Episode 12: Get It Out The Mud

In this episode of The Locker Room, we talk about what it means to get it out the mud as an athlete navigating the recruiting process. This conversation explores how talent is only part of the equation, while exposure, eligibility, relationships, and advocacy all impact which opportunities open or close.

We also get into the reality of being an overlooked recruit, the difference between having stars and having to create your own exposure, and the role high school coaches and families play.

The Locker Room is a podcast for former athletes navigating the confusing and often painful transition from a life centered around sports to a life outside of the game. For many athletes, walking away from sports is more than the end of a season. It can feel like losing purpose, community, and even a piece of who you are. One day, your life is built around competition and performance. Then suddenly, it's not. No schedule. No team. No clear version of who you are supposed to become next. This podcast explores the emotional weight of that transition: the identity crisis, the anxiety, the depression, the feeling of being lost, and the pressure to “move on” before you have fully processed what you left behind. Through honest conversations, personal reflection, and relatable stories, The Locker Room creates space for former athletes to feel seen, understood, and reminded that they are not alone. Life after sports is not just about finding a new career or routine. It is about rediscovering purpose, rebuilding identity, and learning that who you are has always been bigger than what you did.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

All right, what is up everybody? It's your boy Jalen, and welcome or welcome back to the Locker Room Podcast, the number one podcast in the world for former athletes who engage in conversations about the difficulty of transitioning out of a highly committed sports lifestyle and into normal life. The first part of today's conversation is centered around one big question. How much of recruiting comes down to talent and how much comes down to ownership? Because when you really think about recruiting, it's not just about the physical aspect of an athlete's game. It's also about grades, maturity, relationships, confidence, and understanding that if you are not a freak athlete, you really have to get it out the mud. So today we're going to talk about my personal recruiting story, what I did and did not understand at the time, and what current athletes, parents, and coaches can learn from the opportunities I had, the ones I missed, and the lessons I learned too late. And today I'm having this conversation by myself, but I think that actually fits the topic because this is my recruiting story. So whether you're a former athlete, a current athlete, a parent, a coach, or just somebody who loves the game, this conversation is guaranteed to give you something to think about. But before we get into it, make sure you subscribe to follow the show, leave a five-star rating, like, comment, and share this episode with another athlete or sports fan who needs to hear this conversation. Now, let's bring it back to the locker room. To really understand my recruiting story, I have to start by giving some background on who I was as an athlete. I played football from the time I was about six years old, and by the time I got to high school, I had settled in as a defensive back. I played safety in the back half of rec ball and all through middle school, but in ninth grade, I transitioned to corner. I played corner the entire freshman season and I liked it. It was more boring than safety, but it was cool. Eventually, corner became my position, my identity in the sport, and the thing I believed could help me play college football. My first real memory of wanting to play college football probably came around 10th grade once I got more established in that position, because by that point I was playing JV, dressing for varsity games, getting the whiff of the Friday night lights, talking with my friends and teammates about the future and watching college football heavily. That's when I started imagining myself on that stage in those stadiums in front of the cameras, making plays and seeing myself on ESPN.

Training and D1 Goals

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At that age, I wasn't thinking about the full recruiting process yet. I was just dreaming about the destination. Going into high school, I didn't really know what level I could reach. But once I got to about that 10th grade year, I started working with this group called I Dare You in Atlanta, which specialized in football position specific training. For me, that meant cornerback work. That was one of the first times I was around athletes from different schools who were serious about getting better and reaching that next level. I was getting great technique work and I was working out with guys who ended up playing at big time schools and even a few who made it to the lead. I didn't go all the time at first, but I ramped it up more by my junior year. And that's when I started to see I could really make it from a talent perspective. I believed I could play somewhere at the D1 level. I ran fast enough, I was tall enough, and my technique was on point. But the mental and social parts of the game were where I lacked. What I didn't understand at the time was that recruiting is not just about having talent. Talent may get someone to look at you, but it doesn't automatically make you a complete recruit.

