"I want to be a professional athlete."
That's what I used to say as kid when someone asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. As I got older, that dream got more and more unrealistic, but it was still secretly the dream. My ultimate goal. It wasn't until recently that that dream became realistic. At 27 years old I finally caught the attention of USA Rugby and was added to the player pool. This was and is one of my biggest and proudest accomplishments, and I'm more motivated now than ever to earn the title of "Eagle #....". So let me tell you what it's taken for me to get here, how hard it actually is, and how much further I need to go to accomplish the end goal.
Let's get one thing clear: It’s really freakin hard. Physically and mentally the hardest thing I've ever done (and I was in the Army). What makes it so hard? For starters I'm training for an unknown outcome with an unknown timeline. Most goals have an end date. A tryout, a race, an event. Mine doesn't until I decide enough is enough and I'm done going after it. Not only is there no timeline, but I don't know if I will ever be capped, and yet I attack every single day like I will. Forget the physicality of the game itself and training that goes into it, but that mental burden alone is enough to stop people from trying.
It’s an extreme commitment. Living in Maine, I travel two hours to and from Boston 2-3x/week during the season for practice and home games. I fly accross the country on weekends to play against the best in the USA. I left home for months to live in California and South Africa to train. All of that before I even made the player pool. All of that just because I love it that much and have an absurd amount of self belief. Spoiler alert, I'm in the process of planning out logistics to play for a team in Richmond, England in the next few months. Again, I'm leaving my home, my wife Zoe and dog Bruno, for anywhere from 8 weeks to 5 months just for the chance to keep playing and improving my game.
It's exhausting and I’m tired most of the time. That commute to Boston during the season? I don't get home until 12-12:30am after practice. I'm flying to games on Friday and back home on Saturday. Taking red eyes and dealing with lay overs so I can make it back to work because I cant afford time off. Still doing conditioning and hitting the weight room 2-3x/week on top of practice to stay sharp. In the off season I’m up at 6am for my first session of the day. I train at least once a day and more often than not it’s at least twice a day. In fact it's pretty rare for me to only have one session a day now that I think about it.
If you haven't gathered by now, chasing this dream requires a ton of sacrifice. It's difficult to make time for my friends outside of rugby, so my social life is almost none existant during the season. I don't see or talk to my family as often as I should. I don't have a stable job/income (this is a big stressor) so I've had to sell my things to afford plane tickets. I spend a lot of time away from my Zoe and Bruno, so any free time I get I want to spend it with them. Those are the big ones that people think of when they hear the word "sacrifice", but there's also little daily decisions I make that others wouldn't. I go to bed early so I can get a full nights sleep because I get up early. Despite how much I show myself indulging in ice cream, I eat clean 90% of the time. And 90% of that 90% are the same meals every day.
Lastly, the journey is lonely. Living so far from my teammates, I do most of my sessions alone or with Zoe. I’m lucky that she and I have schedules that allow us to train in the mornings together, otherwise that would really suck. I'm also lucky that she's willing to do these workouts with me and help me in any way she can. Having that support is huge and I know for a fact that I wouldn't be where or who I am today without that. So if you too want to chase a dream, athletic or not, I strongly encourge you to surround yourself with people who want to see you win and will help you get there.
Reading all of that you might think "damn that sounds miserable", and sometimes it is. Sometimes it sucks getting out of bed when it's still dark out. Sometimes it sucks eating the same meal over and over again. But most of the time I don't look at it like that. I don't look at all the sacrifes, the commitments, the unkowns, as negatives. They've become apart of my life. It's just normal for me now. I know that not everyone wants to live like I do, and I respect the hell out of that. Sometimes I wish I could take my foot off the gas a bit and chill out. But I love... I mean LOVE, playing rugby. Especially competitively. And once I realized I can compete at a high level, my love for the game grew exponentially. I'm at a point in my life where I can really get after it and chase this dream with nothing really holding me back except myself. My hope is that this article doesn't discourage people, but rather inspires them to embrace the challenge. And remember, it's supposed to be hard.
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