The fragrance of freshly cut grass permeates the air. The dew of the early morning resting on the earth, licking the bottom of my cleats as I saunter across the field. The whites of my knuckles peeking through my right hand as I clutch the facemask of my helmet through its shoulder pad cradle. I have athletic tape wrapped tightly around each joint, restricting their movement - creating discomfort in this otherwise comfortable moment, the price for making the uncomfortable moments to come more bearable. I buckle my pads and squeeze my heavy helmet over my ears and onto my head as I inhale a deep breath of oxygen, anticipating the day’s work.

This experience is a thread that has weaved through my whole life. An experience that prefaced many of my life’s most competitive moments. I began playing the game of football when I was seven years old. I played my last game in 2023 on New Year’s Day, when I was 29 years old.

I was destined for athletic competition from the beginning. As a big kid who prided himself on his speed, my physical attributes gave me an early edge over my peers. However, this physical competitive edge was just the seed. What grew from it was an edge that was more internal and far more powerful than any physical attribute.

I became obsessed. Obsessed with the concept of tangible improvement, I loved the feeling of repetition and practice leading to the development of my skills. I spent hours training my body with the desire to bear witness to increased fitness and endurance. Higher frequencies of competition leading to enhanced performance.

The competition with myself quickly became the most important scoreboard in my life.

As I matured over the years in my athletic career, I naturally found passion in the competitive edge over my opponent. I found the love of winning the game, of beating my opponent on any given play or possession. But from early on, it was always about practicing to improve the craft of the man in the mirror and outperforming the “me” of yesterday. Tangible improvement became a tentpole of my confidence. The wins against my opponents AND the wins against myself, gave me hits of dopamine that I began to identify with as parts of who I am.

Every athlete can attest, however, that at a certain point in your career, those wins become tougher to come by, and so does the competition. Edging your opponent becomes a taller task. The outcomes of competition don’t always go your way. Improvement and development become more subtle. In time, I reframed my relationship with the game and what I defined as a win.

In order to keep my sanity while fueling my obsession, I’ve found solace in anchoring the value of my career’s experience into more intangible things.

Specifically, I began to focus on the action of the practice. The action of showing up every single day and giving 100% of my effort. The action of being fully prepared and ready for any opportunity. In this way, the favorable outcome of competition became the cherry on top rather than the whole sundae.

In essence, I began to focus on the action of climbing the metaphoric mountain instead of the views, or lack thereof, at the summit. It is a relatively nuanced perspective, but it was a hugely important personal shift for me. Focus on the action, instead of the outcome, unlocked an ability to better regulate my emotions and find maximum value in my experiences.

All of this philosophy and theory is nice to recite but much harder to put into, you guessed it, practice.

The true test has come over the last twelve months, as I’ve lost the game of football as I once knew it. Spending the 2023 season as a free agent, and recently deciding to officially retire from the game, I’ve toiled against my toughest opponent yet - reckoning with the thought of having potentially reached the top of my mountain. The peak of my professional career having come and gone, I’ve labored with the fear that the peak of my life has come and gone with it.