29-35
A couple of weeks ago I woke up realizing I was turning 49 in less than a month. No, I am not worried about getting older, I was pumped because I was turning 49 and how cool it was to be a prime number. Oops, about three seconds later I realized that 49 is not a prime number and that neat phenomena wasn’t going to happen until I turn 53. However, the fact that 49 can be divided equally into 7 equal parts of 7 led me to realize that, with some minor overlap, my life has really worked well in the 7-year increments. So, to appease my own curiosity and to cathartically get it out, I decided to write about each of my 7-year segments leading up to turning 49.
This
little project has taken a life of its own, but it is amazing that I cannot
seem to sit down and write it out until 9:30 at night. This evening, MJ and I shot our first podcast
for our Beyond the Curve Podcast so we had to set up the trailer so we could
shoot it. Obviously, that took longer
than any of us expected. It really helps
to have a great partner, and she is a big part of tonight’s retrospective. 29 was a great age for me, heck, there is
that prime number I was looking for, as Michelle and I were finishing our
rookie season of married life. We
purchased a home four months after we got married, both had good jobs, and were
just finding our way through the world as a married couple. We did married couple things and even thought
about getting ahead in our own little world.
We were both teachers, her in elementary school and me at a middle
school. September 11th
happened for both of us with a classroom full of students. Each of us watched that unfold and wondered
what it would be like to bring a child into that world.
While
we were both teaching, I thought it would be fun, and not time consuming at
all, to start a lawn service. It was
small, manageable, and allowed us to travel in the fall and winter whenever we wanted. When January/February rolled around we were
in the planning stages of finding out what it was going to be like to raise a
kid in a world where our own country had been attacked. I turned 30 that May knowing it was going to
be my last birthday not being called dad.
Michelle was a trooper. We put in
new sod and even went to Daytona for the Pepsi 400 while she was very
pregnant. Less than a week after our
second anniversary, Brianna Kealy Heath joined us, making us a family of
three. She definitely did not hold us
back. She went to races, heck she was
going to those before she was born, she went on trips, and some say she became
the best home seller for Ken and Ruthie with their real estate business. Not all was smooth though. Michelle could sense something was missing in
my world and that was competition.
Coming from BMX and tennis at a high level to being a normal adult just was
not going well for me. My love for auto racing
was greater than my economic capability so that was not a possibility. However,
my cousin, Justin Wright, was racing motocross and it seemed that this might be
a something I could do. So, Michelle and
I went down to Sky Powersports, here in Lake Wales, now known as McKibben, and
we purchased a brand new YZ 125CC dirt bike.
The next step was to learn how to ride it. So off I went to Dade City MX track for
lessons. Me at 30 years old out on the
track with the 4–6-year-old kids all learning the same things. Yeah, I was hooked.
So,
in January of 2004 we all loaded up and headed to Polk City for me to race in
my first hare scramble. I was racing in
beginner 1 in the hour and half race. It
was exhilarating. As I was coming to the
finish, I was in third place. This was
easy. I would be a “C” class rider in no
time at all. About a quarter mile from
the finish, I hit some sort of stump, went ass over elbows, and laid on the
ground looking up at the sky. I was fine
but when I went to crank my bike the radiator started spewing coolant 10 feet
in the air. The gentleman that helped me
up advised that I was probably done for the day. When I got back to the truck, Michelle asked
me why I did not just push the bike through the finish line since I was able to
push it back to the truck. Lesson
learned!! If you can finish, even if it
means you push, finish. There in started
the hare scramble racing career, obviously as a rank amateur, and it has had
many fits and starts over the past 17 years.
Hurricane Charley came and put a damper on Brianna’s 2nd birthday. Being as we were without power and a home that was uninhabitable, we made the best with what we could do. Again, the kid, affectionately known to me as Pea Pod and now as The Pod, just handled it. We moved to a rental home, she had sleep overs with grandma and grandpa, and we just survived. It was also this time, during this stretch of three hurricanes that I would eventually get fired, the only time that it happened to me, so life and its curveballs were coming in hot. As I went into 2005, I really was not sure what I was going to do. Michelle was entrenched in the education world, Brianna was developing at a great pace, and I was floundering. Again, no direction. I did go get my real estate license and thought that might be the answer. Apparently, sports have a way of pulling me in or away, I am not really sure. My dad happened to be the AD at Webber International University and needed a Women’s tennis coach. I did not really want to do it, but it was some extra part-time money, and it was my dad, so I said yes. Oh, my goodness, the women’s team was so nice, but they were not particularly good. However, they tried hard, trained hard, and really wanted to be successful. Life was great, we were getting destroyed but the season was going to be a breeze. Of course, it could not be that smooth. The men’s coach, upon completion of his MBA in February, took a position at a very nice club in CT. All the sudden the men’s team, which was ranked to ten in the country did not have a coach. I was voluntold for the position and that led me into the next twelve years of my coaching life.
The men’s team qualified for nationals so off we all went to Mobile, AL. Michelle and Brianna drove up separately and even took a couple of the players with them. Brianna learned the art of colorful language on that trip, and we had a blast. Brianna was so good at fitting in to all the scenarios she was thrust in and I think that is why she adapts so well now. Being at Webber allowed Michelle and I to spend a lot of time with a part of my family that I have failed to mention at all in this retrospective. When my dad married Stella, for many years it was just my sister, Michelle, and myself. We were separated by four years so there was not much overlap in our lives. When I was late in my teens my dad and Stella decided to add to our family. I was fortunate to have another sister, Stephanie, and brother, Tyler that added so much to my life. They were also a great birth control because there was no way I was ready to have rug rats like them for myself. Stephanie was a handful and Tyler, when he was incredibly young, was a mini me. Fast forward to when I started coaching at Webber. Both had gone through Babson Park Elementary, so we were going to all their functions and getting to be an active part of their lives. Both kids were very athletic, so we found ourselves at Frostproof High School watching volleyball games, soccer matches, golf rounds, and tennis matches. They kept us all busy and really were a lot of fun to be around. They were also wonderful with Brianna. They were younger and would rough house with Brianna. I think that helped toughen her up.
One of the coolest things I did while I was 34 was to be asked to participate in Lake Wales Leadership with my dad. This was a great experience and something I will hold dear. Time marched on, Webber was becoming my home, Babson Park seemed like it was going to be where we lived, and life was going smoothly. Well, that was until the Men’s tennis job came available at Florida Southern College. It was very weird asking my boss, who happened to be my dad, if I could apply for the position. I did not think I had a chance of getting it, but I thought going through the process would be good for later in my coaching career. You see, I had only coached one and half years as a head coach when I went for my interview. Somehow, Lois Webb, Pete Meyer, and Marie Scovron, saw something and I was offered the job. So, in the summer of 2007 I left Webber and become the Moc’s Head Men’s tennis coach. We continued to live in Babson Park, so I drove 34 miles one way every day. It turned out to be a great way to prepare for the day and to wind down from the day. The pressure at that next level was something I was not quite prepared for, but that first season was a lot of fun and extremely rewarding. We qualified for Regionals, we had quite a few All-Americans, and I was ready for what the next year had to offer. Oh yeah, I also finished my MBA during that first year at my new job as well. Stack it all on and hopefully you can carry the load.
We are nearing the end and tomorrow we tackle 36-42.
Another good one! I am so enjoying them!
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