The last time we spoke, I was giving up a huge dream to pursue what I felt was a calling: to invest my time teaching college men how to play ultimate frisbee. The season recently ended, and one of the players made a tongue-in-cheek suggestion that I write a blog post about the year and title it “Disappointment”. And here we are (thanks for the idea).
 
The title is apt, because this spring the team fell short of virtually all of the goals its members made at the end of last season. Our season ended one tournament before we wanted it to, and although we showed some flashes of great play, we just weren’t consistent enough to reach our intended destination. There are a lot of reasons we struggled: we had a young roster to begin with and then lost a couple of players to graduation at the semester break and several others unexpectedly. Even though we ultimately had about 18 people that remained on the team this spring, we routinely struggled to get 14 (the minimum number for a full scrimmage) at practice.
 
It’s in that context where I find myself analyzing the disappointment I feel with the season. What started as a short mental exercise in reflection quickly became more difficult when I realized that I’m not even sure what I’m disappointed by or who I’m disappointed in. Am I upset with myself for not inspiring my athletes to care more or work harder? Frustrated by the lack of commitment some of the members exhibited? Saddened for those people that did consistently show up, work hard, and improve, only to see those efforts ultimately go unrewarded? If I’m being honest, it’s probably a mix of all of those things.
 
Look, I don’t have illusions of grandeur here. The majority of athletes that join the team have never played ultimate before, so every fall we start out behind many of the other schools in our conference whose rookies come in with several years of high school and youth club under their belts. The general lack of experience in our recruiting pool also means it is that much easier for freshmen who come out to a practice and don’t feel welcomed to find another activity on campus they like instead. Finding the balance necessary to create a culture of intensity while accepting and embracing the challenge of developing talent from scratch each year has historically proved difficult for the team. That’s not something that can be fixed in a couple of months or even a year, but I believe the team is on the right path there.  
 
Back to some self-analysis now. When I played college ultimate, we didn’t have a coach. Heck, we barely had anyone around that had played for longer than two or three years, so in large part we taught ourselves the game. Although there had been some Nebraska players that had gone on to be super successful, they either weren’t really around the team or I just wasn’t aware of them at the time. Consequently, while my teammates and I wanted to and tried to get better, our efforts were often shortsighted and unfocused. I think a common regret among those of my former teammates that still play ultimate is that we wasted so much time being content with mediocrity or satisfied with small improvements instead of big jumps. I often wonder how my ultimate career might have looked if I had started being a better student of the game and more committed to fitness when I was still a student.
 
With that in mind, one of my big goals as a coach is to show my athletes what is possible in the sport of ultimate (and, by extension in any area of life) with dedication and commitment. I know each person has different reasons they join the team and different things they want to get out of ultimate, but I just hate the thought of one of my athletes satisfied now with being average finding out years later they actually want to be great. As such, I work very hard to come up with drills that develop fundamental skills, practice plans that build on one another, and workouts that challenge even my fittest players. I have tried to demonstrate, both through my interactions with the players and in my own off-field pursuits, that I strive for excellence both for myself and for them.
 
A big part of moving toward excellence is defining what that looks like in a given situation. At our first team meeting last fall, we talked about outcome goals (what we wanted to accomplish) and process goals (what we needed to do in order to meet those outcome goals). Everyone knew what the expectations were and seemed like they bought into the vision for the year. But over the course of the next several months, many of those process goals were drowned out by the cacophony of midterms and projects and other activities.
 
After considering that, I suppose I’m okay with my disappointment in the outcome of the season. I’m the kind of person who doesn’t like accomplishing all of the things on my to-do list for the day, because I feel like I could have accomplished more. Being frustrated by a failed outcome goal is an incentive to work harder to reach the next objective. What I really don’t like is being disappointed in the process. Although we did have a young and inexperienced team this year, the framework (process goals) was there. I wasn’t, and none of my players should have been, surprised at how the season ultimately turned out because collectively we fell short at following the road map we’d laid out in September.
 
