Now or Never.
This COVID-19 pandemic has hit us all, and hit us all differently.
Some of us have more time than before.
Some of us are working harder than ever.
Some of us operate with a new and higher level of baseline anxiety.
Some of us are fighting slipping into depression, struggling with the lack of connection, the uncertainty of the future, the job market, the income.
Some of us are finding ways to better ourselves.
And some have taken it upon themselves to learn a new hobby or skill, plant a garden, finish the bedside book pile, or whatever it is you’ve been meaning to get to but never had the time.
And some of us are just giving ourselves the space we need to navigate this time as best we can in whatever way that has to happen.
And then there’s my best friend.
Who decided he’d like to get his Master’s degree.
I didn’t know Chuck when he was a college student but there are a lot of you who did.
If you did you’d know that he’s from a family of educators. He is the only person in his family who is not a teacher.
He was raised by his mother Gina, a badass in every sense of the word.
He graduated from the WORST high school.
Sports didn’t save him from racism, or bigotry, or keep him out of trouble, but it did get him to college.
Chuck went to UCLA first, and then transferred to USC (South Carolina).
Chuck hates school.
Chuck has a particular flavor of genius. The kind that when applied is almost frightening in its precision.
College for Chuck was about sports. And if you’re friends with him on Facebook and have ever been blessed (that can be sarcastic depending on the reader) with #TeamChaos posts during football season you know that his life now is STILL about sports with one important distinction.
Where Chuck opted out of applying himself in his academic career as a young college student, he overachieved as a coach.
The road to his present was a long one, not without hurdles (see what I did there?), hairpin turns, switchbacks- you get where I’m going with this right?
He took what I consider to be a laughable GPA and turned it into a degree in Sociology.
Founded a kid’s track club in Knoxville that got all of its kids to college.
Flipped a track club gig into an NCAA coaching job where at Louisiana Tech he was a part of:
6 consecutive women’s championship wins
25 individual conference championship titles
59 NCAA championship qualifiers
And 5 school records
Flipped that into the Director of Men’s and Women’s Track and Field and XC seat at Academy of Art. Where before him there was NO program, and under his tenure earned:
2 NCAA women’s national championship titles
Coach of the Year Honors from USTFCCCA (if you know you know)
Coach of the USTFCCCA Athlete of the year.
Coach to 4 USTFCCCA Regional Athlete of the year award winners
And earned 60 NCAA All-American Awards
He then headed to Alabama State where he teamed up with coaches Beene and Snapp to earn:
10 SWAC Team Championships
33 Individual Conference Championship titles
37 NCAA Championship Qualifiers
And 8 school records.
And for kicks and giggles on the side coached:
Christina Manning to a spot on TEAM USA’s 2017 World Championship team in the hurdles, arguably our deepest event, and to a medal at the 2018 Indoor World Championships.
And Isabelle Pedersen to a new Norwegian National Record and she became the first Norwegian woman EVER to make a world championship sprint final.
Oh and not to mention he puts up with me and my training on a daily basis.
So when he said to me that he wanted to get his masters degree I was shocked but not all that surprised.
I flashed back to my own college days in 2004. When Chuck flirted with the idea of a professional track career, days filled with random jobs, PlayStations and Grand Theft Auto, and Papa John’s pizza and how he would proudly exclaim that he didn’t read.
I fast forwarded to the present where I watched him scramble to finish the section of the book my book club was going to be discussing and smiled the biggest smile (on the inside of course gotta stay cool about these things) when, during said discussion he referenced a specific passage and a specific page number to make a point.
I thought about his journey and I was so f***ing proud.
He completed the application on a Sunday afternoon. Reached out to his mentors for letters of recommendations, uploaded his transcripts, and pushed submit.
And he waited.
And waited.
Then called to check on the status of his application.
Then waited some more.
Until he finally heard back.
They said that his application had been rejected because his GPA was too low. They then recommended he take three courses with them to boost his GPA but added that earning A’s in each of those classes still wouldn’t be enough to get into their school but provided the link to register and pay anyway.
I watched my best friend deflate that day.
I watched my best friend try to process “Chucky Ryan”. The kid who stepped onto UCLA’s campus Fall of 1999, a graduate of the WORST high school, who had earned a full track scholarship, a ticket out, who just wanted to run for John Smith.
I watched my best friend occasionally glance down at the Cal emblem on his shirt and wonder if, after two decades of making all the right moves, doing all the right things if his evolution as a man, an academic, as a coach will ultimately be denied because of who he was at the START of this evolution.
I couldn’t abide it.
