Jessie,

It hurts. Being in love hurts, right?

You told me once that I do not know what it is like to truly feel the pain of a broken heart if I had never been “in love” for that first time. The truth is, I have. It might not have been a first love in a traditional sense, when a human shares an intimate connection with another.

However, it was love, it just happened to be a bond with a round, orange inanimate object full of air.

I had my first love when I was three years old. It would wake me up at 6 in the morning along with the neighbors. It would call me to the self-reflective depths of my basement, when the weather would not permit, though every now and then it would draw me out into the rain, to test if wet clothes, hair, socks and spongy shoes would hinder my dedication. Though I was free to come and go as I pleased, I was not a slave to this love.

There were no expectations, assumptions, or things to be taken personally. More importantly there were no definitions or labels placed upon the connection I shared. Only a fire in my soul, or as my pops called it “a heart of a tiger,” to put a basketball between my legs, around my back, cross it over, and through a hoop. Then hear that confidence-building, sweet and crisp sound of the nylon net swish.

Perhaps when we are that young, we are actually aware of the mystery behind what true love is. Our minds are not creating obstacles to block us from what we want to naturally do, we just do it, whatever “it” is, we are not afraid of it. It became my escape from the distractions of a broken family, unwanted schoolwork, and the regular pains of being a kid. My driveway with the basketball hoop mounted above the garage was my portal to the coveted holy land, the land of milk and honey for creation, “the zone.”

As I grew older, I gained knowledge of the fundamentals of basketball. I learned how to shoot lay-ups right and left handed, footwork and the correct jump shooting form; from two-handed to one-handed using the offhand to guide the ball to the hoop with backspin created by the flick of the wrist. The only caveat was that I wanted to shoot like my Dad, who shot using his right hand. I was left-handed; it was not my natural fluid motion.

Slowly my conditioning of what a basketball player should be and look like took place.

I progressed through grade school gathering an identity like moss on a stone of being a “basketball player.” Then boom, it happened, a title was slapped on my back. A title turned a pure love into a near-egotistical obsession because if I was not a basketball player, then what was I? What was my place in the cafeteria; my role in school’s or life’s social society? I thought to myself, “Would I be worth being friends with or deserved any love from anyone without it?”

In the words of Simon and Garfunkel, “A love once new has now grown old.” In high school, I nearly hated basketball because it was no longer fun. No longer my escape from an unaware and abusive father, or the social anxiety I had grown into that led to an indifference to school. I could not tap into that spiritual connection, “the zone” anymore and I hated myself like there was something wrong with me. If I could not make an open shot or get by my defender… I was simply a stupid, a no good piece of shit.

I had forgotten why I naturally gravitated towards basketball, and I had forgotten how to love myself. I let other’s opinions about my game shape my self-perception and determine my worth. I needed validation from it, so there was no way I could leave it, it was all I knew, it was my first love. Even when it crushed my heart, unleashing an endless stream of tears in front of grown men as I was getting cut from the varsity team; I still believed that it was the savior to my dreams and problems. I believed it could take me out of that basement where hours were spent dribbling in the dark or blind folded around various objects and chairs.

High school passed and I was soon skipping college courses to go play at local basketball courts. Without the pressure of impressing a coach, teammates or my father it became fun again. In addition I was growing and becoming stronger. I could jump higher and move quicker, I felt a sense of power.

Soon I returned to the love and knowing in my soul that this game could lift me higher and help me achieve my goal of playing college basketball.

Although, I was unsure how to get to my destination, so I sought out some guidance from high school coaches and I myself started coaching. Over a few years I taught junior varsity girls, freshman boys, middle school boys, spent summers working camps and making connections with other coaches. I was sharing this intense passion and love for the game that I had, so that maybe the players I coached could be lifted higher as well. This was noble and good but it was not the same as playing on the court in flow of a game, in harmony with the ball and four other teammates.

A pivotal experience occurred at a basketball camp where I worked as a coach but spent the last few hours of each day playing in competitive pick-up games against the other camp coaches. The coaches who played mainly consisted of NCAA Division 2 and Division 3 players as well as some high school players who were most likely going to end up playing at some level of college basketball. Needless to say the competition was not lacking in the least.

At first this intimidated me but after my first three point shot went in during my first game, I was in the zone. After a couple of weeks at the camp, my confidence in my game had never been higher and I felt I could compete with anyone. I had elevated my game to a new level but it was not solely because of my skills. It was because I had grown an undeniable belief in them. Almost in perfecting timing as my confidence was ascending, a test from life brought me crashing as I got injured. A severe ankle sprain suffered from coming down on someone’s foot as I was extending myself too far to block someone’s shot. Even though I did block the shot, I was devastated.

Quickly, the new fragile bravado about my basketball skills turned into self-loathing, “fuck basketball.”

Six months after the ankle injury and hardly looking at a basketball, I was depressed. The fire was still in me to chase my dream, but I was ignoring it. It hurt too much to let that love back into my life. It was too intense. Watching basketball commercials or highlights of my favorite players was like that breath-taking sting of seeing an ex happy and doing just fine without you. Restlessness would set in and tears would nearly be shed because deep down I knew I was only hurting myself by avoiding that fire within.

Eventually I reached my breaking point. I finally cried, letting that resistance go and began training for my dream again. It was out of half-love and half necessity because again, who am I without it? Am I worth anything? Will a girl finally want to date me if I am on a college basketball team?

Even though it was a burning fire within me, driving me, I could not let go of the anger at the world, my father, myself and or former coaches. There were hundreds of hours spent punishing myself and body for not being perfect. I would cuss myself out and run extra sprints or shoot for an extra hour for missing 2 out of 20 free throws when I had already been training for 3 hours. Giving myself a break was not an option for me.

After two years of internal rage at myself, my father, the varsity coach, or anyone who I believed doubted me, I completed my goal. I made the junior college team at Northern Virginia Community College, with a promise of playing time from the coach as well as a Division 2 scholarship, depending on my performance. Finally I was accepted and my skills validated but I still did not accept myself. I still was not good enough.

Over that summer before my first basketball season since sophomore year of high school, I was recovering from torn muscles in my left thigh. Doubts began to pour into my head whether my body could sustain a college basketball season as I was already dealing with a stress fracture in my lower back and deteriorating cartilage in my right knee. During my personal training sessions, it felt like I was fighting my body, pushing it to go farther but the results seemed to be diminished.

