What is Your Why? : Coach Jeremy
What is Your Why? : Coach Jeremy
Why I Coach…
I put off writing this blog post due to the detail it will take to actually answer the question. To fully understand the answer, I will have to start by telling you how I got here. I will make this as short as possible and try to keep it PG rated with no incriminating details.
Around the month of August 2004 I was separating from the US Army’s elite 3rd Ranger Battalion. I had completed numerous schools, training rotations, and combat deployments, but the largest detail is the close brotherhood that had been present each and everyday, and the HUGE purpose you had in life. We were the ones going out at night, hunting those who would do harm to our friends and families back in the homeland. It was a great responsibility and gave me a huge sense of pride to be among some of the greatest warriors of our time. After leaving I re-enlisted into the Army Reserves and went to US Army Drill Sergeant School. This was all while going to college just because the GI Bill was paying my rent and giving me some beer money. Purpose in life was lost, but I was hell bent to find my place in life one cold beverage at a time. I went to Drill Sergeant School to avoid any additional overseas deployments, but found myself out in a California desert for 12 months instead. Still no purpose, and no sense of direction. Insert a bottle of Jameson between friends and we attempted to solve all of the world’s problems on a daily basis.
As I ended my time on that tour, a friend suggest I get into overseas contracting. This gave me a familiar purpose and a group of all too familiar brothers who were just out trying to make a dollar doing what we loved. Protecting those from the evils of the world. During my numerous rotations back and forth I discovered this thing called CrossFit in June of 2009, and just like each of you, that first WOD kicked my butt! After experiencing CrossFit at the hands of a few different “Coaches” I decided I needed to get this info first hand and see what it was really about. I mean who was actually doing CrossFit, and who was just doing some sadistic shit they called CrossFit. So I enrolled in the CF Level 1 Trainer Seminar.
That Seminar was AWESOME!!! Man it opened my eyes to a whole new world, I was hooked and began reading the CrossFit Journal everyday. Back overseas, we watched videos before our workouts to get pumped up and raced each other to the barbell every workout. If a job location was without equipment we made sandbags, no pull-up bar? we would rummage around until we could hook something up from connex boxes or the roof of our huts. It was the highlight of our day! I got to Coach teammates, Soldiers, interpreters, and local border policemen in CrossFit and I loved it! I was making a difference in their ability to do their jobs well, and their job was to keep each other safe. It gave me purpose in a new direction.
While pushing myself down one road (Defense contracting) I found a new purpose through conversation with some of my teammates. Open a CrossFit Gym! Be a full time Trainer! Make a difference in many other people’s lives! I had the money saved, the idea took hold, I changed my focus to learning about rental agreements, locations, competition in the market, and business models, yet none of that interested me like the idea of changing people’s lives. Making them better, so they could tell others, and we could make them better too! So to wrap this up back with the initial question… Why do I coach? Well it’s simple, it gives me the greatest sense of achievement, pride and purpose to help other people take control of their lives and work to a better future! A selfish reason in a selfless profession! See you in the box!
-Jeremy