Talent Isn't Enough

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There were parts of my game and parts of my life that were not where they needed to be. My confidence was not where it should have been, my social skills with coaches weren't good, my grades weren't strong, my grades were terrible actually. And even though I had ability, I was not always showing up as a type of impact player who could make coaches feel like they had to have me. College interest for me first started showing up my junior year. The University of Virginia was the very first school to reach out, and even though their football program was not great at the time, their academics were. For

Virginia Opportunity

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that brief moment, I felt like I was on top of the world. It felt so good to be noticed. It felt like the work I was putting in was leading me in the right direction. It made me feel seen. It made me feel like maybe the dream of playing big time college football was actually possible. I was proud of myself and I was grateful to have my parents in my corner supporting me and doing their best to put me in the best position to be recruited. The situation with the University of Virginia was very simple. They liked what they saw in film and they were willing to offer me a scholarship if I could bring my grades up. And if I remember correctly, they wanted me to get my GPA to around a 3.0 or maybe even a 2.8. Either way, the point was my grades had to improve. They gave me a window to show progress, but it just didn't work out. They told me I would still be on the radar if things improved, but they stopped pursuing me. Looking back, that was probably the first major lesson I should have learned. If your grades are not right, you can lose an opportunity before football even gets to make the final decision. At the time, I understood that grades mattered to an extent. I still thought performance would be enough. I wasn't dumb. I just didn't care enough. I wanted to play football, run track, play Xbox, joke around in school, and have fun. I didn't fully connect the dots that my academic habits could directly affect my athletic future. That's something a lot of young athletes need to understand earlier than I did. You can be good enough on the field and still not be prepared enough off the field. The summer before my senior year, I went to a handful of camps where coaches told me if I came and showed out, I had a shot.

Camps and Recruiting Standards

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Indiana, Maryland, Austin P, Richmond, and Coastal Carolina were some of those schools. Indiana was probably the most promising. The position coach liked me, but the defensive coordinator liked other players above me. Maryland was tough because I had been at Indiana the night before. It sprained my thumb so bad I could barely even put my gloves on the next day. Austin P's program was in a weird place back then. This was around 2016-2017. Richmond was promising, but I didn't run the 40 they needed me to run. They wanted a four or five or better, and I couldn't hit it. The coach pulled us aside and offered me a preferred walk-on spot, but Richmond was way too expensive for that. Coastal Carolina didn't go much further either. That was another lesson I didn't fully understand at the time. Recruiting is not always about whether you believe you can play. It's about what coaches need to see in order to feel comfortable investing in you. They may need to see a certain GPA. They may need to see a certain 40 time. They may need to see more film, more production, more ball skills, more physicality, or better communication from your high school coach.

Coach Relationships

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And if you don't know what they need to see, you can't adjust your approach. During my senior year, I remember there being at least two coaches who said they liked me but needed to hear from my head coach. And whether that communication happened or not, I never heard much back. I'm not gonna sit here and act like I know everything that happened behind the scenes. But I do know that my relationship with my head coach was not good. That's another part of my story that matters. I didn't have the kind of relationship where I felt comfortable going to his office, asking questions, talking about my recruitment, or being honest about what I wanted. I had to take responsibility for my side of that. I was immature. I joked around a lot. I got in trouble for talking too much all the time. I didn't always carry myself in a way that made things easier. My relationship with my high school coach absolutely affected my recruiting process in a negative way. I don't want to put words in his mouth, but if I had to speculate, I don't think he would have recommended me strongly to college coaches. We had a terrible relationship, and I didn't do much to help that relationship either. But I also think high school coaches have to understand how much influence they have. A coach can be a gatekeeper, a coach can be a character witness, a coach can open doors, or sometimes, whether intentionally or not, a lack of communication can contribute to doors closing. That is why relationships matter so much in recruiting. Looking back, I think one of the biggest things college coaches did not see from me was consistent impact. I could cover and guard the man in front of me, but I was a one-dimensional