I probably feel the worst for those athletes that followed the process goals: they attended every practice, put forth maximum effort, and worked on fitness and disc skills on their own time. While each of them certainly had significant individual improvement to show for it, the synergistic character of team sports requires complete buy-in from all parties. At least our returning players get a do-over next year—a chance to learn from this year’s shortcomings and work more cohesively and consistently. Those players that followed the process goals and have played their last game with the team, though, deserved better. They, not I, are the aggrieved parties here.
 
In the long run, I realize that ultimate is just a club sport. Most of my players will probably never play competitive ultimate again once they move on from the team. My athletes are a group of intelligent, involved men and I love hearing about their other interests and activities. They are busy people trying to figure out who they are and how to navigate the minutiae of college life. I get that. Joining a team, though, is signing a social contract with your teammates. Like all agreements, there are obligations associated with that contract: to consistently work hard, to challenge one another, to be present, to hold one another accountable. 
 
My job is to make my athletes better ultimate players, but my role goes beyond that: it is to prepare these men for the rest of their lives beyond college. Having the integrity to make a commitment, whether to an organization or a person, and follow through on what that commitment entails (particularly on the days when you don’t really feel like doing so) is fundamental to success in so many different areas.
 
When practice attendance and effort levels were down this spring, I had a sobering thought: Would the team’s record be exactly the same even if I weren’t here? Ouch. I brought up that thought with a good friend of mine (also a college ultimate coach). Something she mentioned during our conversation really stuck with me: “It’s easy to get your heart broken, especially when you’re passionate. Gotta stay the course even when it’s frustrating.” She’s right. It’s easy to miss the forest for the trees, being consumed by perceived failures and shortcomings so much as to overlook the small markers of progress. I decided then that I’ve got to do the best I can and trust that I’m making a difference, whether the balance of that comes on or off the field.
 
I got a note from one of my players shortly after the season ended, thanking me for my hard work and emphasizing how much he valued being a part of the team. That note confirmed what my coach friend was saying: the good is there, even if it’s not readily apparent.
 
If you’re still reading, I’m sorry for that winding road I just took you down. I guess my takeaway from this reflection is that when you feel disillusioned or disappointed by something you’ve felt is a calling, that you’ve invested so much time and energy into, look for the good, improve where you can, keep the faith, and continue working hard. You are making a difference, even when it doesn’t feel that way.
 
To my returning players, I still stand by what I’ve said all year: I love you and I believe in you and what you can accomplish. I promise to continue to give you my best because I want to get the best out of you. If I can do something differently to help you be your best on or off the field, tell me what it is. Let’s learn from this year, have a great offseason, and come back ready to make some noise next fall.

As most of you know, I spent last winter living in Utah training for the sport of skeleton. It was an incredible experience and one that I will always remember fondly (I’ve written more about training here). A lot of people have asked what my plans are for the coming skeleton season, so I wanted to provide you with an update.

I was actually recently offered another opportunity of a lifetime in the sport (side note: I don’t know how many one-in-a-lifetime opportunities a person is supposed to get, but I’m sure I’m way over the limit): to compete on the World Cup circuit—skeleton’s highest level of competition. The catch? I would be representing the Dominican Republic. I won’t go into the backstory of how I got connected with the federation, but the chance to compete against the very best athletes in the world is so appealing. However, upon reflection, it is with a tinge of sadness—but no regret—that I have decided to decline the World Cup spot and further not return to skeleton training this fall. Allow me to elaborate.

There is a huge part of me that really wants to pursue this chance, and that stems from my belief that everyone is born for greatness and has the potential to do extraordinary things. For several years now, I’ve acutely felt that calling in my own life in the athletic arena, and diving into skeleton represented a further exploration of that nudge beyond my primary sports of ultimate frisbee and volleyball. Although I would certainly expect to come in at the bottom of any World Cup race, being thrown into the pool with the sport’s best athletes would force me to improve more quickly and motivate me to be a more dedicated student of the sport. It would also fulfill a promise I made to myself when deciding to change jobs last summer: to get involved in things that are a little uncomfortable. A former colleague of mine summed up the mantra perfectly in his goodbye email to me: “Keep exploring the world and doing challenging and exciting new endeavors. Life is way too short to not push the envelope.” Skeleton at the World Cup level (or any level, really), would be challenging and offer opportunities for personal growth.

