It's Your Life

I’ll never forget the day I told my dad that I was quitting football. 

My second year in college, I began to get more playing time. It started with special teams. I was selected as a back-up on field goal in the event that someone got injured. 

Our team was good so as I began to travel with the team, I would get more time on field goals and I’d even get in when we were up significantly at the end of games and they wanted to get us young guys more exposure to playing. 

I am not going to pretend that I was amazing at the game - I just was a big enough body to provide enough value to justify me traveling with the team. 

The problem was, this was eating into my personal life. Football already had control over what I did on a daily basis. Determining the time that I was allowed to take classes, when I had to lift, when I had practice, and what I did on the weekends. When you add long road trips on top of this, you are making a huge commitment to the game. Seeing my name on the travel list - something I once dreamed of - now filled me with disappointment. 

This was a huge red flag of how much I didn’t like it. 

After the season, there is a brief break before you return to spring ball. Spring ball is a unique version of hell where you lift and condition early in the morning, while it’s cold as shit, with only your gains to be proud of. 

I had also managed to strain both of my hip flexors the previous spring ball so I had a pressing decision on my hands of what I was going to do.

There was no way that I was going to do spring ball without playing the next season and the wildest thing was that the only incentive I had to continue playing was the clothes that we were going to get going into the next season and the conference championship ring that I had actually contributed to (and would have gotten for free if I hadn’t have quit when I did). 

Even my undeveloped brain at the time could recognize that was a stupid reason to go through spring ball and with that, I had made my decision. 

But there was one last hurdle. 

I had to tell my dad. 

I knew my mom would support me no matter what but my dad had poured a ton of effort into the last couple of years of my football career. 

My senior year - he consumed more film than anybody on my team. Spending hour after hour making compilations of our highlights that our team would collectively watch. He’d send my film to colleges to try to get them to take a chance on me. 

Candidly, he cared more about the opportunity I had with football than I did. 

When it came to college, he would drive 3 hours or more each way just to watch me on the sidelines or to get my 5 minutes in a game. 

His desire and commitment to supporting me and seeing my success in my football career made the prospect of telling him that I was quitting incredibly hard. 

But if there is one thing to know about me - once I have decided I am doing something. It is damn hard to shake me from that decision. 

So one afternoon while I was driving my ‘99 Silver Honda Accord and its whopping 235k miles, I called my dad to tell him my decision. 

It took me 15 minutes of driving — and weeks of second-guessing — to muster the courage to make that call.

Eventually, as I was sitting at a red light waiting for the turn signal to turn green - I hit the call button on my phone. 

I had really hoped he wasn’t going to answer and each ring felt like an eternity. 

Maybe he wouldn’t answer. Maybe I could just act like I butt dialed him. “Oh, sorry didn’t mean to call!” 

The light turned green and midway through my turn he answered. 

Well shit. Time to brace for impact. 

I don’t remember much of the conversation but there is one component that I will never forget. 

He voiced that his fear in my quitting football is that I would lose my drive. This showed me that he didn’t yet recognize how little football meant to me and also showed me how much my football career meant to him. 

He challenged me to show him that I was driven despite losing this long-standing piece of my identity. 

I substituted football with a rigorous course load of 3 semesters with over 20 credit hours and accelerated an already accelerated program to graduate with a Bachelor’s Degree and MBA in 4 years - without having any college credit going into school. 

On top of this, my business school gave awards to the top students and I was awarded the 3+2 Outstanding Student award which pissed off my Finance professor as she wanted to give me the award for being an outstanding Finance student. 

It cracked me up a little bit when the winner was announced knowing that my professor really wanted that award to go to me. 

I did all of this just before my 22nd birthday and this was sufficient to show my dad that I hadn’t left my drive on the field. 

Although, he still occasionally jokes about me trying out for the NFL based on some of the contracts that former football players from my school have had. 

I don’t share this story to boast or brag, it’s not really my style and I expected that I would be able to do this. Nor do I share this to flatter my dad for his tremendous efforts to help with my football career or for pushing me to have drive. 

I share this because it can be so damn hard feeling like you are letting people in your life down. At some point along the way, I felt like I was playing football more for him than for myself. I knew he would be disappointed that I was quitting but it was what I needed to do to unstick myself from the cognitive dissonance that I was experiencing. 

As I write this, 6 years later, I am still grateful for the decision that I made. I am proud that I stuck with it despite the initial disappointment that it caused for my dad and for my coaches. I honored myself and my experience and ultimately did right by everybody involved by not prolonging their suffering by extending mine. 

If I would have toughed it out, I would have come to resent football increasingly. I likely would have grown to resent my dad as one of my reasons for not quitting and I wouldn’t have progressed in my academic career the way I had. 

Many people don’t make this hard decision. 

They allow themselves to follow the lives that others have designed for them obediently - ultimately sacrificing their fulfillment for the appeasement of others. Don’t allow yourself to fall into this trap. 

While it can be scary and challenging to stand up for yourself and for what you want out of life - you are ultimately the one that has to live with the life that you have created through your actions. 

This is why the decisions shaping your life should be made by you alone. When you recognize that external expectations or the weight of someone else’s hopes should not dictate your choices, you reclaim the true ownership of your future. 

We all have the right—and responsibility—to carve our own path. Don't allow anyone to define what you should or shouldn’t do. In the end, it’s your life, your dreams, and your happiness at stake. Embrace your unique drive, trust your inner voice, and build the life that truly reflects who you are. 

Pursuing what is right for you may cost you some relationships - but those that matter will find their way back to you. It is ultimately their decision if they want to be part of your life going forward. 

It takes courage to make decisions for yourself knowing there is a real risk of losing people that you love and care about and it is not your job to get people on board with your decisions. 

You owe nobody explanations - but you owe it to yourself to pursue the life that you dream of.