Not only was I reaching my limits physically but mentally as well. School started, and the pressure of balancing classes, work, financial issues, and practice was building like a molehill into a mountain. The more I thought about it, the more anxiety came flooding in and my brain wanted shut down. So much so that the first practice of the season I injured my most prone left ankle and at this point I said to myself “Enough!”

The self-hate and the physical punishment were not worth it anymore.

I decided to not play that season, and my dream of playing college basketball was nonexistent as my eligibility was going to end soon.I spent that winter quite depressed and questioning my decisions. Did I lose out on the chance to realize my dream doing the thing I loved the most? Regardless of the fact that I did the best that I could, with the knowledge I had at the time, the decision not to play would keep me up most nights.

In the spring, the nagging itch to play came back again. With the knowledge I had gained over the last couple of years of physical and basketball training, I was sure to become good enough to at least be taken seriously at an overseas tryout. Though a few months into it, my body said “NO!” again as I injured that same damned ankle two times in the span of 3 weeks. This time I had no choice but to listen to my body, so I did. I gave it up and learned to be at peace with no longer being a “basketball player” or a coach.

It was not that I did not love it anymore; rather I just could not do it.  The mental or physical capacity and determination to put that toll on my body did not exist anymore. I could not give it my honest 110 percent.

Since then I have tried other endeavors but it too became too egoic, as it was a way to prove to everyone and ultimately myself that this broken down, abused, pissed off kid was worth something. Living like that is not worth it, taking things personally, and letting how well you shoot in training sessions, not even a game; determine whether you positively or negatively view yourself. Such thinking sabotages any attempt I have or had to be the best version of myself or share the love that we all desire.

My first love, basketball, reflected the relationship I shared with myself. Nothing was quite good enough, allowing my basketball performance or other’s opinions balance and weigh my worth as a person. I did not allow myself to feel love because I was not worthy of it. I had to be better, shoot better, and dribble better… I could not accept myself for where I was at, at any point. I was holding onto and squeezing basketball for something it could not fully provide, self-acceptance and love.

Life, passions, and love are not meant to have titles, be defined, or put in a box. It limits the spirit, our source of true creativity. We do not allow ourselves to change, grow, let go of something and have it flow naturally back into our lives. We hold onto those titles like they make up whom we are, when it is only make-up on a vanity desk. We ask, “Will others love me for what I truly look like?”

“Can I even love myself without it?” So we scratch and claw to defend them like animals guarding a fresh corpse from vultures, because who are we without them? If we did not have them, chaos and change would ensue, causing us to go to the self-reflective depths of our internal basements. Requiring self-induced moments of solitude; where one goes to get dirty, getting knee deep in the grimy, sticky mud of our past pain, and change the negative agreements we hold true in our mind about ourselves.

Initial moments of love are ones we tend to desperately hold onto while that love has already changed and moved on but we have not. Love is an ever-changing, uncontainable force as free as the wind and yet we tend to try to put in a bottle like it was lighting. Because conventional wisdom tells us that it does not strike twice. Instead it strikes differently each time and it is easy for us to fail to realize that each bolt across the sky is just as or more awesome, as each one teaches something new and necessary.

It is meant to break the bonds of anything that is not love, which is a painful process. By breaking those bond or us, it allows us to return to our true selves, having contentment, love and peace with whom and where we are in life. Therefore it cannot be defined otherwise something or someone else becomes our worth, our obsession, and our definition.

There have been many times in my life where there was good and bad leadership.

Whether it was in a classroom or playing sports, leadership played a big role in my life. I was able to watch the leaders throughout my life and learn from their good ideas and bad mistakes. According to Jim Collins, in his book GOOD TO GREAT, there are five different levels of leadership. The leadership is ranked from level 1, being the most common, yet least effective leader, to level 5 which is the most effective. It isn’t until level 5 leadership where a leader really stands out. These are the rarest group of leaders. Level 5 leaders build lasting greatness.

They tend to blame mistakes on themselves when something goes wrong, and value others when things go well. These leaders have no ego and put their company before their selves. I can relate the idea of five level leadership to the leaders I have grown up with in my life. The leaders in my personal life mostly consist of players and coaches on the sports teams that I have be on. I played football my whole life and throughout my high school years. I had witnessed the culture of our program change from when I joined the team as a freshman, to the last game of my senior year.

Throughout the years I played, I was able to identify the type of leadership that went on.

Because of the leadership, the program went from being one of the best to one of the worst. On this team I was able to identify level 1 to level 4 leadership. The level 1 leaders were the players who sat on the bench, but helped make practice effective. Theses players used their little amount of skills to contribute to the team. The level 2 leaders consisted of the players who started on the team and played the most. These players used their capabilities to achieve goals for the team, such as winning games. They were the ones out on the field winning the games.

The level 3 leaders where some of the players who labeled themselves as “captain”. The captains led the stretching lines and spoke at team meetings, but some of them weren’t respected by other players. Our captains that were respected and had players believe in them were the level 4 leaders. These captains were helping the team build a culture and become better. Their teammates wanted to play for them. Level 5 leadership was attempted but failed by the Athletic Director of the school.

This mistake inevitably caused the program to nosedive.

Our head football coach became Athletic Director when I was a junior in high school and put us in a harder division. Our team was playing harder teams and each year we kept losing talent. This caused the team to lose more games and less students wanted to play. Players started to not show up at practice and because we were a small school, this was a bad sign.

I would consider our coach as a level 4 leader because he cared about the football program and wanted it to be a great one. He made people believe that he can make the program strong, but his ego took over, and his self –interest of wanting the program to be more than what it was caused it to fail. If he was a level 5 leader he would have put the program back into the weaker division, but his ego got the best of him.

He was unable to take the blame for the mistake and do what’s right for the team.

I believe that if our coach drops his ego and turns the program around, he can potentially become a level 5 leader. He is an alumni of the high school and grew up in the town.

He cares about the team and its reputation because he has been coaching for over 15 years. Level 5 leaders are usually found within the organization and that is where he comes from. This will be difficult to achieve though because there is less talent on the team and the amount of players are diminishing.