Part of the appeal of skeleton is also a desire to overcome my childhood demons. Growing up, I was a year young for my grade; when you combine that with the fact I was a late bloomer, it’s safe to say I was definitely on the small side when compared with my peers. I don’t ever recall being bothered by my size early in grade school, but anxiety developed and grew as organized sports—rather than idle play—became more a part of the expected experience.

The discomfort reached its apex in my eighth grade year. Although I played tennis at home and thought I was fairly decent, tennis wasn’t an organized sport at my school. Instead, I played soccer and basketball and ran track, none of which I did very well. In fact, I was one of the two smallest and worst basketball players on my school’s C team. Yes, C teams do exist. Although my parents were never anything less than supportive, my internal monologue was not so positive. My self-doubt was also heightened anew every time we’d visit my grandparents’ house, my dad’s myriad medals and trophies serving as a tangible taunt of some genetic gift I must have received but somehow failed to activate.

In the past two or three years, I’ve become laser-focused on improving my fitness and competing at higher levels of volleyball and ultimate. I realize now that, although those are worthwhile goals, I have allowed my identity to get completely wrapped up being an “athlete” and its associated successes/failures. In reality, I think that is a result of me trying to move past seeing myself as a skinny, unathletic, 12 year old C-teamer. Consequently, a significant part of the appeal of starting (and returning to) skeleton stems from the continued desire to adjust that self-view. Although it is certainly great motivation to work hard, I’m fairly confident that even if I won an Olympic gold medal there would still be days when I’d see 12 year old me in the mirror.

One of my newer endeavors has helped me to build on my identity beyond my personal athletic goals and was a big factor in this decision. You see, I started coaching the men’s club ultimate team at the University of Nebraska last August, just before deciding to pursue skeleton in Park City. Initially, I accepted the coach position not out of desire but more out of a sense of obligation. As the season progressed, however, I found that I actually enjoyed coaching more than I ever thought I could. I seriously underestimated the satisfaction of watching “my boys”, as I affectionately call them, develop as both players and people throughout the year.

The tough part in all this is that I missed the meat of the season last year by spending the winter in Utah. That absence, while very fulfilling for me personally, ultimately did a disservice to the team. In order to truly succeed as a coach, it has become apparent to me that I need to be physically present for the entire season. Of course I want to help the team max out its potential, but I also want to encourage the players to develop into good ultimate players and better men. Part of that is giving them the confidence and tools they need to discover the greatness each of them was born for, even if that’s not on the ultimate field. Unfortunately, I can’t accomplish any of those objectives without an all-in commitment. My boys deserve that.

This post is an oversimplification of my decision not to continue to pursue skeleton, and I don’t have enough space here to talk about the ancillary factors that came into play such as cost, logistics, and the like. Honestly, I think I would be happy no matter what I chose. Ultimately, though, I tried to look at not what might be a more fun experience or more valuable for me personally, but rather at where I would be most likely to make a real difference in the lives of others. For now, my head and my heart say that’s staying in Lincoln.

Although I’ve certainly done some very cool things along the way, maybe my skeleton journey hasn’t actually been about becoming a world-class athlete at all. Maybe these experiences and lessons have just been teaching me that my most valuable contribution to the world won’t be a trophy or title or medal but my impact on others. Don’t get me wrong, I am still going to compete and try to be the best athlete I can; however, I don’t know that the best place to do that is on the skeleton track.
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I know that I’ll get jealous of those people whose greatness manifests itself in championship skeleton performances come this winter or the  Olympics, but I’m starting to get comfortable with the idea that although being an athlete is part of my identity, it’s certainly not the only part. If I can simply love those around me well and encourage them to find their own greatness--whatever it is--well, I think that’s pretty great in and of itself.

 If you are unfamiliar with my story over the last couple of months, the phrase "skeleton lawyer" might conjure up images of a dusty pile of bones wildly gesticulating in a courtroom or life slowly draining from an attorney chained to a desk for years on end. Luckily, neither of those visualizations apply to me. You see, I’ve been spending the winter learning the winter sport of skeleton at Utah Olympic Park in Park City but have been incredibly fortunate to still be able to work remotely as a startup/tech/corporate lawyer (makes sense now, right?). As I’m wrapping my time here, I thought I would take a few moments to reflect on my path.