Becoming an Impact Player

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player. I didn't impact the game in enough ways. I wasn't catching the ball. I wasn't playing offense outside of maybe a reverse or a jet sweep every now and then, literally every blue moon. My awareness wasn't great. I didn't get targeted a lot, so I didn't have a lot of chances to make plays on the ball. In the two years I started in high school, I probably got my hands on maybe five or six balls. I picked one and dropped two. One of them may have been a tough catch, but still that goes into being an impact player. If you want to be an impact player, especially as a recruit who is not already heavily known, you have to find a way to show up on film. The truth is, my game lacked confidence. I had the physical ability, but I did not have the personality, the assertiveness, or maturity to match it yet. There were people around me who had confidence or at least knew how to fake it well, and I didn't. My social skills with coaches were horrible. It felt so uncomfortable to me. It was almost like seeing your teacher at the grocery store on a school night. You know them in one setting, but outside of that, you don't really know what to say. That's how I was with coaches. In another way, it affected me in games too. I'm sure there were several plays where I could have made myself more of an impact player if I had asserted myself more and trusted my physical ability. And on top of that, my grades sucked. I graduated high school with around a 2.6, if that. And I couldn't put a fast 40 time on paper to save my life. Once again, most of the responsibility still fell on me. In an ideal world where I didn't hate my head coach, maybe he could have done a better job of checking in with me, asking where my head was, what I needed, and what I could do better. My parents could have maybe put me in more environments where I was forced to build social skills and get more comfortable talking to people I didn't know. Behindsight is 2020. My parents did the best they could, and I appreciate everything they did to help me get where I got and where I am today. Both of my parents supported me as much as they could. Everything that could be done, they did. I Dare You was a great help in getting me extra exposure, confidence, and technique work. But most camps that I went to didn't really move the needle for me. I

Choosing the Right School

SPEAKER_00 10:34

should have gone to smaller schools instead of being closed-minded about D1. In my mind, D1 meant power five, but there are so many levels and so many opportunities in college football. I was focused on the biggest and the brightest. My pride absolutely got in the way of that. I eventually ended up choosing the University of Charleston in West Virginia. They were one of three schools to offer me near the end of my senior season, along with Urbana and Ohio and Albany State in Georgia. Charleston felt like the best opportunity because of the facilities, the school, the location, and the fact that I was going there with the teammate and another classmate of mine. The visits to the other schools were cool, but they were not close to Charleston. At that point, it felt like the best door that God had opened for me, and it was the one I ended up walking through. Once I got to Charleston, though, I quickly realized that my recruiting process had not fully prepared me for the reality of college football. I was still very prideful, thinking I would be the best player there by

College Football Reality

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far. I thought because it was D2, the competition wouldn't be that serious. I could not have been more wrong about anything in my life. I was humbled so quickly. I shared the field with athletes who went on to play in the NFL for multiple years. I saw bigger, faster, stronger, more mature players every single day. That showed me there are levels to the game. And it doesn't matter what division it is. College athletes are different. If I could redo my recruiting process, the first thing I would change is getting accountability for my schoolwork.

What I'd Do Differently

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If I needed a tutor, I should have gotten one. If I needed extra help from teachers, I should have stayed after school. I would have made sure I had above a 3.0 so grades could never be the reason a school backed away from me. The second thing I would change is broadening my scope. I would have kept myself open until it was time to narrow it down. I would have targeted smaller schools in my state first, shown real interest, listed my goals, and shared that with my head coach. The third thing I would change is forcing myself into environments where I was uncomfortable. I would have strengthened my ability to perform under pressure, become more social, talk to coaches, ask direct questions, and advocate for myself. The biggest lesson from my recruiting story is that you don't know until you know. So treat everything with equal importance. Treat your grades like they matter, treat relationships like they matter. Treat every camp, every conversation, every practice, and every opportunity like it could be the thing that opens or closes the door. Talent matters, but talent by itself is not enough. We're gonna take a quick break and when we come back, we're gonna talk about a little bit of the current college sports landscape and apply it to my situation and how high school athletes that are getting recruited and about to head out for college can apply those lessons and set themselves up for success throughout their college career. But we'll be right back on the Locker Room podcast. Former athletes know what it feels like to step into a new phase of life and realize there's clutter you can't carry with you anymore. Sometimes it's mental, sometimes it's emotional, and sometimes it's the old couch, bags of junk, or garage clutter that you've been meaning to get rid of. Jay's

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Grades and Eligibility

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Coaches may like your film, your size, your speed, your upside, and your personality. But if another athlete has similar talent, similar measurables, better grades, and less academic risk, and has college experience already, that athlete becomes a safer investment. That's one of the biggest lessons from my story. I had an opportunity with the University of Virginia. That door cracked open, but my grades kept it from staying open. And even when I got to college, the same issue followed me. I lost my scholarship my freshman year after academic probation in my first semester and academic suspension after

Transfer Portal Competition

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my second. So this is not just about getting recruited. It's about being ready to keep the opportunity once you get it. The second point is that high school athletes are competing against more than other high school athletes now. With the transfer portal, high school recruits are competing with older college athletes who already have film, experience, college strength conditioning, maturity, and proof that they can handle a college environment. That means if you're a high school athlete, you have to maximize every single advantage you can get. If a college coach is looking at you and another player has what you have athletically, but also has better grades and more maturity, that player may separate from you even without being more talented.

