From Gold to Friday Night Lights to a New Path

I'm coming live from NYC - on the upper west side near Subway stop 103. It's an experience that, like so many others I've written about in the last year or so, I never imagined I would have. My teammate Adrienne Smith (see former blog with Q&A from Sweden) is an amazing, inspiring entrepreneur who makes her living by tourism - a concept uniquely her own - and who has taken it upon her shoulders to build the TEAM USA brand from the ground. She organized for a group of us including Sharon (Strong Arm) Vasquez and Olivia ( OG ) Griswold - who both play for Pittsburgh's team to come here this week and coach as a part of the NFL Draft week Play 60 youth football camps. The three of them are exceptional athletes who I loved hanging out last summer and am loving even more this week. The four of us are coaching groups of kids who come in for a 60-minute flag football clinic, and we coached today alongside legends from the NFL including Donovin Darius, Chris Doleman and N...

Last night we were supposed to beat our opponents. We did it (69-0). There were some ups ( Kash returning almost three balls for special teams TDs , not running more than about 37 plays all night - even though we only played 2.5 quarters, defense not allowing any first downs.... and on...) and we had some lows (punted three times) but the main point was that for the extreme highs we had during the game and the individual performances: Mick made some killer hits, Groupie had a really good game, OL pancaked like it was our job. The extreme low came near the end of the third quarter when one of their players was severely injured. We haven't heard what exactly was wrong, but as we were leaving, the fire department guy told me that she was playing with a back brace. Not good. Those situations are scary and make you think too much about how fragile life is - especially on the field. One bad hit, one crunch, one minute - you can't think about that when you're putting on your equ...