The Beginning: From Geek to Pro
The Story of a Web Developer and his attempt to become a professional athlete.
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My name is Anthony Bertolo and in the next seven months I plan to go from run of the mill web-developer to NFL tryout.
Before I even start, I would like to preface this entire process with a message I will not reiterate at any point of time in the future on this blog:
I completely understand the microscopic chances I have to go very far in this process. Not only would I need to form myself into a world-class athlete, I would have years of experience to pick up in a matter of months. On top of that, with my day job being a web developer, it will only stack the odds further against me.
With that said, let’s get started!
Why Are You Doing This?
There are a few inspirations for doing this, and I will address each of them in detail throughout future posts. Let me start with the most elementary.
In Middle School and a little in high-school I did play sports; I wasn't bad. I was actually pretty good. I excelled at athletics. Unfortunately none of that really mattered because I never bet on it. I had something I could stand out doing and I let the many distractions of a young teenage life derail me from my potential. The worst part of it all was that my dream growing up was to play in the NFL. Memories of pretend football games with my younger brother are aplenty. We’d often make-up names by splicing the greats together. My favorite player to be was “Jerry Rice-Sanders”; He was tough.
It’s bad because unlike many who have the dream but just not the talent, I was different. I had it, but I didn't use it. And after growing past those teenage years I've come to the realization that there are few actions in this world that are worse than having potential, and not utilizing it. This is chief among the lessons I want to pass down.
My second passion was technology which ended up being my career. It’s harder to derail yourself from something you pick up best in the dead of night when all your friends are asleep or out partying.
But why does any of that matter? We all have regrets. The could-of, should-of, would-of but didn't mentality is the true American way. That’s fine, but I have two beautiful little lives I must lead now, and I don’t want that to be their way. I want to lead by example. Do as I do, don’t mind what I say.
By going on this journey that has burned inside of me for a virtual eternity, I can also prove that with the right mindset you can achieve anything. My little boy has proven that to me with his own battle — which I will touch on in later posts — and I will make it a point to prove I've learned that valuable lesson from him.
Are you really a geek?
Absolutely.
I’ve been fascinated by technology since the moment my eyes opened. Growing up in a lower-class household in the 90's I had to supplement my lack of computing power with designs of cardboard computers. I wanted a computer bad. And one day in 1998, we got our first desktop, it was an HP Pavilion.
Life = Over.
I couldn’t get enough. Not only did it open up a whole new world of gaming (Starcraft anyone?), it opened up an ability to really push myself to learn. I promptly began to figure out as much as I could about game development. Of course my development experience started with C, programming lower level BIOS manipulation stuff. Good fundamentals, and surprisingly attainable for an 11 year old would-be programmer.
In 1999 I began finally getting into game development as a hobby. I started with Genesis3D and RealityFactory. I couldn’t get enough. Although my countless hours of reading, developing and asking dumb questions in multiple forums felt rewarding; I never did produce anything worthwhile — Outside of the valuable experience of course. It was in these years that I first started contributing to open source projects as well (War3D and other small open source games).
It wasn’t until 2004 that I started to realize I could use my C/C++ (programming) knowledge to start generating some income. I had built an online score tracking portal for an arena shooter Pat (more on him later) and I were building. It took all but a couple weeks after that for me to score my first web-development gig. After that, my path in life was set.
Recently I’ve started a couple software ventures. I wont talk about them here or even mention their names as this isn’t the space. But it all stands as at least some fundamental evidence that this isn’t a story about a brogrammer trying to go pro. This is a geek. A true, all-nighter playing Phantasy Star IV on Sega Genesis, TechCrunch reading code red drinking geek.
And now it’s time to go pro.
How are you going to do it?
It’s not going to be easy.
To start, it’s going to be a lot of weight lifting and conditioning. To get a good idea of where I’m starting, I’m roughly 5'11", 175lbs. I consider myself in decent shape, but there is a lot of ground to make up.
Currently I’m about 25lbs of muscle from my target weight of 200lbs. My first goal is to hit that 200lb mark (195lbs is also acceptable). The reason this is important to me is because of the nature of the game. If I’m going to have any chance, at my current height, I will have to try out for either the CB — Corner Back — or Wide Receiver positions. That would put my ideal weight around 200lbs.
To accomplish my weight goals I will eat frequent meals through the day supplemented with high protein fruit and vegetable shakes. To make sure I’m not turning all those calories into fat I will have to make sure to remain active and either weight train or condition 2 times a day alternating target points on my body.
I haven’t recorded my 40 time. I couldn't tell you my vertical (I can put my hand above the rim in basketball). Cone drills and other fun times haven’t been recorded yet. But they will be soon. That’s what the next post is going to be about two week from today.
The introductory is over. Let’s get this going. I will post a new blog every 2 weeks right here. In the meantime I will give short updates through twitter via @PaybackTony. Using Medium you can leave notes in the right margin, or if you must, feel free to comment by sending me a note on Twitter.
