I believe time is something most of us take for granted. In the literal sense, time is something that we can never get back, yet most people don’t seem to realize that until they lose something of value. I’m not saying be anxious all the time and worry about what you’re doing every second of the day but just ask yourself, are you making the most out of your time today?

Every day at 5 A.M, my alarm goes off. Half asleep, I force myself out of bed into the bathroom to start preparing for the day ahead. What’s my first task of the day? Well, it’s to go and workout and perfect my craft. For those who may be wondering, my craft is football. It’s a sport I fell in love with fairly late in my life, since I only started playing in high school.

Always knew I’d want to play sports professionally when I grew up, but couldn’t decide which sport until I found football.

My story is no different than most athletes, I was just a small town kid with big dreams to play at a big Division 1 school then eventually go to the pros. Funny when I look back, I had my entire life planned out up until I made it to the league. Needless to say, things have not gone according to plan. I’m a junior in college, and at this point of my life I was supposed to have declared early for the draft and be on my way to the NFL. Yet it’s my junior year and I have not even been able to play a single down of college football.

I’ve always felt in life that you could achieve anything you wanted in life as long as you put the work in. No matter what it was, if I worked hard enough, I knew I would be able to achieve any goal. The path to playing college ball has been a tough one for me. I have faced my fair share of obstacles. I had to come to Rutgers University and walk on to the team. I tried out and made the team no problem, but yet was not able to play.

Next semester comes, then my grades stop me from playing.

I get my priorities straight and try out again. Once again I make the team, and I was just a couple days away from getting my jersey until it was discovered I would need surgery on my shoulder because of a previous injury years ago in high school. The obstacles drained me almost completely. I barely even worked out at this point. My surgery was the turning point in my life.

The Stockdale Paradox: a concept introduced in the Jim Collins book Good to Great, explains that you must maintain unwavering faith that you can and will prevail in the end, regardless of the difficulties, and at the same time have the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be.

In a study done by the International Committee for the Study of Victimization, they looked at people who had suffered serious adversity. The results of the study showed that people generally fell into three groups. Those who let the adversity keep them down, those who get their lives back to normal, and those who take that adversity and grow stronger.

I’m in that third group.

The brutal facts of my situation? Well the biggest one is time. I have two years remaining to play college football. The surgery sparked something in me, and helped me realize that the journey will be hard, but I’m completely capable of doing it.

I have to work every day, and I have to work harder than everybody else to achieve my goal. Just like the good-to-great companies, I understand the brutal facts, and I will not hesitate to face them.

For two years, I worked for the Rutgers Football program under the direction of Kyle Flood. In my time there, beginning with the 2014 season, there was a universal thought amongst my co-workers and college football fans that Kyle Flood was in over his head leading the Rutgers Football team program as it entered one of the most competitive divisions in college football, the Big Ten East.

Sure, we thought we could become bowl eligible, but we did not expect to exceed that. These many doubts proved to be true, and Kyle Flood’s tenure as the head coach of the Rutgers Football team proves what Seth Godin wrote in Tribes: “If you don’t have the ability to lead, it can be dangerous to try.”

From 2012-2015, During his time leading the program, the team endured twelve total arrests, involving ten different players. Also, Kyle Flood himself was found guilty of academic misconduct after violating university code when attempting to lobby for a player’s grade to be improved to make the player eligible for the upcoming season.

All of these occurrences over a four-year period led to his failure as a leader and dismissal from his position as head coach of the football program.

I believe that these issues can ultimately boil down to failure in communication at the organizational level. Successful communication relies on a level of trust within an organization, which will keep a singular focus and allow for collaboration amongst it’s members.

I found that there were failures at both the internal and external levels. Internally, communication within the program was poor. For example, Coach Flood always stated in the off-season that we were “competing for a Big Ten Championship.” That was simply not a realistic message to give to his team as those hopes were usually dashed three weeks into the season.

It was these types of unattainable goals that ultimately lead to establishing a culture of failure.

Externally, Coach Flood explicitly attempted to distort the truth in the academic scandal that ultimately led to his firing.  When asked why he used a private email account instead of his university registered account, he said, “The issue with the private email was really just to protect the student-athlete, a student-athlete whose academic record had always been, to some degree, on public display when it shouldn’t have been.”

If a player is in good academic standing, then their academic record would never have been a topic. This player was not in good standing, and by saying this, Flood not only removed his athlete’s responsibility for being a topic of media coverage but also hid the real reason for using a private email, which was likely to erase any trail of his wrongdoing. This failure of external communication furthered an already negative perception of his leadership within the program.