The first night of auditions, the first person to arrive stepped into the TV studio, soaking wet.

I thought, it is raining out why would you walk to the studio, why not drive? It turns out, the man had just gotten out of prison ten days ago. He had no money, no car, 5 children, and was $50K behind on child support. He had been looking for employment for 10 days and could not find anyone willing to give an ex-drug dealer a second chance. I’m wondered how he even heard about the auditions.

We were in the TV studio auditioning potential contestants for a new reality show; the Business Starter. This was in 2010 while the country was still in economic turmoil because of the real estate collapse. The show would consist of 10 contestants that found themselves out of work because of the downturn. The contestants were mainly college graduates or MBA types wanting to open new companies in the financial sector. Each week we would send the weakest business idea home selecting a winner at the end.

As we are interviewing the second contestant, we asked, “what is the single thing that everyone kept telling you couldn’t do, but you got it done anyway?”

The man responds, “live to the age of 25.”

“What?”, we ask. He responds again, “live to age 25.” He had just gotten out of prison and was now looking for employment or to open a business. He needed something, anything to pay the bills, or buy some food. Sixty percent of ex-felons return to prison within the first 3 years after release during periods of unemployment.

The first night of the show and I was surrounded by seven men, all ex-drug dealers and ex-felons, and three females who were ex-felons or girls having gotten pregnant in high school. I was reviewing the basic rules of the show and the first man who auditioned stopped me dead in my tracks. He tells me we need to change the rule of sending someone home each week. Instead, we need to see if we can figure out some way of getting everyone’s business started.

All ten contestants banded together and looked at me with these big wide eyes. They kept saying this was their only hope. It was a live broadcast, and we changed the rules on the spot. We ended up getting seven of the businesses open with only $50 each. Five are still running today.

Then, the pastor of an inner-city church and shelter heard about our show and got the word out to the ex-felon community in Tampa.

Six months later, I received a call from one of the contestants on Business Starter. He says he is trying to open a little league football and cheer teams in an economically depressed area of Tampa. I had attended a seminar at UACDC (a non-profit which helped juvenile delinquents) and was told a story by a police officer of kids 12 and 13 who sold weapons and drugs on street corners.

I suggested that he contact the City of Tampa Parks and Recreation and get them to help. He said he already tried that route and for years people have been trying to get teams open but it is very difficult to raise funding and the suburb teams are highly reluctant to bring their kids to the area to play games.

Then he said, “these are the kids that really need our help, we have to try.”

The next 10 months, with the help of a very kind gentleman at Tampa Parks and Rec., along with the regional manager of USA Football, we got two teems up and running.

I grew up with four younger sisters and in high school; I kept busy watching over them battling the boys off at every turn it seemed. After high school, my daughter was offered a full presidential scholarship in math to Prairie View, a satellite campus of Texas A&M.

She graduated in 2015, got married, I have a granddaughter called Captain, and they just purchased their first home in Dallas, but as a father, I always worried about the route that could have happened. After seeing the at risk kids in Tampa, I decided to have a “Break the Teen Pregnancy Cycle” summer camp called “Cinderella Slipper: Live Your Dreams”.

The first day of the camp, it was pouring rain. We are standing under an oak tree and I tell my story of my little dream growing up as a kid. I pass out index cards and ask each girl to write their name and their dream. When I got the cards back, the cards ranged from pediatrician, firefighter, the Navy, and high school teacher. However, twelve of the cards come back completely blank and I wondered why.

I thought maybe it was the 4 year old girls that cannot really write too well yet or maybe it is the cheap pens I bought at Dollar General for a buck and they just don’t work. When I asked the girls why twelve of the cards were left blank, the captain of the varsity cheer squad got up and said her team did not respond. I asked her why and she walked in front of all the girls and put her face uncomfortably close to mine, with her hands on her hips.

She said, “because we are old enough to know that dreams never come true for us down here. We didn’t want to set ourselves up for another failure. People keep coming down here and telling us they will help, but they never do. We are never going to get out of here. So, no. We didn’t fill out your stupid little 3×5 cards, Rob.”

Those words launched the next endeavor, Hit Records Worldwide, a record label built on compassion. We work with teen girls growing up in the foster care system, homeless shelters, government projects, daughters of ex-felons, single parent kids, and teen girls in trouble with the police. Hit Records is a story of one Saturday telling five girls in the practice studio, “everyone thinks we are just trying to get a hit song, but really I’m just trying to fix each of you.” Then Shayla says, “No Rob, we’re supposed to fix you.” I wondered, how do you open a record label with absolutely no knowledge, experience, or expertise in the music industry to help all these inner-city, highly at-risk teen girls that have been beaten down time and time again by life, family and everything else?

That was when I made a promise to never give up on the girl’s hope.

GettinOut™ will continue the work started in 2011 by HRW Music Group, LLC to help inner-city, troubled teen girls in the areas of; Artist Development, Personal Development, Community Support / Building Engaged Fan Bases. Girls demonstrating significant desire, drive, talent, coach-ability that have worked hard building a significant engaged fan base will be moved from GettinOut™ Records to HRW Music Group, LLC once reaching the age of 18 (if they so desire) and be provided promotion and marketing support to further their singing careers.

I decided we could not just “almost” do something leaving their dreams to “almost” come true. Four of the contestants on the reality TV show now help with Hit Records Worldwide under HRW Music Group. One member is a VP, one handles makeup, one works on image, and the other is the mom to one of the girls.

My name is Lauren Beers Stanton and I am a daughter, sister, graduate student, friend, wife, and a senior on The University of Alabama’s gymnastics team. I wanted to share with you my story and the challenges that have influenced who I am today.

I was born April 1st, 1994 in Sayre, Pennsylvania. My parents, Rick and Trish Beers had no idea what they were getting into when they entered the world of parenthood. Seven children later, I now had five brothers and one, precious, sister. I had a rather unconventional childhood. Not only am I the oldest of seven siblings, but I was homeschooled and grew up on a dairy farm. I know…sounds like the perfect combination for either a total nerd or a tomboy.

Luckily, I am both of those things but I am also so much more. From a young age I was totally in love with animals. My mom tells me stories of how I would put toads in my doll stroller and push them around the yard.

Other than my love for all animals, including the creepy crawlies, I played like a typical little girl.