I won’t go into great detail about how I got into the sport of skeleton (there’s already very well-written account of that here), so I’ll start at the beginning of our driving school in November. There were about fifteen or twenty people learning to slide, from high school students to people that were even older than I (I went in fully expecting to be the oldest new slider). As new sliders, we started on curve 11 of the 15-curve track to just introduce us to the feel of sliding before subjecting us to the five-plus g-forces we’d feel when going from the top of the track. As the week progressed, we moved higher—from curve 11 to curve 6 to curve 3—making it almost all the way to the top.

After the one-week driving school we had a break before the beginning of the development program season. When we resumed sliding, only six of the original sliders from our driving school returned. We all resumed at curve 3 and stayed there until the coach felt that we’d progressed enough to move up to the top of the mountain. One by one, my fellow athletes moved up the mountain until only two of us remained at the lower start. I started to become consumed by my failure to reach the top quickly and that obsession with the end result in turn made it impossible to truly focus on the process of daily, incremental improvement.

Well, wouldn’t you know it—I finally moved up to the top of the mountain (yay), and my outcome-based mindset started the vicious cycle of self-doubt all over again. You see, I tend to be a perfectionist, and limiting that aspect of my personality has probably proved to be the most challenging hurdle I’ve faced while being in Utah. Going from the top of the mountain meant training not only with the athletes from my driving school, but some of the best sliders in the world—people that have been skeleteers (yes, I just made that word up) for years. It was so disheartening to always find myself at the back of the pack, seconds behind the day’s leaders, and I hated that each day’s printed time sheets memorialized my failures.

Further, as someone who has been fairly successful at most athletic pursuits, adjusting to this new normal proved incredibly difficult for me. It was so hard to accept that the 100% effort I gave in each training session wasn’t giving me the results I wanted. One day in mid-February, though, one of the more seasoned sliders must have sensed my frustration and took a few minutes to both reassure me that my feelings were normal and encourage me to enjoy the few moments we got on the track each day. From then on, I consciously decided to stop looking at the time sheets, quit comparing myself to other sliders, and focus only on my personal improvement. It’s not that I don’t want to be the fastest or the best, but as a new slider with no previous experience and on a down-market rental sled I realized that those preoccupations were disruptive and taking away from my development.

The path hasn’t necessarily been linear, but realigning my focus has done wonders for both my sliding and my mental well-being. Don’t get the wrong idea, I’m still quite a ways behind the World Cup athletes, but I find that when I concentrate not on the things I can’t control but on the task at hand—making an adjustment to my start, the next curve, feeling the line of the track—the results take care of themselves and I can go home each day content with the effort I’ve given.

For the last part of the winter I’ve continued to try to maintain perspective. When I’m having a rough day at the track, I wonder at how I have been blessed with an opportunity so few people will ever have. I remind myself that personal worth isn’t determined by a place on the podium, a finish time, or a clean run. I think about all the people I love who wished me well when I left Nebraska, who have checked in to see how I’m doing, and who will welcome me back even if I were the worst slider in the world. I reflect on all of the really great people I’ve been able to meet in my very short time around the sport. And I remember that true failure would be running away from the mountain instead of heading to the start line again.

I’m not sure if this will be the end of my skeleton career or if I’ll be back again next year, particularly as it remains to be seen how to successfully train for skeleton and endurance-heavy ultimate. Honestly, I still think I could turn out to be a pretty decent slider with a little more practice, some more sprint work, and my own sled, not an old shabby school sled. Either way, as frustrating as some of the days have been on the mountain, I know I’ll miss them when this experience comes to an end. Luckily, the lessons I’ve learned—humility, commitment, and self-worth—will last well beyond this winter.

I’m writing this for a couple of reasons: first, because those of you who ask how things are going here deserve more than the one sentence response I usually give. Second, because the next time I’m standing in front of a mountain and reaching the top seems impossible I’d like to have a reminder to take it one step at a time. Most importantly, though, the next time I see someone in a season of self-doubt, I want to remember these raw feelings so I can empathize with and come alongside of that person in the same way the other slider encouraged me. If this is the end of skeleton for me, I can’t think of a better lasting legacy.