From early childhood through my teenage age years, I used to play multiple sports including football, basketball and baseball. In my college years, I chose to play baseball at the University of Dayton and was a red shirted athlete. I played for three years, and being a student athlete was lot of work. It’s challenging with the studies, multiple practice sessions each day (morning and evening), travel and working during the year to pay for my education/room and board.
I remember one Friday night, all of my friends (mostly baseball players) were going out and wanted me to join them. Well, I had so much work to do for school and told them that I couldn’t. I ended up not going out since I made a decision to do my best at school since I was paying for it though the peer pressure was high. At one point during the Summer, I worked three jobs at a time to help pay for school.
However, that is an example of one choice, and I made a lot of choices of similar nature choice during my 4.5 year tenure in college. Having this discipline and focus on one’s goals has provided me a great career along with meeting new people. I have learned, one gets what you put into something and nothing is free.
My Advice
I think I would tell others to focus on what you need to get done to achieve your highest level. Lifting weights, exercise, cardio and eating right are all important things to consider with the right balance. A trainer can help you with this. With all the new technology that exists today, you need to take advantage of it or others will. You will be left behind since your competition will have the upper hand. I remember hitting .340 in high-school and the inside fastball was really hard for me to hit. Today, if that was an issue, then one can leverage video as a platform to better understand on how to move the hands through the hitting zone quicker. I never had the opportunity in my day since technology wasn’t advanced as today. Lastly, talk to as many experts as you can, and they are a great resource to learn from as a supplement to the technological advances.
Wojo, your story makes me wish that I had a friend like you while I was in College. There weren’t too many athletes that I knew that were doing their homework instead of going out on the weekends. That takes a lot of discipline and for those kids that are reading your story, I hope they are encouraged to make good choices like you did a long time ago. You have been successful in business today but that didn’t come without a sacrifice! Great things don’t come easy! Do they? Thanks again for sharing your story.
Although I did not get to play soccer in college due to tearing my ankle up senior year, I did play in high school and I was never going out during season. I never had time with practices and school work. Plus with drinking going on at parties I didn’t want to get in trouble and suspended from games (which I saw happen a lot) I admire your strength and intelligence in choosing school over partying. Heck…that’s what our 20s were for!
I will add when I decided to go back to school to become a nurse while playing professional football that def was hard work. I missed a lot of things during those years and ultimately retired from playing after a back injury. Then nursing school became much easier cause I had all the time in the world