I am a passionate competitor. Before I won any awards or records and before I was a captain of any teams I was still a competitive athlete. I played street hockey in a hurricane, worked on my jump shot until my flashlight ran out of batteries, and ran 18 miles in a blizzard that shut down the state. When I’m passionate about something I pour everything I have into it because I never want to have regrets and second chances are not guaranteed.
In June of 2006 I was going into my senior year of High School and was the newly voted captain of the track team and my coach showed me a surprising statistic. My High School had, between the years of 1994 and 2004, gone 136-7 in duel meets. The previous season we had gone a measly 0-8. I spent the whole day wondering how our team had come to such terrible ruin and then decided that as a competitive person and captain of the team it was my responsibility to change this. Now one person cannot bring an entire track team back from the bottom of the league (there were 15 events!) this had to be a very large team effort. That year I gave everything I had into turning that track team back into champions, I recruited, I motivated, and I led by example. The previous season our average team size was 30 athletes and we went 0-8 but that year we had well over 100 athletes and we went 7-1.
My favorite memories from that year were watching all of my teammates improve with me and how passionate some of them became about their sport. Whether watching veterans become league champions or watching (one of many) first timers make varsity. It was the change in the atmosphere that I remember most. In previous years we would have athletes skip out on meets and practices because they cared so little but that year we had teammates who were so nervous about not letting each other down they would get sick before they even ran the race. That drive was also what motivated me to make sure everyone was putting the work in and believed in what we were doing and most importantly believed in each other. At the end of the year our coach presented a plaque to each captain commemorating how our leadership abilities had turned that program around. I believe that team’s passion and willingness to believe in itself are what really turned them around.
Throughout college and into my professional career that experience has stayed with me. Whenever I meet an athlete for the first time and they tell me how passionate they are about themselves, or their team, or their season, I become passionate to. So I am willing to pour everything I have into helping them succeed as well because I don’t want them to have regrets and second chances are not guaranteed.