A Long Shot: Moving to Bluefield From New York to Start a New Life (Part 2)

I remember the over whelming feeling of energy I had as I started my trip from Buffalo to Bluefield to visit the college and meet the coach. We drove through the night — occasionally pounding a coffee or a red bull to get us through a slump. Me and my friend Steve usually take one (extensively) long road trip once a year, it is one of our yearly goals to do so. This year, the road trip was a meet and greet with college football coaches in hopes that for no reason other than empathy, they would give me a chance to prove my worthiness.

I was anxious… the recognition of what I had given up to get to that point began to creep up on me and I began to feel a sense of urgency, but I reminded myself that regardless, I wasn’t going to quit on my goal. I think that sometimes people talk negatively behind our backs about goals or dreams that are bigger (or more broad) than their own, not because they necessarily want to see you fail, but because it is a reminder that they haven’t done as much as they are personally capable of doing. I felt as though many people were in some way, jaded that I was not willing to conform to my injuries and victim-hood as a veteran and began pursuing things which were diametrically opposite of what I was told I was capable of doing. This negative talk may have been assumed to be nothing more than gossip, but in many ways it always ended up coming back to me. Usually, the person or people telling me about others doubts did not mean to cause hurt or undue self reflection, but the bi-product of criticism, for me, is most always a “get-it-done” attitude which propels me to the very edges of the space between my comfort zone and incredible personal suffering.

No one is a more harsh judge of my work ethic, self discipline or conformity than I am of myself. I am a ruthless judge and alarmingly self-aware to the point that it can almost be debilitating. Unsure as to why, I tend to do my best work when I am backed into a corner and there is seemingly no escape. When the most difficult choices are forced upon me between two opposing forces, I always find the path no one else could see and find a way to excel. Such was the case for football. Mounting criticism and doubt from my environment led me to push harder, more aggressively, and use my body as a raw tool for opportunity not yet monetized. I trained longer, harder and more effectively than at any point. I began utilizing two gyms each morning because each offered different facilities which I felt were crucial to my success. By the time I arrived at Bluefield College, I was certain that I was ready to take advantage of an opportunity to show exactly what it was I was made of.

Upon meeting head coach Dewey Lusk and defensive coordinator Dino Kaklis, I had very little to say, and they will both admit they thought I was a little crazy too. I was assertive and told them both that I am excited to be there, motivated, hydrated and dedicated, and that I can bench 405 and squat 505 (even though those numbers were 25 pounds exaggerated at the time) I told them I was willing to do whatever it took to play football and that it was my number one priority. Later after the tour, myself and around 50 recruits were all watching the previous years highlight film, coach Lusk waived me over into his office. Coach said “do you want to play football?” I said yes sir, I want to play football very badly. He said “OK, well then would you feel comfortable signing a letter of commitment today and making it official?” with a smirk on his face knowing how much that moment meant to me. I said “yes sir I would appreciate that very much” and so I did. Originally signing on as a middle linebacker despite never having even played that position, I did it anyway. After arriving back home I recognized that I could view this moment as an opportunity to let up on myself or I could use this momentum to advance even further behind perceived enemy territory and dominate.

I began working harder, pushing my body further and it showed. I was getting in shape but also at times going too far as to be unable to show up to work or even get up off the ground. In my last 45 days before arriving in Bluefield officially, I had a partially torn hamstring and herniated disk from total over exertion and training form. My body, after having been avoiding lower body work for so long while at Walter Reed and receiving surgeries, was in a constant state of inflammation and pain for a while.

Preparing to move to a new state is no easy task, everything needed to be taken into consideration before beginning my new life and it was difficult to grasp then and similarly difficult to explain now. I began to recognize my inherent short falls in the way of renting a U-haul which was worth more than the items I as going to pack in it. I decided to scrap the U haul because I could fit just about everything I owned into my Jeep with the exception of the bed, which was cheaper to order online and have delivered to my new place than to drive one down. By the first week of June, I had a single day off of my part time job at Best-Buy and decided to drive down to Bluefield round-trip in order to try and secure a space to live in off campus.

The trip was almost immediately a disaster as a rock kicked up in the first 15 minutes and left a nice hole in my windshield, but that wouldn't end up being the worst part. The house I was heading to check out was one I found on craigslist and when I arrived after my more than 7 hour drive I would find out it was a total scam, the pictures didn’t match and I was at an abandoned location while I watched people creep around a desolate house, I realized I had been set up. Getting back into my vehicle I filed a report with the Bluefield WV police department who admitted this was common now. Lost, confused and with no where to go I called coach Lusk and told him I was in town and looking for a place to live if he had any suggestions. If I would have known who coach Lusk was as a person at the time, I would have definitely told him I am coming down and he probably would have had a 4 course steak meal ready, same with coach Kaklis, but I didn’t want to get on the nerves or be a nuance to the people who just gave me an opportunity of a lifetime, so I just winged it.