That is, until my brothers decided that they didn’t want to play dress up and tea parties. It was now my turn to play army, Legos, and Indiana Jones. When my sister was born, I was able to revert back to girl play for a short time before I discovered a new passion that would take me farther than I ever imagined. This passion was gymnastics. After watching the 2000 Olympics, I was mesmerized by the girls flipping around on the TV and told my mom that I wanted to do that. I started classes soon after and the rest is history.

Flash forward to 2006 when I was 12 years old. I had switched club gyms at this point and had been doing gymnastics competitively for about five years. I was now a second year level 10, which is the highest level you can obtain before becoming an elite gymnast, and facing one of the biggest challenges in my young life.

I had been having issues with my elbow for about a year and one day at practice it collapsed and my joint locked. We went to many different doctors, including specialists, who told me there was nothing they could do for me and I would have to quit gymnastics.

Just imagine, a 12 year old girl being told she had to quite doing the sport she loved and there was nothing that was going to make her arm normal again. To say I was devastated was an understatement. I still remember the first doctor we saw when I first was injured. My best friend, Megan, went to the doctors with my mom and I and we both cried hysterically when he told me, “You can’t play gymnastics anymore”. It was at that moment when I decided that I was going to prove this man wrong and not only do gymnastics again, but be successful at it.

I prayed that God would provide a way for me to do both these things and He did. We were able to see an arm specialist in Indianapolis and multiple car rides and surgeries later, God had answered my prayers. We knew from this point on that my elbows were going to be an issue the rest of my life but through the reassurance of my doctor, I could continue doing gymnastics and have relatively few complications.

Fast forward to 2009 and a different part of my life. I had been best friends with a boy name Nicholas Stanton for about two years at this point and I knew he had “liked” me for a while now. I ended up accepting his offer to attend our church’s formal as his date and the rest is, again, history.

People may say you can’t “fall in love” with someone when you’re that young, but I would definitely have to contend.

God has a plan for everything and He can implement it whenever He chooses. For me, that just so happened to be when I was just barely fifteen. We continued to date throughout high school and into our college years before we decided to take the next step. Marriage.

Now, before we get to that, I have to go back to my gymnastics career. In September 2010, I made the decision to accept a full athletic scholarship to the University of Alabama. Soon after, my faith was tested again when I needed another surgery on both of my arms. My future coaches were extremely supportive and I was back on the road to recovery before I knew it. Now, I’d like to take the time to say that God ALWAYS has a plan. Before this episode I was having with my arms, I was considering moving away from home to train at a better gym to give myself a better chance at the 2012 Olympics. Because of my surgeries, I decided not to. I truly believe that because of this, I am where I am today. I finished out my club gymnastics career at home and then moved to Alabama in August of 2012 to start the next step in my journey.

The first two years of college were amazing and terrible at the same time. While I loved school and being a part of such an amazing team, I missed Nick and I struggled with self-esteem issues that I continue to deal with to this day. I pushed myself in both academics and athletes while maintaining a 4.0 and becoming an All-American.

The summer before my sophomore year Nick and I decided that we didn’t want to have a long distance relationship anymore. After a lot of prayer and thinking, we brought up the idea of marriage to our parents who, although they were shocked to say the least, were supportive. My mom and I planned my wedding over the computer and on May 24, 2014, I got married to the love of my life.

To say he is my soul mate is an understatement and I know that when God created the universe, He planned us for each other.

We faced many different challenges in our dating relationship but through it all, we stayed strong and came out better for it. When people see my ring they are always so surprised to find out I am married and even more surprised to find that I’ve been married for almost two years. I enjoy being able to share my love story with others, especially if I can encourage them to follow what they feel God is telling them and not what the world is trying to conform them into.

Moving on to the last two years, to say they have been a rollercoaster is an understatement. My junior year, my team won our second SEC Championship, I celebrated my one year wedding anniversary, and I graduated with my Bachelor’s degree in just three years of school. Then, I had four surgeries and didn’t do gymnastics for almost six months. During my junior year, my elbows started acting up again and I knew I would need surgery soon.

So once season was over, I had a “clean-up” surgery on each of my arms. This wasn’t so bad, especially since the recovery wasn’t more than a few weeks. However, when I did start training again, I took a nasty fall and suffered a spiral fracture in my hand that required another surgery with external fixations in order to heal properly.

While recovering from this second setback, I also discovered that the previous year I had broken my calcaneus and in order for it to stop hurting, I needed ANOTHER surgery to remove the broken piece.

Coming from someone who had never taken more than about two months off of gymnastics for an injury, this was a new situation for me. I was sidelined from the end of April until October. During this time I struggled a lot. I’ve always been a planner and now my whole plan for my “awesome senior year” was completely thrown off. I didn’t even know if I’d be able to compete at all in the regular season. But being the person I am, I set a goal. To come back as soon as possible, while still being safe. I worked my butt off day after day and soon enough, I was back. I was now done with my first semester of graduate school and about to start the competition season.

Without going into detail, I can say that my season has been a crazy rollercoaster of amazing successes and utter failures. Going from someone who had only three falls in my entire collegiate career, to falling off beam four times in one season was heartbreaking. This was not what my senior year was supposed to be like. I was supposed to be the rock of the team, not the most inconsistent one. Frustration became a daily issue. I knew I needed a change of heart and through the help of prayer, Nick, my coaches and teammates, I was able to let go of the need to be perfect and just enjoy the last few weeks of the sport I love so much.

It’s now a week away from being over forever. I’m enjoying every minute in the gym and with my team.

It’s crazy to think that something that’s been a part of my life for over 15 years is coming to a close, but I know that with the closing of this chapter comes the bringing of the next. I will be graduating with my Masters in Sport Business Management this summer with a 4.0, and starting my MBA in the fall. Looking back, I know my success has not come from myself. It has come because God gave me the opportunity to use the gifts He gave me to glorify Him. I can look forward to the new opportunities that God presets me and be confident in stepping into the next roll he has planned for me.

For anyone out there struggling with something, whether its relationships, your career, just being generally unhappy with your life, I want you to know something. It’s going to be ok! It will pass. If there is anything that I have learned in my short 22 years on this earth, is that this is all temporary. My sport is temporary, my school career is temporary, a bad grade or a bad meet means nothing in the broad scope of the future.

