My life was ruined!
Everything I had worked for was lost!
Or so I thought….
I was like any other high school athlete. I didn’t have dreams of playing in college. It was the only option. I didn’t need to dream it because it was all I ever worked for. I didn’t have any hobbies, I had competition. I had practice. What I didn’t have was a backup plan!
I will never forget sitting on the front steps of my house in Lynchburg VA, getting the call that my ACL had been fully torn and surgery + 6 months of recovery was needed.
It was the fall of my senior year of high school. I was a football and baseball player at that point. Still, I had pretty much decided baseball was my focus and chance at playing at the next level, so I decided to forgo my senior season of football to stay healthy and play in a pretty competitive fall baseball league.
Well, on Sunday night before my senior year started, I was playing pick up basketball with some friends and did just one too many jumps stopped in the paint and tore my ACL. Instantly I knew I did something severe but hoped and prayed for the best! I mean, I go hard in the M-FN paint!
When I got the call and realized I had four months to do six months of recovery post-surgery, I was crushed. I had the same feelings as most as the “Why me?” “Why now?” I had lost everything I thought I was going to be doing with my life! I didn’t have a plan without sports. It was all I ever did!
So I did what I always did, outworked the problem. I got my rehab done in 3.5 months. I was back to playing shape and had a killer senior baseball season! Then, in my last game of the season, I dove for a ball, my glove caught the ground wrong and tore ligaments in my wrist. I mean, give me a damn break! I was a hitter! That was who I was! Now I can’t even hold a bat! I had to have surgery and ended up going to beach week in a cast with a metal rod sticking out of my thumb! Nothing screams, “HEY, LADIES!” Like surgical equipment sticking out of your hand….
But I solved that problem and got healed and was able to play a year of college ball before failing out of school. Not realizing I had formed somewhat of a drinking problem and fell into a pretty lousy depression.
So now I am out of sports, I am out of school, I am out of options, and I am living with my parents again…
I tell you all of that, with more to the story, to say I was TOO STRONG to be defined by it. I was TOO STRONG to let it stop me.I was TOO STRONG to let it be the reason I failed in life. I know for a fact I am not unique and I am not alone.
You have also likely overcome some shitty situations and survived or even thrived through it. You are TOO STRONG to be stopped. You are TOO STRONG to let whatever is happening right now be your defining moment.
IN the words of Frank Sinatra: “Each time I find myself layin’ flat on my face I pick myself up and get back in the race.”
