Disclaimer: This blog is very emotional and meant to help you share your own emotions with others. I would recommend reading my first blog post before reading this as well.

I want to get some things straight before we dive deep into this conversation. Looking back on my life before college, I was coasting through life and wasn’t ever really faced with tough decisions or situations. I had it made. Some of you may not know this, but my parents are actually my grandparents. They adopted me for the sole purpose of giving me the best life that I could ever have. Everything that they did for me came from nothing but love. The world is a nasty place and no one wants to watch their child struggle. Needless to say, I was very spoiled and I never heard the word “no.” This included eating whatever I wanted, which typically ended up being chicken nuggets and french fries. My weight issue is a topic for another blog, but I’ll drop this picture in below for a better visual of who I was. It’s also for any of my friends reading so they can get a good laugh (because they never let me live this down, and rightfully so!). 

I specifically remember a time we finished our meal and half way home I realized that I had left my Gameboy at Wendys. We went back and it was gone. I was obviously upset, so they drove me straight to Target to buy me a new one. They had nothing but good intentions, but I bet you are thinking how spoiled that sounds. I couldn’t agree more. I could have learned a lesson about being accountable for valuable stuff, but the opportunity was lost. I have talked about these times with my parents and we laugh about how spoiled I was when we look back on it. Now that you have an idea that they wanted to shelter me from any discomfort, you can imagine that the topic of how my grandparents adopted me is rarely brought up in my adult life. 

My biological mom, Kelly, grew up in a busy household with two sisters and two brothers (she is my grandparent’s daughter obviously, making her brothers and sisters my awesome aunts and uncles.)  She was passionate about things she loved and she loved nothing more than her family- especially me. My grandparents were raised Catholic and never miss church on Sundays still to this day. When they found out my Mom was pregnant with me, abortion was not an option. Their faith and values are the reason that I am here today. Then in the most selfless act, my Mom decided to let her parents adopt me so I could have the best life possible. My parents lived in Pittsburgh with me for the first three years of my life and decided to move down to Florida for retirement. My Mom then made the tough decision to uproot her life to be close to me. This is where things get sticky for me. I always called her Kelly and not Mom. She always tried to make every baseball game of mine and was there for every big moment of my life. When I went away to college, it was my first time starting to become my own man- my own person. Our relationship was growing because I was starting to learn what life was about and thinking for myself. I was starting to appreciate all that she did for me by giving me up and then we got the news that she had ovarian cancer. I’m very good at being in the moment and not letting things out of my control affect my mood, but of course this news was concerning. I usually take pride in my “brush it off, everything is fine” personality, but it was not a positive thing for this situation because I refused to see the severity of how sick she was. I just thought she was going to go through chemo, get better and get back to being the fun loving Mom I had always known. I didn’t take it seriously at all and then the worst day of my life came around. 

I was in Greensboro, North Carolina for summer baseball and got a call from my Dad. He could barely get the words out of his mouth. He told me that I needed to come home because Kelly only had two weeks left to live. My body just shutdown and I cried all day long. How could this be? I was just starting to appreciate all that she did for me and I was finally going to be able to let her know how much I appreciate her. I was planning on driving home that day but I just couldn’t move from that room. Then the next day, my Dad called Taylor (my now wife) and told her that Kelly had passed away and she came in to tell me the news. I just became numb and had no idea how to process these emotions. As soon as Taylor told me, we packed our bags and drove down to Florida for the funeral and then my summer coach convinced me to come back and play. I am forever grateful for Dale Ijames convincing me to come back. I’m honestly not sure where my life would be if I didn’t come back to baseball that summer. 

This is where my struggle with my beliefs comes in. I was raised Catholic as I said before, but it never felt right to me because I never felt anything. My wife went to Catholic school her entire life until college- and she and I both feel the same way and openly speak about it often. This was never more prevalent because I had no idea how to process what just happened, and I couldn’t understand why this happened. I was playing my first game back in summer ball and it was against the Burlington Royals, the rookie class team of the Kansas City Royals. I get up to the plate and knock a single. It was right where I needed to be but little did I know what was going on. Taylor told me while I was at first base, a butterfly wouldn’t leave me alone and kept fluttering around me. This was strange because it was 8 pm. I didn’t think much of it until two days later I was in the bullpen and another butterfly kept flying all around me. It started getting me thinking, is this a sign? 

