It doesn't matter that you knocked it out of the park in December or that you taught like a pirate in August – the question is how will you finish?

Two nights a go when I went to bed, I told my husband,

“Don't write FSU off yet, just remember the Georgia Tech game.”

This year, Georgia Tech was just giving it to our long time rivals the University of Georgia — until… until it ended poorly in the last quarter and we lost. Alabama had the same thing happen to them.

It isn't over until it is over. What matters is the score at the end of the game.

What will your score be at the end of the year?

Teachers get tired, that is natural. So do football players or hockey players or basketball players – that is the nature of the game. But what matters is the score at the end of the game.

We've got another five (or six) months at my school to make some plays. There's so much learning left to do. You've got a lot of learning left to do too. Too much learning to let up now.

Epic every second

We can do this, friends. We can encourage each other and work hard and we can finish well. We can want to be epic every day of every moment of every second. We'll fall short sometimes and perhaps we'll fumble, but we'll recover. We may screw up and run the wrong way and have to readjust but we'll turn around and head the right way again. When we're tired we can't see straight, we might run to the sidelines for a moment where a colleague or one of you will smartly slap us on the behind and tell us to keep going (well, maybe not on the behind- that could get someone in trouble, but you get the point.)

It is a process and we are a team.

We are team T.

Team T is you and me and we are teachers and we rock. We've got one of the hardest jobs on this big blue ball and we manage to have a ball and make it. We don't get a lunch hour and are lucky to get a lunch minute but we rock it anyway.

We never know whether we're going to have someone halfway cut off their finger or crying at our desk because they cut off a budding relationship – we don't even know sometimes how we're going to make it through the day. But we do, time and time again.

We're team T.

But this isn't a game – this is life. We have lots to teach – and don't ever think it is just “content” – we teach about life. How to live it. How to keep coming back when you're down and tired. How to work like a dog and fly like an eagle at the same time.

I'm a proud member of team T and I'm going to finish this year well.

Go Team T! Don't quit! Keep going! Teach until the last second – for as FSU and Auburn will tell you after the game Monday night – lots can change in the last seconds of the last days of the last game. Make those seconds count.

Proud and honored to be part of Team T. You're the profession and the professionals for me and I'm proud to be among you. Team T rocks!

On a whim, I took a Team T picture this morning before heading out and put it on this post. Why not share your #TeamT spirit and take a pic too. We are Team T – teachers – and we stick together and work together. Might just add some pep in your step! Go Team T!!