Wholistic Development

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That's why athletes can't afford to be one-dimensional. The third point is that development has to be more than physical. A lot of high school athletes are being trained, marketed, filmed, ranked, and promoted. But the question is, are they being developed? And development isn't just cone drills, highlight tapes, or camp invites. Development is learning how to study film. It's learning how to talk to coaches like an adult. It's learning how to ask the right questions. It's learning how to identify what the right questions are. It's learning how to manage your schoolwork. It's learning how to show up on time. It's learning how to communicate properly. It's learning how to take criticism and advocating for yourself without being entitled. You can be physically talented and still not be ready for college. Being a college athlete means you have to manage school, meetings, practice, lifts, recovery, treatment, film, travel, social life, and pressure that comes from your teammates, your school, your teachers, your family, everything else.

Responsibility of Parents and Coaches

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So if you want to play at that level, you have to start building those habits before you get there. The fourth and last point is that parents and coaches can help, but the athlete has to be an active participant. Parents should be involved in everything their child does. Support goes a long way. Communicate with the coaches who are interested in your child. Find out what they need to see. Talk to the teachers before school becomes an issue. Help your child understand what they can be doing at home, in the classroom, and in training to become a better athlete and a better recruit. This is going to help their overall development. But this is still the athlete's journey. Parents can help open doors, ask questions, and provide structure, but they should not completely take over. Kids are immature, just like I was, and sometimes they need a nudge. They also need to learn how to speak for themselves. High school coaches also have a lot of influence. They have to walk a fine line, but they also have to understand how much power they have in a young athlete's future. Be open to criticism. Listen to your players. Be willing to adjust. Treat the job with respect because those athletes' future can be affected by how well you advocate for them. If this was the landscape I played in, it may not have changed everything for me. It may not even have changed anything at all. But it would have made the need for ownership even more obvious. The demand for better grades would have been there. The demand for better communication, more confidence, the demand for a better understanding of how to navigate the process would have been more prominent.

Take Ownership

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The transfer portal would have only added more competition to what already exists coming out of high school. For athletes playing right now, the message is simple. Maximize your window. Do not assume talent is going to carry you. Don't assume your coach is handling everything. Don't assume that one camp, one highlight tape, or one interested school means you're good and you can rest. Be meticulous in your research, in your work. Share your goals with your coaches. Ask questions. Learn how to advocate for yourself. Keep your grades right. Build relationships. Be prepared to manage multiple things at once because that's what college is. College sports are becoming more competitive, more transactional, and more complicated. That means the high school athlete has to be more prepared than ever. The athletes who will succeed won't just be the ones who are talented. They'll be the ones who are talented, eligible, mature, prepared, and able to communicate their value. We're going to take another quick break, and when we come back, we're going to get into our commentary corner.

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We're going to talk about LeBron. Is he doing too much? The Celtics restructuring their roster after the monumental trade of Jalen Brown, one of my favorite players, and also some NFL changes that could be coming up in this season, but we're going to talk about that right when we come back from break on the locker room podcast. One thing we talk about a lot on this show is transition. Whether you're moving on from sports, stepping into a new season of life, or just trying to create some order around you, sometimes the first step is clearing out what no longer needs to be there. That's where Jay's drunk removal comes in. If you're in the South Atlanta area and you need help getting rid of old furniture, appliances, garage clutter, yard debris, or anything that's been sitting around taking up space, we've got you covered. As former athletes, we know what it means to work hard, show up on time, and finish the job the right way. So whether you're moving or just tired of looking at that same pile of junk you said you were going to handle months ago, reach out to Jay's Junk Removal. Serving Henry County and surrounding areas, send photos of your junk removal project to 678-631-6171 to receive your quote today. And if you want 15% off your first job, text code JUNK. Once again, that's 678-631-6171 to receive a quote today. Text code JUNKJ-U-N-K for 15% off. All right, we talked about my story. We talked about the current college and landscape. Now it's time to get a little bit more loose with it. Uh the first point, LeBron is taking his sweet time to pick a new team. I personally think he's doing too much. I don't know what you guys think. At some point, I understand not wanting to rush a decision, especially when that decision affects your legacy, all kinds of people debating whether he is or will be one of the greatest players

