Who is the Fitness Professional that inspired you the most?
When I was 16 I joined a swim team that was 15 miles from my home. My parents didn’t have the time or the resources to get me there everyday, so I rode my bike. The coach was very good at motivating us, but he was not very skilled at teaching us how to swim competitively. After that first season, he pulled me aside and told me that he wished he could teach me the things that would elevate me to the next level. He was pretty much a volunteer coach and I thought he was great. He suggested that I try to find a way to get into a group called Pepsi Marlins because they had serious coaching programs and could possibly help me get a college scholarship. That program was too far away for me to participate. The one thing he said that really got me thinking was something like “I wish I had known how much coaching could do for others. I would have started sooner and learned more about it”.
Those words came back to me when I was finishing grad school. And I decided to take all the knowledge I had gotten from all of those anatomy and physiology, physics classes and more and learn how to apply them to athletics and become a coach. Later I saw that I could apply what I know to help anyone overcome life’s challenges. He was a better teacher than he knew. His example changed my view of life and that has lead me to change the lives of hundreds of people. Everyone of us has that ability, don’t waste it.