Much like the guys who play for his league, NFL Commissioner Goodell spent months training for a 14,411 foot climb that could be considered the equal of a Super Bowl game. It was an experience he would later tell as the biggest “physical, emotional and probably mental” challenge of his life. According to the National Parks Service, each year only about half of the 10,000 climbers who try to reach the top of Mt. Rainier will make it. Commissioner Goodell joined Seahawks CEO Tod Leiweke, Seahawks Head Coach Jim Mora and a few others to climb Mt. Rainier to raise money for United Way. They were able to raise a total of $100.3 million.
"It's scary," said Goodell. "I've got to tell you, when you look down and literally you can't see the bottom, and then they ask you to step over it, you say, 'I don't know about this. Let me think about this for a second.' I hadn't really focused much on that, and there's a lot of [crevasses] out there."
Although the climb took much longer than 60 minutes, Commissioner Goodell considered it his PLAY 60, the NFL's program that encourages everyone to get at least an hour of physical exercise a day. The Commissioner’s training mostly included running up and down the stairs of New York skyscrapers. Even with all the training and preparation, he didn’t know what to expect. “You have to overcome your own self-doubt. It’s fear, man. Serious fear.” And he thought his day job was tough.
