A Promise to be Better
And a reminder.
It is exactly five months out from Division 1 Nationals.
Over the past two years, I’ve gotten pretty good at helping other athletes improve. I played (I think) my best Ultimate ever at World Clubs 2014 after a full year or more of fitness and strength training…a period where I went to the gym for the first time, did consistent footwork training, not to mention sprints, game play and scrimmages, plus coming off U23s.
Since then, my focus has subtly shifted to helping others through coaching and building Bench. The success and growth of Bench has allowed us as a club, for the first time, to retain players who started with us and might have previously gone to Colony. We can now offer an elite environment to improve and dominate, to define your role and challenge your limits, all within a club culture that we’ve fought hard to maintain and let thrive.
This hasn’t happened overnight and I don’t want to take it for granted.
I see the faith that these players have put in Bench as an acceptance of a promise. A promise of what Bench is, what it can be and what Bench can help you be. And if we really want to deliver on that promise, we all have to push our limits. I have to push my limits.
This year, and for the next two years, I am going to have to try to balance the demands of being a coach, a club captain and administrator, a player and, y’know, a person with an actual life. I’m going to need help if I want to succeed at delivering on the promise of improvement to both the players on Bench and myself.
But for the first time in ages, I’m excited about putting in hard work to improve myself as a player over the next season, all the way up to Clubs 2018. And I’m determined the honour the promise of anyone on Bench who is willing to put in the hard work as well.
