The First Stop in my Coaching Journey

A long time ago I got reminded of how I was back when I was at The University of Texas at San Antonio and when I say how I was I'm talking how dedicated and motivated I was back then and I had to be...

You see I was the first Strength and Conditioning Coach at UTSA WHILE I was a full time Undergraduate Student!!    

Yeah you read that right...

In January of 1994 I was walking around UTSA's Campus after paying for my tuition and stopped in to  watch basketball practice when the Head Coach Stu Starner walked over and spoke with me then his Assistant Coach Mark Olberding who was a former San Antonio Spur came over and told Coach that I had trained David Greenwood who played for the Spurs and had won a NBA Championship with the Detroit Pistons, that's right "The Bad Boys"!! I told them that I wanted to become a Strength and Conditioning Coach and was starting school here in a week.  They asked me if I'd like to volunteer with the Basketball team and I immediately said YES!!

Mark took me and introduced me to Jerry Greenson the Athletic Trainer and the rest was history!!  Unfortunately the Basketball Coaches were fired at the end of the season (in March).  I spoke to the new Head Coach Tim Carter offering my services and he said yes but that he wanted to make sure I got paid!! He and the new Volleyball Head Coach Katrinka Crawford lobbied the Athletic Director Bobby Thompson to hire me as the student weight room manager and that each sport that wanted to use me had to put in money that Coach Carter made sure got into my paycheck!! 

I remember that 12 sports in all used me, now remember I said I was a full time Undergrad Student so on top of the athletes from those 12 sports I had a full class load of 12-15 semester hours.  The pay wasn't all that great so I also waited tables at Dick's Last Resort on the Riverwalk which means I went to work at 5 or 6pm and got off around midnight or 2am and I had to be at a UTSA before 6am to open the student weight room and I had teams starting at 6:30am so there were days I would just drive to school and sleep in the parking lot.  On days I didn't wait tables I'd do my school work and design training programs for the sports teams and through everything I NEVER MISSED A TRAINING DAY!! In fact I won 3 Texas State Powerlifting Championships. 

I also attended both the NSCA Coaches Conference (Jan), National Conference (July) and the Texas State Clinic and any other clinic I could get to in addition to visiting with professional and college coaches to learn more about what I needed to do to achieve my goals. 

As hard as I worked in coaching, studying and training I'll tell you that I enjoyed Every. Single. Minute. Of. It.

One thing that I did do was become a 'creature of habit' as I was battling back from a brain injury that had me hospitalized in France for more than 2 months.  I had to re-learn what most people take for granted every day, I know that I did!!  The girl I liked that later I would fall in love with pointed out how I acted and how she felt (funny it's no different than she would later make me feel!!) anyways I tried to explain to her that the asshole voices in my head were responsible for that attitude of mine back then and that those voices were assholes indeed!!!   

I came home in April of 1993 and jumped right into waiting tables after landing a job at Dick's and to tell you the truth Dick's both saved my life and has given me the death sentence that I am currently living with. Let me explain, working in the high paced atmosphere of Dick's with the music blasting and long tables that you could have 20+ open tabs on I never once wrote any orders down forcing my brain to get stronger like my muscles while I lifted.  No one told me to do this I just thought it sounded like a good idea and I really believe that it helped my brain heal the rest of the way BUT and here's a big BUT this was the mid-90's and even though they knew second hand smoke was bad they still allowed smoking in restaurants and bars and to think that Dick's was located in the basement of the Nix Hospital.  That second hand smoke combined with my sleep apnea caused me to have high blood pressure which of course was untreated because ain't no one giving a waiter any health insurance and I was blissfully ignorant once I got health insurance at UTSA so I never knew or really understood that damage that I was doing to my heart but I do now in hindsight which we all know is 20-20!! 

I'll share more in the future