None of these failures became so clear to me until I got the opportunity to operate under the new coaching staff at Rutgers University lead by Chris Ash.

After watching just one practice I saw that, as Simon Sinek wrote in Start with Why, “there are leaders, and there are those who lead.”

A leader, Kyle Flood, is merely someone who holds a position by title.  But someone who leads, Chris Ash, can be any person, regardless of a title, that does what is needed to be done. The simplicity of Coach Ash’s messages and central theme of accountability are extremely refreshing adjustments from the far reaching goals of the Kyle Flood Era.

This is evident in the way the staff delivers information to the team, fans, and media.  At his introductory press conference, Coach Ash clearly showed how his style contrasts to that of Kyle Flood.

When asked if winning championships was a realistic goal for his program, he answered, “we’re not going to make a lot of goals that talk about results with winning games and championships. We’re going to worry about making goals that make us better tomorrow than we were today.”

“It’s about getting better every single day,” he said.

Being present at practices this winter, I can honestly say that he has stuck to this quote every day. Therefore, there is better internal and external communication in the Rutgers Football program.

In addition to an improvement in communication, Coach Ash also shows that he has begun the process of finding a path to greatness by confronting the brutal facts of the program’s current reality.  It is ultimately a fact that Rutgers will not win the Big Ten this year, and Coach Ash accepts that.

But he is willing to focus on the things that he feels he can control and make his players more capable of becoming champions. He does this simply by holding them accountable and demanding maximum effort.  I have personally been inspired by his messages without having a conversation with him, and I feel motivated to be a better person by having the opportunity to be in his presence.

On the first day, walking into lecture for Organizational Behavior in Sport Management, I had the mindset I had for most of my classes. Another day where I learn information that most likely will not impact my life after the class is over.

However, I was wrong.

Out of all the lectures I have taken at Rutgers University as well as the University of Tampa, this class impacted me on a personal level. The youngest professor I have ever had the privilege to learn from happens to be the most inspirational professor I have had. Every week we watch videos and read from various assigned books and learn about ways in which we can improve our life. The greatest quote that has impacted my life so far was a quote from Simon Sinek; “people don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it.”

Junior year of high school I began writing lyrics, predominantly rap lyrics, and realized I had a talent for this. After I finished writing my first full song I decided to invest in a microphone and software. I recorded my first song and put it out for everyone to hear.

The following day this song became the talk of my high school, even teachers were playing it in class.

Of course some people did not like the song, but a far greater amount of people did like it. I realized that a hobby of mine suddenly became the one thing I was most passionate about.

Each day in school I had people approach me. A few negative people asked me, “Why are you rapping? You know that you will never make it as a rapper.” This would faze most people, however this did not faze me. I answered them and said I do this for myself, I believe in myself and that belief will attract people that believe in me. Let me tell you, my response really put a halt to the negativity I was receiving. A burning desire deep inside me told me that no matter what happens with this passion of mine I will never give it up.

Fast-forward five years later I finally have a fan base I worked so hard to achieve. I have people that believe in me, these people want to help me achieve the goal I set out to achieve, to make it. However, music is not the only thing I do this for.

I want to be able to use my influence to help people in the world.

I would like to enlighten people to the everyday problems the world faces. I would like to make change, and I believe in changing people’s lives in a positive way. I want people to buy my music and support me because they believe in the same beliefs I believe in; a better world where the media doesn’t shape everyone to turn a blind eye on the problems with useless propaganda.

I would like to make a movement that reaches far past album sales and merchandise sales, material items. It’s not about what I do with the music, it’s about the impact my music has on the lives I touch, this is why I do it.

There are two important topics I have learned in Organizational Behavior of Sport Management that are very similar to experiences have had in my life. These two topics are the subject of Tribes from Seth Godin’s novel “Tribes” and Level 5 Leadership from Jim Collins’ novel “Good to Great”.

The definition of a tribe is “any group of people, large or small, who are connected to one another, a leader, and an idea.” Based on this definition, tribes exist in many different forms; whether they are businesses, sports teams, non-profit organizations, charity organizations, etc. However, tribes cannot be what they are without following the attributes of leadership, teamwork and generosity. Godin says that “Leaders who set out to give are more productive than leaders who seek to get.” In my senior year in high school, I have experienced tribes as well as leadership that perfectly demonstrates the attributes of tribes.

The tribes I was involved in were sports teams such as the Varsity Men’s Soccer Team as well as student tribes such as the Jackson National Honor Society. In my experience on the soccer team, our goal was to not only win games and the State and Shore Conference finals but to have a good time together and to help the freshman and junior varsity players become leaders. In my experience in the National Honor Society, our goal was to promote academic excellence, service to the community, and leadership for the real world.

