The meaning behind "Tap The Rock"

It's GAMEDAY!! "@NovaFootball: #TapTheRock http://t.co/rFWlePulMc"

— Villanova Cheer ✌ (@VillanovaCheer) September 6, 2014

You see #TapTheRock all over Twitter and Instagram on game day. Similar to #NoMoreFree for the basketball team, #TapTheRock is the mantra symbolizing the community on the Nova football team, but what does it mean? And where did it come from? Former Villanova Wildcats linebacker Terence Thomas shared the back story of the saying.

It goes all the way back to the 2009 Championship Team. Team Chaplin, Father Rob Hagen, shared the Stonecutter Parable which starts out describing a person wanting to break down a stone using only small chipping tools. The cutter goes on for a while tapping at the stone, eventually succeeding when the stone cracks and falls apart. The message from the story is not reaching the goal. It's realizing that, while the final tap of the rock was the one that broke it, it was all the taps leading up to it that played a key role. Hence, while the final play of the game is the one that wins it, it's the acts of all the individual players that added up to that final play.

As Thomas puts it: "Keep on striving through adversity and everything will turn out okay." The phrase played such a role on the team that it was engraved on the 2009 Championship rings.

9/14 Update: The University Athletic Department's timing is perfect on the topic, as they released this video on Sunday...