A week later, my grandparents came up to NC to watch some games of mine. We’re out to lunch and I get a call from coach Gantt. He asks me if I would be interested in going to play in the Cape Cod League. I couldn’t believe my ears. Just two weeks after the worst moment in my life, I have one of the best opportunities in college baseball presented to me. I had a game in only two hours and my mind was completely racing. We were playing the Moresville Spinners that night, and the unthinkable happened. I was catching in the game and a butterfly started flying all around me, and actually made the batter step out of the box. I looked back at my grandparents and they were already crying. This happening now three times was just something I couldn’t ignore. I still don’t know how to process or explain it to this day. 

I then went off to live my dream in the Cape and it was a fairytale summer for sure. I went toe to toe with the best collegiate talent in the nation. Not only did I have success there, but we won the Cape League title. I had gone from getting cut at UNCG to this. My host family, the Holmes, made this experience amazing for me. They knew my circumstance and made me feel at home and I am forever grateful for that. I was about to head home from a successful summer, and they gave me a gift I will never forget. They had taken a picture of me at my first home game and here it is below. 

You can see the aura around me and again…I’m at a loss for thoughts or words. The summer of 2014 was a lot- to put it lightly. It was more emotions packed in a two month period than I had to deal with in my entire life on this earth. But I had to keep going, and then it snuck back up on me. I started back during the fall season at Catawba, and all of my emotions came rushing out of me during our first practice. I struck out and threw my bat as far as I could. Coach Gantt could have easily suspended me, but he knew what was going on and told me to just go run. It was the best thing for me at that time. I met with him after practice and I lost it emotionally, which never happens to me. It all hit me at once because I realized I was never going to be able to let my Mom know how grateful I was to have her in my life. He just let it happen and didn’t say much. We talked for the rest of the fall and he set me up with some people to talk to. I often say my decision to play at Catawba was the second best decision of my life, and the first is getting married to Taylor. Urban Meyer talks in his book titled ‘Above the Line’ that you need to give athletes multiple chances because you are talking about their life and not just sports. This was a perfect example of that. It was tough to deal with but coach Gantt stuck with me and set me on the right path after college. 

Now why did I tell you all of this? I want all of you reading this to understand why I’m coaching and how there is never just one way to deal with adversity. I went through an extreme amount of hardship as you can see and I dealt with it uncoventionally. I wish I could say that those circumstances led me to God, but they didn’t. I have thought from time to time, “Am I a bad person for not being able to figure out my relationship with spirituality?” I can confidently say no now because of finding a true “Growth Mindset”. The path of always being curious is something that led me to realize that my spirituality is and probably always will be ever changing. My Mom was unapologetically herself. There were two things that pushed me to write this blog. The first was the Positive Vibe Movement and this T-shirt that they created. 

We are aligned with things, people, companies and more that we have no idea why. I have been following this company for years because they preach that we should always strive to spread love and not hate. This is what this company is about and I almost cried when I saw this shirt they just came out with, because it couldn’t have been a better tribute to my Mom. Not to mention that it has exactly 3 butterflies on it. 

The second reason I wrote this, was the topic of Dak Prescott going through depression during quarantine. He recently lost his brother and then this pandemic hit, forcing him to have minimal human interaction. Skip Bayless had a terrible public comment, that Prescott shouldn’t and can’t have depression because he’s the quarterback of America’s team. This is wrong on many levels, but let’s talk about how we could handle that if Dak was on your team. 

I talk a good amount about the relationship between the coach and player on my blog. I want my players to understand I am human and I go through everything that they go through. This blog is my way showing that I’m vulnerable and that I went through hell and back. Why do I want to do this? So that they know I’ve been through some shit and that I might know a thing or two about how to help them out of it. I feel that it is my duty to be a college coach for this reason. I love my job and I get my passion for the things I love from my Mom. There’s nothing that you can’t take on as long as you are unapologetically yourself.