What’s up everybody, hope all is well in your world. Time for me to talk about some developments in my life in the past few weeks. But first…
Music to listen to: Trampled Under Foot (live) by Led Zeppelin
I love all types of music but lately I’ve been on a major kick of Zepplelin, who actually started my interest in rock music in the early 1990’s when I was in junior high. I would listen to the classic rock station in the NYC and they always played Zeppelin. Anyway, this is maybe their most badass live performance from arguably their best recorded concert. They were at their peak at this stage, 1975, before the drugs, injuries, drama and death came into play.
So your boy has been contemplating a lot of things the past few weeks. It all started when I returned to Kennesaw to see my oldest nephew, Alex, participate in a Nike Football Combine in Atlanta a few Sundays ago.
He did really well and had one of the best scores in the entire country. He’s a current junior and now he’s now getting attention from top schools around the country and I’m happy for him but a lot of work needs to be done. He still has to get his highlight tape out to schools, visit schools, prepare his application, take his SAT exam, get recommendations, write essays, etc.
Point being, I’m taking a role of assisting him through this process and its been fun.
I wrote a status on Facebook stating that I’ve never wanted to see someone succeed more in my life than him, including myself and I mean it. He’s my nephew but he’s my little brother in nature. I will sacrifice my time, money, energy, whatever it will take for him to reach his highest level. I see how hard he works in school and his commitment to football from practicing, weight training, his determination is inspiring.
I guess this how parents feel about their children.
So while I’ve been preparing him for all of this, I’ve thought about my own career.
If I’m telling him every day to strive for his goal to become an elite college football player, I can’t be hypocritical and not do the same for myself in relation to my life.
I’ve thought about what I want to do for the rest of my career. I know that I want to stay in sports so that’s a given.
Its funny because by the time I was Alex’s age, a junior in high school, I had visited about a dozen colleges, had my recommendations lined up, knew all of my financial aid options, I was a beast when it came to my academics and college preparations. I was determined to get into a great school and dominate in it. That’s right, I actually looked at college as a chance to come in and dominate like a sporting event.
I’m trying to get Alex close to that level and speaking with him today on the phone I think he’s getting there. But what happened to me?
Not to sound ungrateful but at my age and experience, I should have a better job. If anyone at my job is reading this, they would agree with me if they were honest about it. How did that pitbull from the NYC turn into a softie in Nashville?
During my senior year as an undergrad at Vandy, I took the LSAT with aspirations of becoming a lawyer. I didn’t do well on that test. I then applied to about eight schools and got rejected by all of them. It was devastating. So I decided to take the LSAT again, improved by about two points, applied to another set of schools and didn’t get accepted to any of them.
At that stage, I’ve gone through two application processes and gotten nowhere. To be fair, I was applying to schools that were outside of my reach and looking back, I wouldn’t have accepted myself to those places. I
f I went to law school as a 23 year old, I would have flunked out in a year. I wasn’t ready for it and I think that the admissions people at the schools could see that.
After that ordeal, I worked different places and even got a masters degree in sport management, which has taken me a step closer to my sports career goal. What is that goal you ask?
I want to run my own sports organization, become a general manager, team president. Do I dare dream of the sports executive trinity, meaning commissioner of the NBA, NFL or MLB?
Damn right, I would dominate at that job, a commissioner. Even better, I love mixed martial arts. Why not aspire to be Dana White, the president of the UFC, or Scott Coker, prez of Strikeforce?
So I look at those options and I’m getting hyped about it but how do I reach that goal? The sport management degree is nice but I need more. I did some research and saw a common thread in the sports executives in positions that I would want.
A legal background.
Every aspect of a sports organization from the front office to players to marketing and everything else in between deals with the law. What’s the best way to learn about the law?
Going to law school…but do I want to put myself through all of that stuff again that I mentioned above?
I did some initial research on this. If I wanted to go to law school, I would have to start from the beginning. My LSAT score doesn’t count because it was taken too long ago. My recommendations are not useful because its talking about a 21-year old me and that was years ago. New personal statement, new application fees, you get the idea.
I weighted all of that out and still came across unsure. The next step was to actually visit a law school and see if it would be for me. Being in Nashville, the only law school here in town (actually just did a quick google search for accuracy and there is actually a place called Nashville School of Law but work with me please) is Vandy Law. So this week, I returned to my old stomping grounds of Vandy Law to meet an admissions rep and visit a class.
My first two years of undergrad at Vandy I worked in the Law Library and had a blast. I enjoyed being in the environment of people learning about our laws. A lot has changed about the school since then but it still has the same vibe.
I get there and meet my host and she was very nice and introduced me to different people. There was a diverse group of people in the school, different ages, races, etc. However, the median age of the school is 23 so I was a little older than most of the people.
Then I went to a Constitutional Law class and it was very educational in two ways. It was useful knowledge for your everyday life and I was already making tie ins to how I would apply the rules as a general manager or commissioner. Sitting in the class got the pitbull inside of me going and you know what that meant. I had the feeling that I would dominate in that class and law school overall. I’m getting hyped thinking about it now. Being in that environment was amazing and made it very, very tough to head to work later that day.
After the class, I met with an admissions rep and laid out my plan and he didn’t scoff at it. In fact, he mentioned a Vandy Law tie-in to one of those sports organizations I mentioned earlier that was very impressive. After that, I went to work with a lot to contemplate.
Does this mean I’m going back to school? Will Vandy get more of my money? Not necessarily but the odds are siding significantly towards yes to the first question, the second question is too early to tell. Years ago, I was applying to law school and trying to become a lawyer because everyone else was doing it and it would sound impressive to my mother.
Now things have changed. I’m older and wiser. I can handle the commitment of school. It would help progress my career and would help me intellectually greatly. My approach from the application process to choosing schools would be so much better now.
The 28-year-old version of me is better prepared for this step.
The only major issue is finances but I may have a plan for that and if you want something enough in life, money doesn’t have to get in the way.
In the end, the young buck in my life has inspired the old bull to give school another try. While I’m trying to teach Alex something,, I’m learning more from him than he’ll ever understand.
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