I asked him, “what do you say to the kids you’re recruiting who got rejected by Cal?” He tells me that there’s an appeal process.
I tell him that he doesn’t have to leave that rejection email unanswered. That he could, in his own way, appeal. I told him that it’s okay to compose an email thanking them for their response, stating his disappointment in their decision, and his confusion about why his GPA from 15 years ago is so heavily weighed in a masters program called: Positive Coaching.
A profession that he’s excelled in for fifteen years. Even as people have tried to make it hard for him.
He wrote the email, and he pushed send.
They wrote him back, they essentially said you are right- but we have to check certain boxes here, and we still recommend you take those three classes, and again even if you get all A’s you won’t get in BUT at least then we can ask the Dean to look into it.
At this point I told Chuck I was proud of him, and that there were other schools, and other programs, and that perhaps it was a good thing that the school showed him what they were about BEFORE enrolling.
Most importantly, I’m proud of the conclusion of Chuck’s email response to his rejection:
My undergraduate GPA is not representative of my academic abilities, it is the result of my immaturity and lack of perspective from ages 18 to 23. Thankfully, my profession does not evaluate things in like manner as I’ve spent 15 seasons in the NCAA coaching profession directing young people through education to become productive adults and leaders in their communities.
Thank you for your time. As disappointing as this rejection is for me I will derive value from this experience as it has given me an extremely personal and painful example to share with my athletes as I remain committed to role modeling the very things I set out to teach them.
Some days I wake up angry as hell at the version of Tianna that said, “I do,” because I’m paying for her missteps.
And yet, we very much love to tout the phrase “it’s not about how you start, it’s how you finish.”
We love a redemption story.
We love to root for the underdog.
Or do we?
My book club is reading “Between the World and Me” by Ta-nehisi Coates. And within the first thirty pages it was clear to me that we had similar views about education.
“Schools were not concerned with curiosity. They were concerned with compliance” he says.
We have all known somebody from school who was identified as a troubled kid or problematic student in class- until we got to a subject they were interested in and suddenly this kid is raising their hand, answering questions, engaging in the conversation, and doing their homework.
And then the unit wraps. And they slide back into the lull of rote learning. Where the teacher, frustrated at having seen the lights come on in that student’s eyes, implores them to apply themselves.
Coates goes on to say:
The pursuit of knowing was freedom to me, the right to declare your own curiosities and follow them through all manner of books. I was made for the library, not the classroom. The classroom was a jail of other peoples interest. The library was open, unending, free.
I feel the same. And have taken that approach in my life.
So much so that people hardly notice or care that I’m a college dropout. They hardly even question my intellectual capabilities, and don’t ask for my academic record before consulting me on a host of things.
But guess what, I still can’t get a college coaching job.
Because I don’t even meet the basic “must have graduated from an accredited four-year institution with a bachelor’s degree” requirement.
And so I know and have made arrangements to check that box for myself as I prepare to step out into the world beyond track and field.
But this post is mostly for my high school and collegiate friends. The ones who may have more of a tunnel vision for the athletic side of things. The ones with the dreams of stepping out of college and into the pro ranks. The ones who believe they will never use the degree they are in school for.
Don’t play yourself.
You know how they say, “do something today that you’ll thank yourself for later?”
This is that something.
The grades you get now… even in these less than ideal learning environments matter.
And they’ll matter most to a gatekeeper who doesn’t know you, or your story. Who may or may not have read your personal statement or letters of recommendation.
A gatekeeper who doesn’t actually care about your evolution. Who won’t bother to interview you to better understand.
This gatekeeper may be standing between you and an opportunity, you and your dream job.
But honestly, they are most likely standing between you and something you may not even have imagined for yourself…
Don’t box yourself in by not taking care of your academics.
And no, college is NOT for everyone…there are other paths and vocations and callings.
BUT…
If you’re going,
If you’re there,
Whether it’s for you or not…take it upon yourself to not be another reason why your future isn’t wide TF open.
There’s no time machine Chuck can use to go back to tell his younger self that this will matter fifteen years from now.
No time machine that will allow him to go back and tell his jock self that he will absolutely want to pursue his masters degree and this will matter.
There’s probably no way, even if we had such capability, that his younger self would even believe him.
But what I’m asking you, begging you, warning you even…
Is to not let your actions today limit your possibilities tomorrow.
Hold space for the idea that just maybe you don’t know it all yet.
Just possibly, the entire plan may change.
That you may evolve and want something completely different than what you want right now.
So it’s your responsibility to set yourself up for that possibility.
Taking this personal responsibility leads to more possibilities.
Don’t let your now, lead you to never.