broken offensive line.
Still got up. Every time.
Then Cal brought in a transfer instead of building around him.
So Mendoza left the only school that had ever said yes.
He transferred to Indiana—the losingest program in college football history.
People laughed.
“Career suicide.”
“Graveyard program.”
“Nobody wins there.”
One coach told him something different:
“I’m going to make you the best Fernando Mendoza possible.”
That was enough.
Mendoza wasn’t just playing for football.
His mother has battled multiple sclerosis for 18 years.
Before every snap, he thought of her.
“My mother is my why.”
Indiana went 16–0.
Beat six Top-10 teams.
Won their first Big Ten title since 1945.
Mendoza threw 41 touchdowns.
Won the Heisman—first in school history.
First Cuban-American to ever do it.
Then came the title game.
Miami. Near his hometown.
Fourth-and-4. Season on the line.
Quarterback draw.
The kid 134 schools rejected spun through defenders and dove into the end zone.
Game over.
Indiana—national champions.
The losingest program became the best team in America.
All because a 17-year-old refused to believe “no” was the end.
Rankings don’t decide your ceiling.
Gatekeepers don’t write your ending.
Being overlooked isn’t a verdict—it’s a starting point.
Sometimes all you need is one shot…
and the courage to bet on yourself when nobody else will.
Don’t quit.
Credit: Barclay Mullins
Yes @NDFootball left out of the playoffs is hard to comprehend. Can the committee logically explain how they could have ND in the Top 12 ahead of Miami for 5 weeks and then leave them out in the end, after Miami lost to 2 currently unranked teams. Where is the logic??
@YouTubeTV Come ON!! Settle with Disney already! I miss my ESPN and ABC. I’m getting them through other providers for the moment and will drop YouTube TV soon if this isn’t resolved. No reason to keep multiple platforms.
Mental health IS health—so take care of yourself and your mind.
Visit https://t.co/c5LmYsxeew for resources and support if you or someone in your life is struggling with mental health.
I love being back in Michigan.
There’s a lot at stake in this election, but one thing is clear: @KamalaHarris and @Tim_Walz are ready to lead our country forward and deliver for the American people. But that can only happen if we all vote.
So vote early by mail, in person or on November 5th, and reach out to your friends, family, and coworkers and help them make a plan to vote, too. https://t.co/q00n5Woojf
Thanks to Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) updates, people can now apply for PLSF within days versus months.
Read more about these new updates and how they're making the process more straightforward & streamlined: https://t.co/gsu6jyum1y
NASP is proud to release another batch of virtual posters! Check out new and exciting research on topics like school belonging, mental health interventions, parental engagement, autism spectrum disorders, early childhood education, and more. https://t.co/COWfeBkTlP
NASP guidance can be helpful to caregivers through both expected and unexpected difficulties this summer. We encourage you to share these resources with your school community and other organizations that may be engaging with youth over the summer months.
https://t.co/P1YMIlQFVf
A man just collapsed at the ATL airport. Unresponsive. Not breathing. Turning blue. All in an instant, strangers raced to his aid—some administering CPR, others grabbing the defibrillators nearby—as several of us stood praying. After a scary minute or so, he kicked a leg and started breathing,
It would be another 5 minutes before paramedics arrived on the scene. Were it not for the immediate action taken by those strangers—people who knew nothing about this man, people who would soon scatter to their own destinations, people this man will never get the opportunity to thank—he would be dead right now, headed to the morgue instead of home to his family.
A vivid reminder of our shared humanity. One I won’t soon forget.