By the end of the day, we would find a place for me to live in Bluefield, Virginia. There is really no sense in lying about the place, it was and still is a crap shoot, total disaster of a space and dilapidated, but for 500 dollars a month and coming from New York with inspiration tattooed into my heart, I would have paid 500 a month to live in a shoe box. By late June 2018 I was on my way to Bluefield, I had in my Jeep a box of clothes, an air conditioner, microwave, toaster, rug and my dog Chloe sitting patiently in the front seat — just waiting to see where our adventure would take us next. Oddly, I found her care free “happy to be with ya” attitude to be somewhat comical, she didn’t care if we were homeless or in a mansion as long as she was able to ride in the front seat with me.

For the first 3 months in Bluefield, I was seemingly homeless in a home, sitting on the ground consuming every meal of boiled chicken, rice and broccoli, I was on a sure fire mission to succeed though so it didn’t bother me. I heard the voices of doubt from all sides creep in on me like an enemy sniper getting in position to take the perfect kill shot; I was unwilling to give anyone the time of day to be able to take their shot at my goals and aspirations any longer and stayed deadly focused. As I entered my first camp, I truly believed that the amount of training I had put myself through was enough to be prepared, but I was incredibly misguided as to what my body would be going through. Contrary to popular belief, the military (at least in my experience) is more mental than physical (60/40), you make yourself want to quit far more than the actual conditioning aspects do, whereas I would come to learn quickly in football, that football was more physical than mental (60/40) and that 20 percent swing made a big difference.

Josh Shroyer, one of the head trainers at Bluefield College, often talks about my first two weeks in my first college football camp. He speaks about it with new graduate assistant trainers as if it is an urban legend and we laugh often about it. Speaking with him this past week on my condition, he admitted that it was the worst he had ever seen anyone in a fall camp, and he had originally come from a job at Boise State (Large NCAA division 1 program). He said he remembers vividly how swollen my entire body was, I had turf toe so badly that my toes had to be taped to the bottom of my foot because they literally went limp. When driving to and from practice, I had to drive with my forearms because I couldn’t make a fist or close my hand, and when I woke up in the morning I almost immediately began to sob the second my consciousness came back into being and the pain shot through every nerve in me like a lightning bolt of regret. It took me around 20 minutes to dress my self in the morning and getting into my vehicle was a chore. I hid my pain the best I could but confided in the trainers that I am unwell. My chest was purple from taking a beating at my new position on the defensive line and my biceps were a shade of bruised I had never seen before. There were a couple times I tried to compare myself to others, asking seasoned players and freshman alike if they were feeling what I was feeling or not, but no one was, this was my burden alone.

My body, for the first 2 weeks and some change, was in a state of utter shock and coming out of years of abuse from both hospitalization and personal neglect. “We thought you had an un-diagnosed case of sever rheumatoid arthritis” Josh said “we were getting ready to pull the plug on practice for you, but you wouldn’t accept it, and you didn’t stop”… “he didn’t stop” he told the other trainer close by. I made it abundantly clear to myself and those around me that I was willing to literally die on the field before I accepted my own defeat and hung my hat on the rack of expectations others set out for me. Eventually, I would regain a sense of homeostasis and control of myself, and took the field for my first college football game with an overwhelming sense of personal accomplishment and pride which had escaped me since my untimely departure from the service. I realized I had entered into a new phase in my life and that through the hallowed doors of my first official game was the unique opportunity to develop myself into the idea of my highest potential for a second time, something most do not get to do even once. For the first time in years, the self withering regret and anger which had invaded me due to not being able to finish serving my nation, left my body…like a bad tenant being evicted, it just disappeared and I had felt an enthusiasm blossom deep within the confines my soul which I wanted to nurture and develop. For the first time in a long time, I felt like I was exactly where I needed to be.

By game four, our ESPN game, I was a starting defensive lineman on the team and filled with a sense of purpose unlike anything I had ever felt. By the time the season would come to a close, I would earn a football scholarship, educational scholarships and multiple grants. I was able to start gathering my life and rebuilding myself day by day — but, doubt and complacency in success enjoyed is a poison which can creep up without notice and it takes dizzying self-awareness to be able to examine your position and adjust fire. As I would come to find out, football wasn’t enough, nothing ever could be now…I had broken my personal glass ceiling and if that was possible, then was was impossible? I set out to find out and break myself down even further to find out what I was really capable of. Like a scientist dissecting an organism I wanted to find out what made me tick, why I avoided certain things and what lead to me wanting to avoid them, I wanted to follow the yellow brick road deep within the mind, to the source of my very being, in order to shape shift myself into the man I was looking to be. I was no longer motivated to obtain my highest potential, I was inspired.

PART 3 ON THE WAY