While it’s important to love what you do and have passions and goals in life, just remember, it doesn’t define you. God defines you as a most perfect being worth of unconditional and unfathomable love. So what is my new ultimate goal in life? To serve those around me by loving and giving all I have to give. I’ve been given my talents and current place in life for a reason and I can’t wait to see what’s in store!

Throughout the world, there are very few organizations and even sports teams with Level 5 leaders. Level 5 leaders are explained to be an executive in whom extreme personal humility blends paradoxically with intense professional will, according to Jim Collins, author of Good to Great. Having such contradictory characteristics, coming across someone like this is very rare.

I have never run an organization, but I have been in charge of several sports teams. Not in the context of coaching, but rather as captain. During my senior year of high school, I was named captain of my soccer team and also the winter and spring track teams. Being captain of the soccer team is very different than being captain of the track teams. Soccer is much more of a team oriented sport, where track focuses more on individual accomplishments.

I have played soccer my whole life, like most people who choose to write a topic about sports. I was always one of the stand out players on any team I played for, from recreational sports to all the way up to collegiate soccer.

Every position on the soccer field is important in winning a game, but some are more important than others.

For example, in football, the quarterback is the most important player on the field. In soccer, the most important position is the sweeper (center defender), in my opinion. This, coincidentally enough, is the position I play. The sweeper is the player who directs everyone else on the field. The sweeper tells the other players when to step up to the ball, when to pass, when an opposing player is closing in on them, and any other direction that helps them win the game. In addition, the sweeper is the glue that holds the entire defense together. The sweeper is the last line before the opposing team gets to the goalkeeper. In my eyes, it is my job to do everything in my power to protect the goalkeeper and prevent any shots on goal as well as to keep my team motivated to win.

Jim Collins identifies the characteristics common to Level 5 leaders as humility, will, ferocious resolve, and the tendency to give credit to others while assigning blame to themselves. In my senior year, I feel that I exhibited a majority of those characteristics while acting as team captain. Each game we had, I did everything in my power to keep the opposing team away from my goalkeeper and the ball out of our half of the field. Anytime we lost a game or the opposing team scored a goal, it would crush me. I felt that I failed my team, failed my defense and failed my goalkeeper.

It did not matter the reason, as the captain, I felt any type of loss personally.

When we started our run in the state tournament, my coach asked me to start playing another position since our forwards were finding it very difficult to score.  The strategy was to have me play the first half of the game as sweeper to allow my defense to settle into the game, then once the second half began, I would move up to forward. The switch was a key catalyst in changing the way we played our games and helped us win the state sectional championship that year.

I had to ensure my defense was comfortable without me at the helm as I had been there for four years. I also had to be sensitive to the forwards that my moving up was not because any wrong doing on their end, but a change in strategy to surprise our opposition.  As each game went on, my field presence and playing defined the game. The local newspapers would interview me after every game and call me on weekends to discuss how the change in our lineup was driving us closer and closer to the state championship.

As flattered as I may have been, I never took the credit for myself. I always said, and truly believed, that the only reason the switch up was successful was because I had an extremely capable team supporting me. When I moved to forward, that was the first time in 4 years that the defense line had a different sweeper and they were able to hold their own. That was a huge reason we were successful.

Every player on my team was the reason we were successful, not just me.

I always had a tendency to deflect all the credit that came with our wins to my entire team, not just me. But on the other hand, whenever we would lose, it was no one else’s fault but my own. I constantly made sure that my team knew we would not have been successful if it was not for everyone’s contribution.

I was not a perfect Level 5 leader, but looking back on my experiences and learning about what it means to actually be a Level 5 leader, I realized that I had moments that made me feel like one.

It’s probably no surprise when I say that gymnastics is one of the toughest sports, but what studies don’t take into consideration is the mental factor involved with it.

Gymnastics isn’t a very popular sport, it can get pretty expensive and it will most likely take over your entire life.

Almost no high schools in the country offer the sport and the chances to make an NCAA team are fairly slim. So why do we put ourselves through it? We’re all crazy, that’s why. I did gymnastics for 15 years – I started when I was just five years old. I was doing ballet, tap and jazz before, but I saw one of my good friends doing gymnastics and it looked so cool. I just had to do it.

So my mom enrolled me in classes and before my first week was over, I was moved up to the competitive team. Next thing I knew, I was in the gym four hours a day, six days a week and it unknowingly took over my life. There were a couple times in my gymnastics career that I either wanted to quit or actually did quit, but I always missed it after a few weeks and went right back. Like I said, we’re crazy. I was practically raised by my Russian coaches and knew nothing but tough love and endless yelling. “Eat, sleep, breathe gymnastics” was what we used to say to make fun of ourselves but it was accurate.

I couldn’t count the amount of unattended school activities because of practice, the long weekends spent in hotels for competitions and the quarter-sized rips on my hands. However, with all those hardships came the rewards and the gratitude of winning a competition or perfecting a new skill. It was the highs and adrenaline that kept me going – I loved it.

It’s very clear that sports are physically exhausting and injuries happen all the time – I’ve been aware of this since I was maybe seven.

When I walked-on for the Penn State Women’s Gymnastics team, injuries became a whole different story. With this team, I noticed that everyone was afraid of injuries. You’re probably thinking ‘that’s fair, it’s normal to be scared of them,’ but this was a different kind of scared. I was terrified the coaches would yell at me if I told them something was hurting. Maybe that’s just me constantly looking for approval and trying for perfection, but no athlete should be scared of their coaches. Whenever I got hurt, I tried to push through the rest of the practice, then would go to our trainer so I wouldn’t have to deal with the coaches. Working with your coaches and trainers when you are feeling pain is an important factor in becoming and staying a healthy athlete. This fear stemmed from different reasons and gut-feeling something just wasn’t right with them.

Along with that, I had gotten pretty sick during preseason and missed a few days of practice. Instead of letting me focus on getting healthy and making up my school work, the coaches made me make up the two morning workouts I missed that week.

So on top of our two morning practices on Wednesdays and Fridays and our normal afternoon practices, I had to add two more double workouts on Monday and Tuesday. Unless you’re an NCAA athlete, you’re probably unaware of the amount of hours allotted for physical activity each week. The rulebook says that athletes may not exceed more than 20 hours of practice in-season, and only eight hours out-of-season. It also says that we must be given 2 off days out-of-season. I never did that math, but I have a feeling I was over those hours that week.