These tribes are different regarding ideology and activities they do, but one thing they have in common is that they demonstrate the same attributes that make up an excellent tribe. 

Without these attributes, there would be no leadership or teamwork in the tribe and eventually the tribe would cease to exist. Not only did I have experiences of tribes throughout my life, I have also had experience with Level 5 Leadership. Level 5 Leadership is defined as Level 5 executives who build enduring greatness through a paradoxical blend of personal humility and professional will. Through the experience I had with the Varsity Soccer Team and the National Honor Society, I had seen a bit of Level 5 Leadership. The soccer team’s captain had an agenda to lead the team to the State and Shore Conference Finals and win. Unfortunately, we did not win, but the captain did express personal humility which was a big and bold move for a captain.

That kind of leadership is what actually lead the team to the finals in the first place.

If only Rutgers Football and Men’s basketball had that kind of leadership and teamwork they would’ve been an excellent team that is very worth watching on television and spectating at the stadium and the court. Regarding the National Honor Society, the president followed the organization’s agenda to promote academic excellence and create great leaders which was the professional will of a Level 5 leader. There were some instances where followers didn’t follow their roles and broke a few of the organization’s rules, but the president took it upon himself to stop the disorder and take full responsibility for the organization’s mistakes.

The attributes of personal humility and professional will are considered a paradoxical blend because it is impossible to mix them into one single attribute. However, through my experience with both tribes, I was able to see the Level 5 Leadership in the team captain and the president of the National Honor Society. Both leaders didn’t let their ego get in the way of ambition for team and the organization and concern for their success. They also took responsibility for any mistakes or disorder that may have happened in the team and the organization.

This is why in today’s world we all need tribes and leadership like the tribes and leadership I have experienced. If we do not have them, then there would be nothing left to do in our lives and humanity would no longer function as a whole.

I don’t consider myself leader material. I am a “normal” college student that is doing everything in his power to make sure that I along with many “sheep-walkers,” finish college, get a steady job, get married, and retire. This unfortunately, is the easy way out according to many, including myself.

One thing is for sure, I do not want that and don’t really think the reader wants that either. We are a generation that wants to make change, yet when things get tough, we retract into this safe zone we call the easy way out of life, and to be honest, I’m really tired of doing that and want to start making a difference, not only in my life but in others.

I want to thank Jason Belzer and Tribes author Seth Godin for making me despise the word sheep-walker. I along with some students in one class fall semester thought of a decent idea involving Rutgers Athletics and student fans. I want to let you know that in order to really lead, you have to have everyone on board, meaning as author Jim Collins says, “…first get the right people on the bus (and the wrong people off the bus) before you figure out where to drive it” (Good to Great 44).

I learned that a level-5 leader is one of the most selfless people anyone can meet. They are to me, one of the most successful people that can run a company, as well as run their lives in the best possible way. They also tend to have a lot of rigor when they need to get from good-to-great. These people may be the most humble, but they need to know when to get the right people and put them in right seats when they make their way toward greatness traveling on the bus. I think that I have yet to fill my bus with the right people when it comes to the idea that I would like to present to the Chief Marketing Officer as well as Athletic Director Patrick Hobbs of Rutgers University.

This idea is in regard to making the athletic program more appealing to the students as we usher in a new era within Rutgers.

The group in my sport marketing class wants to provide students with a valid type of entertainment during their time at Rutgers. This idea is easier said than done. I understand that at first this idea will be shot down over and over until we as a group can come to an agreement and the CMO and Mr. Hobbs find it to be feasible. I hope to make sporting events at the University more welcoming, give an opportunity for students to gain school spirit, and treat themselves to possible prizes in the process as well. I want students to enjoy their time while they are at the university, as well as advocate for the athletic program for a school that is in a constant “doom loop” that seems to be okay with mediocrity.

The school’s athletic success is something that the fans cannot control and is completely understandable, yet the teams must understand that there are brutal facts to endure. This is from someone who wants to lead students in the right direction and help bring some school spirit to a once prominent school. I must say that we do not excel at sports and we do not do enough to provide students with a great experience, due to the lack of talent.

We as a group can help one another at first by finding students willing to attend events by giving them a chance to win some things for a possibly point-reward systems strictly for students and from there in, help them realize that these events are exciting and fun. You also have to understand that with enough generated interest over time and become one of the most spirited University.

It does not take ONE person, but many to help accomplish such a goal.

