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GREENSBORO -- The N.C. A&T Aggies' offensive playbook is a thick, bound volume filled with cryptic terms and X's and O's and lines and arrows of outrageous fortune. Its core isn't quite that obtuse.

"This is the beginning of a new day," fullback Eugene Parnell says, beginning another narration of The Creed. "God has given us this day to use as we will. We can either waste it or use it for good. What we do today is important, for we have exchanged a day of our lives for it. We want it to be for good, not bad; for gain, not loss; for success, not failure; in order that we never regret the price that we pay for it."

The Aggies' offensive players, who scored 44 points in last week's season-opening win over Division II Johnson C. Smith, repeat the motto before every practice and every game under direction from John McKenzie, their first-year coordinator. Unlike first-graders' bored attempts at the Pledge of Allegiance, the Aggies' creed is precisely and carefully articulated. And that means something by itself. Attention to detail is important whether the task is recitation or route-running.

"I want that to be something personal within them," said McKenzie, whose charges face Winston-Salem State at 6 p.m. Saturday at Aggie Stadium.

The 76 words are adapted slightly from a motivational saying of unknown origin and celebrated use. On Sept. 28, 1945, for example, the Quakers of Guilford College took the field against a University of Maryland team that had already heard it dozens of times from its first-year leader, a 32-year-old Arkansas native named Paul William Bryant. That was the Bear's first game as a head coach. In the four decades that followed, Bryant was virtually deified for his work at the University of Alabama, where, legend has it, he carried the saying in his wallet at all times.

Never mind that it may be derived from the work of a 19th century Scottish poet and essayist named Thomas Carlyle. In Alabama football circles, it became linked to Bryant.

McKenzie was an assistant at Alabama State in 1987 when he first heard it and couldn't get it out of his head. He has brought it to every subsequent stop in his career -- to Jackson State, Fayetteville State, Delaware State, Alcorn State and now A&T. Aggies coach Lee Fobbs welcomed the idea immediately.

"I tell them each morning," McKenzie said, "that I want them to look themselves in the mirror and say, 'That's the real me.' As a football player and as a man in general, there are some days when you don't want to go. You don't want to get out of bed. You have to have reminders that get you motivated in order for it to be a productive and positive day."

If they're not careful, athletes can fall into a rut. That's particularly true of football players, who get only a dozen game days in return for year-round work. If nothing else, The Creed speaks to the relevance of the seemingly mundane.

"(McKenzie) felt it was something that was really important," Parnell said. "And so we decided to come together and learn it."

Defensive players have their own buzzwords and have allowed the offense to keep The Creed as its own. And why is that?

"For the same reason we don't learn the offensive plays," linebacker Brandon Long said.

For now, it's an offensive thing. And they hope its meaning never goes out of style.

Contact Rob Daniels at 373-7028 or rob.daniels@news-record.com