Not only was the physical wear and tear exhausting, the mental abuse that I saw and experienced was horrifying. The coaches had a tight grip on every thing we did, including things outside the gym. If we tweeted something too late (11 pm being too late) we would hear about it at practice the next day, we couldn’t post “going out” Instagrams even if they weren’t of us drinking and the coaches scheduled team activities every free chance they had. They somehow knew everything about our “extracurricular activities” and made damn sure we knew that they knew.

Comments about our weight, diets and body parts were made all the time and they never failed to make me want to hide under a rock.

Even after a comment made about my boobs by a male coach, I would awkwardly laugh the comments off and continue with my practice. The beginning of my sophomore year was when it was the worst. I was extremely depressed, lost touch with my best friends from home and my poor boyfriend had no idea how to handle me. I was so fragile, yet so stone-cold and emotionless. He always tried the best he could to cheer me up but there was no hope. It eventually got to a point where he couldn’t handle seeing me that screwed up. I vividly remember the text he sent me: “Lyss you need to see the sports psychologist before I lose it. I can’t handle this anymore.”

I read it so many times and each time I was horrified of the person I had become. I couldn’t be angry with him because I knew he was right. How could these people make me hate something that I love so much? The next morning I made an appointment with the sports psychologist.

I’m still so grateful for that text because it ultimately saved my life.

The recruiting class of 2016 brought in eight new girls. We were one of the biggest classes Penn State has seen. All eight of us left the team before our senior year and that doesn’t include the many girls before of after us that quit under these coaches. The team has not a single senior right now. There’s something seriously wrong with this picture. It may sound corny, but gymnastics shaped me into the person I am today and I don’t regret a single second of the hard work I put into it. From a very young age it taught me discipline, organization, time management, determination and willpower to succeed. Let me be dramatic for just a second: I hope it was the most disciplined 15 years I’ll ever have to endure in life again, especially the last two.

But I’m so proud of where it’s gotten me and how far I’ve come. Gymnastics has shown me the world and has given me more amazing friends than I could’ve wished for. Being on the Penn State Gymnastics team made me extremely depressed, almost ruined relationships with people I was closest to and left me many pounds heavier from stress eating. While I was trying to make a decision to quit or stay, I looked back at my goals and dreams as a kid and it was always ‘college gymnastics’.

Letting that dream go and seeing the reality of that goal slip away was disappointing and left me with so much anger.

It was incredibly difficult for me to say goodbye to the thing that was my whole life for so many years. I was scared of losing friends, worried I wouldn’t handle my school work the right way and afraid my parents would be disappointed in me. It took a lot of thinking and two pages full of pros and cons, but I made the decision to move on. My morals, values and mental health were a million times more important to me than seeing my name on the wall in the locker room. I realized that I was in complete control of my situation, no one else.

My time on this team will always hold memories that I’m not fond of but I was able to find the strength and courage to walk away from something that was no longer growing me. That decision will always be my proudest moment. It’s shown me that life is too damn short to live each day anything less than utterly happy. After this experience, I made a vow to myself to never settle for anything that doesn’t make me excited to wake up every morning. It’s safe to say it was a pretty good lesson learned.

PSA: I’ve gotten lots of feedback on this article; mostly good but some not so good and I was totally expecting that. Never once did I talk badly about the team in general and never once did I put down the gymnasts. This is strictly about the coaches and the horrible things they put many people through…some of which had to seek psychological help.

I was sick of sitting in the dark with all of this on my chest and I’m sick of these coaches getting away with this stuff. It’s time I, and all the other girls, step forward and make a change.

We sucked, we were embarrassed, and we were defeated. For six years, I trained my ass, thinking that the outcome will be worth it. When the time came, I was wrong. I suffered for two years. During training, I questioned my ethics and morals among my teammates. Fights broke out people went through the motions. NO ONE cared. We were all sheepwalking. We were recruited to play and win games, but in reality we just showed up to practice and did what were told to do.

At the time, our leaders were hidden. We were faced with high expectations and delivered nothing. When my freshman year ended, we were given a t-shirt at the alumni game and pity “golf claps” from the alumni. The next season was a repeat.

During the spring season of sophomore year, the “cancers” and the “rats” were off the team.

That cleared the air for us, but we were still faced with a challenge. In order for our team to get on the same page we all needed to have a share interest. Yes, you can say that we were all here to play soccer, but that wasn’t good enough. Each person had different views and ideas of how we should play and that was a problem. There was no chemistry. So what did we do? Challenged our ideals. Challenging the status quo allowed everyone to rethink his ideals. That was the hardest thing to do. Seth Godin argues, “The easiest thing is to react. The second easiest thing is to respond. But the hardest things is to initiate.” Step one was crossed off.

Now we needed to change the culture. Our past culture was destroyed by selfishness, which led to a losing streak, then partying on weekends, and the cycle continued to repeat itself. In order for our team to get back on a high stature, we had to be passionate for what we stood for. We had to come to practice with a mindset that we WANT to be here and are not FORCED to be here.

“The real power of [a team] has nothing to do with the (external factors) and everything to do with the people. You don’t need a (object) to lead… you only need the desire to make something happen.” And we had that desire. It came from a shared experience.

Our weight trainer changed our mentality.

We suffered through workouts everyday for 15 weeks. It was the most effective thing for our team because we connected. When you suffer for that long with everyone then it clicks in your head that we need to get on board. That suffering turned into a desire. A desire only a few people can understand. A selective group. Our group, our team.

Godin states, “One of the most powerful of our survival mechanisms is to be part of a tribe, to contribute to (and take from) a group like-minded people.” Once you have a group of individuals that connect, you need to stay committed. Continue to believe in it. Our team believed in the workouts. We believed it will pay off, but there were no grantees. We believed in it because we had faith.

Four months later, my junior season started. We had a winning record; we made the semifinals of the Big Ten Tournament, and made the second round of the NCAA Tournament. For our team, that was a step closer to success. A team could be called many things. I never considered it as a tribe, until I understood it’s meaning. People who want success can only get it through shared interests. If no one else cares, how do you plan to exist? Someone else needs to have that shared interest in order for you to make something out of whatever it is.

