MS Exercise Physiology
CrossFit Level 4 coach
USAW Olympic Certified
I grew up a little bit obsessed with sports. By obsessed I mean crazy and by sports I mean basketball. I played Division I basketball and then went on to play in the Pro European Basketball League for a few years. Basketball was the love of my life and it loved me well until I was so burnt out that I walked off the court after a game, retired, and then didn't touch a ball for years. I went on to get my master's degree at THE Baylor University (sic em') where I learned what it meant to work hard outside of the basketball court. I was a strength coach for multiple teams and the work never stopped. This is also where I learned my passion for teaching. I taught courses in Exercise Physiology, Anatomy, and Biomechanics and knew that someday I'd come back to being a professor after I was done coaching. I picked up CrossFit because I needed a physical challenge in my life and running was not cutting it. Turns out I was pretty good at it right away and who doesn't love to do things you're good at it. I liked competing but I just loved the journey of getting better at a new sport, getting stronger and it was fun to be focused on getting fitter instead of chasing an aesthetic goal. I had found something to train for instead of working out. The rest is sort of history, I do love coaching CrossFit, but I love programming for CrossFit even more. Programming has very little to do with coming up with workouts that "suck" or demolish you. It's rewarding to put together a macrocycle and watch it come to life in the athletes and witness them getting better just because they've shown up and done the program/work.
A big turning point in my life was my time at Baylor. I didn't know what working hard really meant and I didn't know how to deal with failure until that time in my life. I failed in basketball plays and sports, but you have to have amnesia when it comes to failure in that sport. Then came Baylor. Getting up at 3:30 am, coaching, then teaching, then training, going to school, then working games at night just to wake up and do it all over again. You can't be your best at anything when that's your schedule. I failed a lot, had a lot of hard conversations with my mentors, and grew a lot. It was a turning point for me because, through massive amounts of discomfort, I learned what greatness took.
To be honest, my favorite thing to do at work is to coach my coaches and program for general pop classes. Those two things bring me the most life!
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