It also starts with having the right leader, one who is not willing to take all the credit, and one that can realize that without the right people in the right seats on the bus, there is a chance that some ideas are good and can become great with the likes of good people that all agree on a great idea.

Again, I do not consider myself a leader, just someone who thinks they have a great idea along with a great group of kids. Real leaders take action and make sure that they are dedicated and stop at nothing to ensure there is an idea set in motion. It is with this idea that he plans not to forward himself to success, but forward those that he brought along for the ride and make sure that they all reach the top.

Being an Exercise Science – Sport Management major gives people the impression that I know what LeBron James eats before a game; in reality, I’d have to Google what team he plays for because I have no idea. While I posses very little knowledge about traditional team sports, my focus is completely dedicated to the sport of Motocross.

Most people laugh when I tell them that Professional Motocross is considered one of the most physically demanding sports in the world (Google seems to agree). In the Rutgers community, Motocross is an incredibly unfamiliar and underrepresented sport. It is astounding that a sport filled with such passion, commitment, and athleticism is curtained off from mainstream sport culture. Athletes continue to risk their lives in pursuit of a podium finish, regardless of the minimal reward.

This behavior can be better understood by reading Seth Godin’s Tribes. Seth Godin’s concept of a tribe is defined as a group of people who are connected to One Another, a Leader, and an Idea. This unfathomable desire to push the possible limits of man and machine is the core principle that makes the Motocross community a perfect medium for tribes to assemble. When I began reading Tribes, I immediately related everything to my own experiences involving riding and racing dirt bikes. Something that I can personally attest to, is that Motocross is something that you try once, and if you like it, it becomes a part of you for the rest of your life; the same can presumably be said about sport in general.

I first started riding dirt bikes when I was in first grade.

My neighbor owned a Honda Motorcycle dealership at the time, and let me borrow a bike to learn on. After eight years of riding recreationally, I started racing the East Coast Enduro Association (ECEA) Championship Hare Scramble Series. By freshman year of college, I qualified as an A-Class Racer, one step below AA/Pro class. Though I no longer race, I was able to land an internship with ECEA working along side their marketing department. The races themselves resemble a cross-country running event with motocross bikes, and are organized by local Off-Road Motorcycle Clubs, one of which I am apart of.

These events are profitable, but nobody within ECEA or their sanctioned clubs accepts a paycheck. Instead, revenue generated is given back to the hosting community, and used to cover the costs of the next event. The fact that nobody in the organization gets paid is a testament to the passion that these people have for perpetuating the sport. A large contributor to why ECEA is able to operate for its 44th consecutive year is because they use leverage to gain access to event properties. Using Godin’s Crowbar theory, ECEA promises profits and donations that will be recycled back into the local economy in one way or another. For example, after the Stump Jumper Hare Scramble, the organizing club, MCI, purchased AED devices for Eagleswood Township to install in their ambulances.

This is just one example of how an organization can go above and beyond to boost PR and gain access to otherwise unobtainable resources. ECEA and its clubs all embody what Seth Godin would consider a tribe. The organizational structure of ECEA consists of a President, Vice President, and subsequent leadership positions. Clubs have their own similar organizational structure using strategic positions and meetings that align with ECEA guidelines and goals.

While this organization has structure, it is not at all resistant to change.

Most of the board members are 45 years old, or older. When I came in to assist their marketing team, they were using an outdated, and terribly branded marketing strategy that I wanted to change. I was able to redesign their website, and series logos without opposition or resistance from existing ECEA leadership. Couple that with a redesigned social media plan, and ECEA is naturally progressing despite exclusively using volunteer efforts.

Overall, I believe that the off-road motorcycle community provides a unique system of continued progression purely due to the communication and collaboration of enthusiasts.

F.A.M.I.L.Y- forget about me, I love you. This is what family means to Rutgers.

And personally, I believe in it because my father proves it to me everyday. Those who are fortunate can say their family means the world to them…and this is my explanation.

In Jim Collins’s book Good to Great, he explains what he believes is a level 5 leader. He says that a level 5 executive is someone who “builds enduring greatness through a paradoxical blend of personal humility and professional will.”

As soon as I read this definition, it was as if a light bulb went off in my head. In my world, Jim Collins was explaining my father.

My dad, or as I call him Daddy, is a master at perfectly balancing his personal humility and professional will for the sake of our family.   Lets start with professional will. No matter how busy, how stressed, or how tired my father is, he drops everything in times of the family’s needs.

In high school, I competed with an all-star cheerleading team, which meant that every weekend was a trip to a new state. At the same time, my sister was on a competitive travel soccer team. In order to help my mother out, he came up with a plan. Every competition that was a long drive, my dad would drive me and my mother would go with my sister. This meant about a six-hour drive on Friday night and a six-hour drive home, through the very late hours of the Sunday evening and most often, early a.m. hours on a Monday.