LeBron and Team Fit

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of all time. I personally think he is the greatest basketball player ever. But he's 40-something years old. I don't know how many teams he goes to at this point where he automatically makes them better. And depending on the team, he might even make the fit more complicated. For example, there's speculation he might go to the 76ers. Out of all the players they have now, how would that work? And not to mention, where's their depth? Who is on their bench? It's just going to be basically about six players. This doesn't mean that he's not great. It is, it's LeBron James. But the team dynamics matter. Fit matters, pace matters. Having role players matters, having chemistry matters. These Are there some of the best athletes in the world? Do we really expect multiple players to put their pride aside for LeBron? These guys are in the prime of their careers looking to win, hungry for a championship in this new NBA where we have a different champion every season. There's no more repeats. But I think in this point, the name might actually be bigger than the impact at this stage of LeBron's career.

Celtics Outlook

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So the question really is: should teams still kind of reshape their roster around him, or should he be the one kind of fitting into a team, fitting into what a team already has? All right, next up, the Celtics are restructuring their team, or they already have restructured their team after Jalen Brown was traded to the division rival Philadelphia 76ers and are now building around Jason Tatum. I actually think this is a great move. I know I was I was pretty shocked and kind of hurt at first when my wife showed us, showed me the phone while we were having dinner one night that they were trading him. It did hurt initially, but the more I thought about it, the more I kind of listened to people that are a little smarter than me when it comes to this stuff. I actually do think it was a smart move. I think that now that Jason Tatum is the sole alpha on the team, it makes things so much more simple. There was a lot of speculation as to why Jalen Brown got traded. There was the Jays relationship being in question, um, and also some private equity concerns about them having more of a say than the GM or the president of basketball operations, whatever. But Brad Stevens has made it abundantly clear. This was purely financial. You can't have two players making up what was it, 60-70% of the cat space? That's that's crazy. And even though Paul George's contract kind of replaces what Jalen Brown's was, we're getting out of it a year early. But all in all, I think the Celtics will be fine. The question is, can a team lose a major player and still get better if the roster becomes more balanced? Because the the problem with Jalen Brown was he was an ISO guy. Even when Tatum came back, I think Tatum reverts to that style because he's doing it. And not to say that he can't play his own brand, but I think it's harder when you have a guy doing that. I mean, how do you go play team ball when you know as soon as he touched the rock, it's about to be, you know, one and done down the court and y'all better be back on defense. So I think this year he'll be more of a playmaker. I think he's gonna show that he is the better player, in my opinion. No disrespect to Jalen Brown, but I think he is better. I think he's probably gonna have another MVP type season. And I think that because of this trade, more eyes will be on him and what the Celtics do. But I think they'll be fine. I think people look at the roster change and assume things are falling apart. Boston's cooked, but we still have a lot of depth, especially compared to some of the other teams in the East. We still have multiple players who can score, defend, impact the game in different ways. And when your team has selfless players who understand their role and understand the team, and more importantly, understand who the big dog is. That gives you a chance to survive. I mean, if we even look at the Knicks, the Knicks had a lot of role players who understood what they were there to do. Jalen Brunson's obviously the captain. They had McCall, they had OG, and everybody else just kind of fit in where they went. But when the game was on the line, who had the ball in their hands? Jalen Brunson. And that was it. There was no question about who needs to have the ball in these defining moments. And I think that's the knowledge that was more firmly cemented, is that it's hard to have two players trying to do the same thing. It's hard, not only because of the money, but when it comes down to execution, I've seen the Celtics basically give away games because they want to play ISO ball. They don't want to move the ball anymore, especially when it gets down to crunch time. I see games come down under three minutes and they're getting shot clock violations because they want to keep dribbling the ball. Instead of passing it around, finding an open look, driving, even if they miss, they still take time off the clock. And instead of giving teams more possessions to run away with it at the end of the game because they're more poised and the Celtics aren't. I think that's not going to be as big of a problem this season. I think it's actually going to be much less of a problem. And also with Jalen Brown's turnovers, I think him leaving and having Tatum in more facilitating role with the help of people like Peyton Pritchard, Paul George, Derek White, and our amazing bench players, I think it's going to give us a much more different look, a much faster look, and much more poised. I would say, not that Jalen Brown's not poised, once again, but I think the late game execution over the course of the whole season will be a lot better because I think Tatum is, I think he's more suited for that role, uh, if that makes sense. The thing we have to understand too, team dynamics change every season. Okay, whether it's a top player or the last man on the bench, the locker room changes, roles change, expectations change, conversations with front offices, coaches change with teammates, they change. But the Celtics still have enough structure, talent, and depth to be competitive with any team in the league. As we saw this year, uh OKC, the the Spurs, and the Knicks were pretty good, not only because they had great players, but they had good people filling in those those sixth, seventh, and eighth spots. They still have players that can that can do something, make something work, and not put too much pressure on the starting group to have to do uncharacteristic things when they get back in the game. They're gonna be competitive, and if I had to say right now, I don't think they're gonna be worse than a four C next season. And and that's really I'm being generous because I don't want to sound too crazy. At worst, I think they're the 4C. At best, they win the East. I was gonna say 2C, but then again, I was being generous. I think realistically, I don't see them getting worse than they did last season. And the thing is, people said last season was about to be a gap year for the Celtics. It ended up being a gap year because we got cracked in the first round. But I think that gave Tatum much more time to recover and rest and get his stuff back together. He said one of his legs was bigger than the other one, obviously coming off that Achilles surgery and recovery and all that stuff. And then they have more time now with getting Brown at the door, figuring out the other roster stuff and getting these players acclimated with playing with each other. I think they're gonna be great. I think they have one of the greatest rosters in the NBA right now. I haven't looked at the other teams yet to see who else has been doing what. I know the Thunder have been making moves. They always seem to have a pretty deep team with players that you may not necessarily know about. Well, I'll speak for myself because I don't watch basketball that much right now outside of the Celtics. But I know they always have a deep team. I know the Knicks just figured it out last season. I haven't seen if they're tearing everything apart yet or if they're gonna try to get people to take to take some cuts and whatnot or what they're gonna move around. But we'll see. Okay. I am a Celtics fan. I'm gonna vouch for my Celtics all the way to the end. No worse than a four seed. I think at best they win the East. I would say probably by a couple games. Last topic NFL players pushing for grass fields after FIFA required NFL stadiums to install grass for the World