“A movement is thrilling. It’s the work of many people, all connected, all seeking something better.”

Big thank you to Seth Godin and his work. Tribes has inspired millions of people to lead and be part of something great.

Sophomore and junior year of high school I continuously struggled with the decision to play a sport in college. Its around this time high school athletes not only need to start thinking about the schools they want to attend but also whether pursuing their sport is even realistic. The commitment, time, efforts dedicated to a high school sport pails in comparison to playing the same sport in college.

I was a three-sport athlete in high school and had been playing lacrosse since I was five years old. I was originally born in Maryland, a feeding ground for high school lacrosse athletes, but in middle school my family moved to a suburb outside of Charlotte, NC. In this new city, saying I played lacrosse was like I was speaking a foreign language. My mom and I ended up starting a girls lacrosse program for my high school and in our first year we would lose some games by 20 goals or more.

I was the only one on my high school team who had ever played lacrosse before. In order to challenge myself and to try to continue to get better, I joined numerous travel teams throughout the Charlotte area. We went to many tournaments where college scouts would come and watch us play. It was intimidating but all the more exciting to know some of these people could grant you with an amazing opportunity.

During my junior year, I would receive many letters from scouts and colleges.

Most were smaller D3 and D2 schools offering some financial aid but every once in awhile a D1 school would reach out. Those letters were the most exciting to receive. It was also during this time I started to get burnt out of the sport I had been playing for almost 13 years. It was time to have a serious conversation about what I wanted for my future and whether lacrosse was going to be in it or not.

While continually talking to coaches and scouts of these schools, I was also applying to schools not for lacrosse. I applied to four big, out of state schools I would want to attend. I came to the decision that if lacrosse paid for my college I would play but if I could go to one of these bigger schools for the same amount, I would choose that.

I ended up getting almost a full ride to UGA based on my academic achievements in high school. UGA was also my favorite school I visited so you can only imagine my happiness. I thought I would rather go to a huge university, get involved with many organizations, a sorority, and have some free time rather than dedicate my college career to being an athlete.

After all, as of now there isn’t much opportunity for women to pursue even if you’re an above average athlete.

There is even better news to my story. UGA doesn’t have a D1 collegiate lacrosse program but they have a WCLA team. It is essentially club lacrosse but highly competitive. I found everything I was looking for in a lacrosse collegiate team and would have time to participate in everything else I wanted to do. The commitment is less than if I were going to a school to play lacrosse but we still practice almost every day.

My lacrosse team here has become a second family for me and we even get to go to amazing tournaments in places like Colorado and California. And to my disbelief of how a club team would be, the team here at UGA is surprisingly really good. Right now we are currently ranked very high in the nation and have high hopes for winning a national championship this year.

I could not be more enthused with my decision to play a club sport versus going to school for lacrosse. I do, however, completely support those who use sports as a means of going to college. I also think that looking into the possibilities of playing at a less competitive level should be considered so you can get as much as possible out of your college experience.

I still get to play the sport I love, with people I love, while also not having to wake up at 5am for workouts.

I am truly blessed to be in the position that I am in now and I owe it all to my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

Around this time two years ago, I was in my last semester of college and similar to mostly everyone else I was trying to figure out what my next chapter in life would be in regards to my professional career. Growing up in Norcross, GA all of my life I had a pretty straightforward life. I was very fortunate enough to be in a situation where both of my parents were active throughout my life and worked tirelessly to put my brother and I in a comfortable living situation.

Like any kid growing up, I played all types of sports (basketball, football, soccer, baseball, karate, etc.) to remain active and ultimately fall in love with one. That became basketball for me. I found the game of basketball at the tender age of five playing at a local Rec Center with my brother and many of our childhood friends. I could write a whole separate post on the ups and downs I went through playing basketball throughout middle school, high school, AAU, and two years in college; but let’s just say this sport (like any) taught me valuable life lessons and gave me lifetime relationships with former teammates & coaches that I will forever cherish.

As I mentioned, I did play two years of collegiate basketball at a Division II school called Georgia College & State University before obtaining my degree at The University of Georgia. People always ask me all the time on why the switch after two years.

Not to sound too cliché but I truly believe God had a different path for my life.

I was not in a situation where I could truly thrive on & off the basketball court to make the type of impact God had for me. So, I prayed long and hard about the decision to no longer pursue my “hoop dreams” of playing professionally (NBA or overseas) and focus my attention 100% on getting my degree in business.

Throughout my educational years, it was always instilled in me to get good grades. Bringing home poor grades was unacceptable in my family since day one. My grandfather, father, and uncle would always come down on me if I ever slacked because without grades there was no basketball, period. Probably due to my bloodline, I had it made up in my mind since high school once I was accepted into a college; I would pursue some type of Business Management degree. I made this decision not only because of my leadership abilities, but also because of my curiosity of the business world in general. After connecting with some of the right people, I was blessed to be accepted into UGA where I pursued a degree in Business Management, concentration in Marketing at the great Terry College School of Business.

Terry and UGA for that matter provided me with outstanding resources and tools to put me in a successful position coming out of college. After a few internships, many networking events, and a lot of self-reflecting in those two years I knew for a fact that I wanted to work in sports on the business side. I could not pinpoint in which realm but I was eager and hungry to do whatever it took to start my career in sports. Could I have easily obtained a well-paying job within another industry? Sure. Nevertheless, I know in my heart I wouldn’t thoroughly enjoy what I do on a day-to-day basis like I would working in sports.

I ended up walking in May 2014 with my degree in Business Management and accepted a summer marketing internship with EvoShield. Then, decided to go back one last semester in the fall (had to get another football season in) to take a few more marketing classes & work an internship with the Collegiate Licensing Company (IMG). My official last semester of college that fall was the most focused I had ever been in my life. I had 5 months to figure out what I was going to be doing after college.

Similar to sports, I embraced the challenge and pressure to put myself in the best position possible to get the job I truly wanted to start my sports career in.