When competitions were far enough to take a plane, he would always offer my mother to go, allowing her to always have the easier travel.

Going to college six hours from home gets pretty hard sometimes. When I want to surprise my mother and sister for a weekend, my father is at my school in exactly six hours to pick me up and bring me home. Six hours here, six hours back. And let’s not forget the twelve-hour trip to bring me back on Monday for classes. Professional will. A plan, an idea, a strategy.

This is something my father will always possess. Personal humility.

Lets talk about the topic of travel soccer and all-star cheerleading again. Two passions that my sister and I acquired. One word that would always float in the back of our heads; expensive. Providing us with a great house, a surplus of toys at Christmas time, and endless amounts of food, my sister and I still knew our parents didn’t have a money tree in the backyard. Knowing the cost of these two activities, it was never a problem for my father. He truly wanted us to cherish what we loved, even if this meant money out of the family savings.

He financially extended himself to make sure he gave his children what they wanted. College, out-of-state college. Scary for my mother and I, but never a problem for my father. His mindset is always geared toward living in the moment. His optimism is what keeps him calm, cool, and collected and certain that the future is going to be bright.

Jim Collins describes the process of the window and the mirror: “Level 5 leaders look out the window to apportion credit to factors outside themselves when things go well, and if they cannot find a specific person or event to give credit to, they credit good luck.”

One of the main reasons my family is so passionate is because of my father. But he would never admit this. If you asked him why our family is the way it is, he would say because of his three girls. I guarantee he would look out the window and credit a million people and good luck before he credited himself, the person the credit really belongs to.

Honestly, I am the lucky one.

I am the luckiest girl in the world to call this man my father. I could easily go on and on about all the great things he does for our family. As soon as I submit this, I will probably think of a few more great examples I wish I added.  I just want to say thank you to Jim Collins for being able to put in words the kind of leader my father is. I also want to say thank you to my father, for being the person you are everyday. My love for you is unconditional, and our family is truly blessed with you. Thank you for being my superhero.

The key word to focus on in this statement alone is ‘grit.’ We will not be able to win on talent alone. He did not say we are never going to win a game.

If this were the case we may as well all toss in the towel and never look back. The conversation was started with the obvious intention to figure out what we need to do to take games from teams who physically outmatch us, because it is possible.

The trick is to accept that it is not possible to win if we continue on the same path, while keeping faith that if we commit to making change, we can and will win.

The brutal truth is that we are outmatched on paper.

B1G ten volleyball teams are built to be larger than life girls who are great jumpers, with powerful swings, and heavy serves. Winning teams in the B1G ten get the top physical recruits in the nation. We don’t happen to be that team. We’re not going to magically jump touch a foot higher than we do now to match the teams we are playing against.

None of us are going to grow five inches either. These are all things we know to be true. But we went neck and neck with a lot of these teams, falling short time and time again by tiny margins. So what tips the scale in our favor? Every uphill battle to ever exist has been won at the fighting fists of people who not only possess but understand and live their lives through one principle; grit.

Grit calls for a steel backbone and an unwavering and unafraid resolve driven by passion and purpose.

For the uphill battle winners, the saying, “Success comes to those who wait.” is a load of crap. They live their lives knowing that the hill is conquered by those who outwork yesterday’s best today. They continue to strive for this day after day. Yet through this grueling and time consuming process they still possess a level of passion to warrant patience while climbing. Patience is essential for the climb; waiting is not. The reality of the situation is we can no longer wait and stare up in awe from the bottom of the hill at teams who have reached the top. We need a direction to go, preferably up.

In the book Good to Great, by Jim Collins, to become a great team, the right people have to be “on the bus.” I believe the right people are. We’ve done the grueling practices, and long days in the gym, exhausting traveling weekends, staying up until the early hours of the morning in the hotel lobby finishing schoolwork.

However, so have the teams we compete against. Beyond this I am confident the right people are on our bus because above all else, those of us who remain have chosen to stay on board. Our past competition season was the ultimate test. The players struggled, the coaches struggled, some people left the bus, and others were kicked off.

What we are left with is a bus at a stand still, full of people that have chosen not to get off despite these struggles.

For that reason alone the remaining members of this team possess the grit and faith that we need to win. The piece of the puzzle we were missing is now staring us in the face. We will not win on talent alone. Confronted with this truth, we keep the faith that we will win, go back to the drawing board, and figure out how to begin the climb. The only direction left to go is up.