NFL Grass Fields Debate

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Cup. This one is serious because NFL players have been talking about grass versus turf for years. Okay. The World Cup made the issue even louder because multiple NFL stadiums installed temporary natural grass for FIFA matches. If I'm not mistaken, FIFA made them install certain types of grass also in these stadiums. And the NFL Players Association called that out as proof the owners can do it when they choose to. Players like George Kittle have spoken out many times as stadiums converted for the World Cup. This has always been weird to me because players have been asking for grass for years. And when you look at the money involved in a league, and not even just the league in general, but the players specifically given these multi-million dollar contracts, isn't it strange that the player health is not treated as the priority? The athletes are the product. They're the reason we turn the TV on to watch these games. They are the cash cows. So why would you not protect them as much as possible? If FIFA can come in and require grass for the duration of a tournament that lasted what, two months, maybe a month and a half? The question becomes why can't NFL owners do more for the players who are there every single year? And I know there are logistics involved. I know there are stadium issues. I know grass isn't automatically perfect either. I know that you have to water it and get it rolled into the stadium and taken care of, all that. But when players are telling you this matters and when you have the resources to address it, it's hard not to see the disconnect. Athlete health should be the top priority at every single level, not just when the biggest tournament in the world comes to town, which obviously that's a big deal. But if owners can install grass for FIFA, how can the NFL players push harder for permanent grass fields? All right, time to wrap it up. Before we get out of here, the biggest takeaway from today's conversation is this talent matters, but talent is not enough. Recruiting is not just about whether you can play, it's about whether you are prepared to handle everything attached to the opportunity. Grades matter, relationships matter, confidence matters, communication matters, maturity matters. And if you're not one of those freak athletes that everybody knows about, you have to take ownership of your process before you fully understand how important it is. Whether we're talking about my recruiting story, academic eligibility, and athlete development, or what's happening around the sports world, the bigger conversation always comes back to the athlete experience. Athletes still need guidance, perspective, and people who understand what it feels like from the inside. Before we leave the locker room, make sure you're subscribed and locked in for the next episode. If this conversation gave you something to think about, comment your thoughts and share it with another athlete. And remember, the game changed, but your story is still being written. Take care and God bless.