NETWORK. NETWORK. NETWORK. Pretty cliché but that I would say was probably the main reason I was lucky enough to get an offer to join the Atlanta Hawks organization. I knew I had to step out of my comfort zone and just meet & talk with any and everybody that I could that works in the field I was driven to get into. Whether it was meeting with different people for lunch/coffee, connecting with people on LinkedIn in the industry to ask for informational interviews, or signing up for networking events in Atlanta every month, I was on it. Religiously. I am an over thinker, to a fault I guess sometimes, so I thought like man who would not want to work in sports.

There are so many kids across the world that would do anything to break into this industry so I wondered how I could set myself apart from the pack. If it was easy everybody would do it, so that’s why I decided I was going to put my head down this last semester and give everything I had to try and get a job offer with a sports company.

After those 5 months, I was offered an Inside Sales position with the Atlanta Hawks to start in January 2015. Why sales? Well simply put that was the best way to get your start in the industry. I never had what I consider a sales background so I decided to give it a shot. I remember when I was interviewing something really resonated with me; one of the senior level sales reps for the Hawks described sales as a being a life skill that we all should pursue and develop. The position I was in actually put everyone in a year contract (yet another challenging, pressure situation that I fully embraced) so we had that amount of time to prove your “worth” to the organization. After what I consider a slow start, I soon developed a passion for the grind that it took to succeed in sales.

The fast pace, competitive environment kept me motivated every day when I woke up to go out and win each day (not to mention the Hawks were having their best season in franchise history). The race to accomplish weekly/monthly sales & hustle goals to be at the top of the board compared to your peers was what kept me going every day.

One of the things I love most about sales, and life in general, is you really get out what you put in to it.

There is no secret code or mystery on why certain people thrive and others do not. And here I thought at first I wouldn’t really like sales or it wasn’t going to be for me, but I simply made up a mind that I was going to give this my all and I could live with the results after. With the great help of my managers and the outstanding training program the Hawks had in place, my colleagues and I were able to succeed daily.

In closing…after about 10 months in my Inside Sales role I was promoted to a full time position in the Service & Retention Department as a Membership Services Consultant. Three of my biggest keys that I always share to anybody and that can be applied to any aspect of your life are: having faith, being consistent in whatever you do, and possessing a resilient work ethic. In that time span, I can honestly say I never had any doubts about the position God put me in. Did I go through trials and tribulations to get to where I am now? Without question.

However, no matter how tough and tiring things got (and trust me there were plenty of long nights and early mornings) I just kept telling myself to stay the course and believing that it was going to all be worth it in the end and boy it was! To say I had my life all planned out from the beginning would be a joke because I honestly believe God has His own plan for all of our lives. I just do my best through prayer and faith to follow in that path.

I cross the line and hear a roar from the crowd that reassures the doubts in my mind.

That was when I heard him say those three magical words: “new national record”, words we had been working all year to hear. We were a complete team, with no one part being lesser than the other is. There was an established order that no one argued against and everyone knew what their purpose and place was.

So let us start from the beginning of this simple, yet outrageous idea that would propel us into being one of the most successful high school track teams in state history. My freshman year was one full of watching and waiting. I took a class, which taught me that a successful business is one where everyone has the same goal and believes in the same idea. In the book, Good to Great, the concept of promoting from within is very popular, and that is exactly what happened to me.

I started as the worst athlete on the entire team, but one thing set me apart from the others and that was my drive. I did not like to be very vocal but I loved to succeed, and more than anything, I wanted to see people in the program succeed. Within the level five leaders, the team continuously saw the drive they had to make their entire companies great and not just themselves. I strongly related to this concept of “drive for the overall team”.

The only problem was, at the time, I did not have any of the power or influence to make anything happen.

I was tirelessly working my butt off to become one of the top four hurdlers so I could join the relay. I spent all my nights researching successful hurdlers and learning every little thing I could about them that might have made them better. One day, I made a small change in my hurdling form, and it was enough to catch the eye of my head coach. Finally, my sophomore year, the coach placed me into my first hurdle relay in the last meet of the year, and I did amazing. Amazing was actually not that good for a regular person, but for me it was the turnaround I was waiting for.

All of the sudden, two freshmen joined in on my way of training and we created a group chat to talk about the latest stats and techniques. I could see them starting to believe in the same things I believed in. During this slow transition, my best friend and I saw the stat for the national record. I wrote it down on a piece of a paper and brought it to school the next day. I spent my entire junior year with that time in my head and the team on my mind. We were the top team in the state and some of us were not satisfied.

Many of the leaders we read about were never satisfied with the first or top position and they always wanted more.

The leaders we read about would make drastic moves because they believed it would be for the better of the company. One of those moves we have seen by successful leaders is to choose the right people for the job. My senior year started amazing, with my best friend, two great underclassmen, and me. All of us loved the sport and contributed in any way we could. During this time, my best friend explained to the team that we did not need to worry about the national record, because we are already in a good enough position.

The rest of us immediately recognized the strength of belief was not there for him and he wanted to settle. That was the moment we collectively saw he was not the best fit for our team, and he needed to be replaced. We all liked and saw him as a good team member, but others wanted to succeed and join the team, and they believed in the improvement of the team.

In class, we learned when the right people are where they need to be – it will be a success.

My best friend was off the hurdle team and it was not easy to talk to him about the goal anymore because he lost the drive to succeed. A younger hurdler, who was a little faster, but not as technically sound in his form wanted to join the team. He raced in junior varsity and never seemed to fit the part, until he came on board with us. The day before nationals, we all came together and I thanked the entire team who trained with me, because they made our belief a possibility.

The positive response back was overwhelming and gave me the confidence I needed. The next day our lead off leg ran the fastest time of his life, and then second leg tripped and almost fell. Even though he tripped, it seemed as if nothing could faze him, and then the third leg ran his last race ever. It was his best of all time and we caught the team in first. I was in the anchor position, and the moment I dreamt about for years was finally a reality. The entire stadium was quiet, and in my head, I heard nothing until the announcer said those great words: “new national record”.

The record became a reality because of the hard work and understanding of everyone who was a part of the team.

We had set up a domino line and we knocked over the first domino together. After winning that race, the team won three more races that year, and I left knowing the team was better than it was before.

After my team left school, the next team made it better than we could have ever expected. They continue to win at least six national races a year and continue a tradition of success, attributed to striving to succeed, and not just mere talent. The culture of the program is to continue what we created and to make it greater for those behind them.