Strength and conditioning is one of my greatest passions,
but isn’t WHY I love to coach. I’ve always found facilitating progress in the
weight room the most interesting, but it’s really just a small part of a more complex
equation. I think we all get into coaching at one point or another, because we
want to help younger people solve that equation.
I want, more than anything, to offer the athletes in my area
every opportunity to excel in the sports they love so dearly. As proud as I am
of the progress I made as a college athlete, I know now that there is so much
more I could have done. Knowing that makes me feel compelled to provide
athletes in the area with all they need to reach their own maximum potential.
Athletes in North Dakota are behind the curve a bit for reasons we’ll get into
later, but that doesn’t mean you can’t reach your highest potential (i.e.
Carson Wentz). It just takes a different mindset to continue ascension in your
respective athletic endeavor.
Some may wonder where I come off thinking I have great
advice for our local athletes but I’ve always felt that I have a unique
perspective for athletes in rural communities for a few of reasons:
·
I was born in Minot, ND and attended Des-Lacs
Burlington Public School for all but 3 years of my primary and secondary
education. I played baseball and basketball in high school at the Class B
level.
·
I excelled in Baseball (my first love) and I
accepted a scholarship my senior year of high school to play at Minot State
University.
·
My athletes are always surprised when I tell
them this: after my first semester in college athletics, I quit the team. Looking
back: I came in completely unprepared and had no clue what it takes to be an
admirable athlete at the collegiate level. This set me up for one of the best
decisions I’ve ever made as a young man.
·
After a year of not being an athlete, and
serving tables 50 hours per week. I realized how unique the privilege of
competing in college athletics is and contacted my old baseball coach. I
rejoined the baseball team at MSU as a walk on in the Fall Semester.
·
Throughout school, I had the opportunity to
coach young athletes at performance venues in the private sector. Since
graduation, I’ve made private strength and conditioning my career, but also
have the opportunity to coach in the university setting. Most people don’t
understand how different these coaching environments are, but it gives me an
opportunity to experience that difference every day. Over the last 7 years I’ve
been able to get a feel for the difference between high school and college
athletes and what separates the young men and women who have fulfilling
athletic careers from those who get weeded out.
Now that you know my
background, here is my first list of advice for athletes growing up and
competing in our state.
1.
Lead first
·
Leadership is a pretty vague concept and not
everyone understands it. It's fairly simple if you want it to be: show up early, stay late, sacrifice personal opportunities and lend them to teammates,
ALWAYS BRING POSITIVE ENERGY, take care of your academics, and help hold teammates
accountable are a few ideas that come off the top of my head. The list of traits that make up quality leaders goes on and on.
But I’m telling you, if you’re not the most talented player on your team, it’s
the most fulfilling way to conduct your athletic career. Taking on the
demanding role of leadership isn’t for everyone, but I’ve seen guys who were
vastly under talented hold roster spots because they were relentless workers.
Cutting the guy who is soaked in sweat at the end of every practice will set a
bad example in any organization. Honing your leadership traits just might be
the best way to hang around long enough to get the opportunities you need.
2.
Take the weight room seriously
·
Of course I’m a little biased, but here’s the
deal. If you come from North Dakota, especially rural North Dakota, you’re
behind. Know that, and embrace it. In North Dakota we don’t have large
metropolitan areas to draw from, so statistically it’s highly unlikely that we
produce a high margin of athletes with advantageous builds. Seeing a 6’ 6”
class B basketball player is like seeing a double rainbow. Let’s face the facts;
most of us are of Scandinavian or German descent. As a result, we’ve got a
whole lot of 5’ 10” athletes chalked with a slow twitch muscle make up. So find
the weight room, learn everything you can about it, and put it to use. You’re
going to need it.
3.
Be consistent, and be patient
·
I played class B baseball in North Dakota. I can
count on one hand how many times I faced velocities over 85 mph before I
graduated high school. When I got to college that changed in a hurry. Everyone
threw hard and had more than a 2-pitch arsenal. It’s pretty unrealistic to
think that I would be dominant right from the get go (but that’s what I
thought). There was a frustrating learning curve I needed to endure before
getting my chance. For me, defense always came easy. So that’s where I took as
many innings as possible as I slowly developed my ability to handle the new
looks I was getting in the box. My freshman and sophomore years consisted mostly
of spot starts and defensive substitutions. I tried to earn time at every
position my coach would allow me to take reps at. My advice to you is to FIND A ROLE early and play it well. I
know you were the bee’s knees and cat’s pajamas in high school, but you aren’t
anymore. You’re a small fish in a big pond and you’ve only heard stories about
some of the fish you’re trying to swim with now. Carson Wentz has become the
gold standard for athletic development in North Dakota. Remember, he didn’t
play until his junior year at NDSU. That’s 3 years of strength sessions,
meetings and practice. He was STILL the 2nd overall pick in the NFL
Draft. Don’t mope about limited opportunity. Just keep your head down and keep
preparing. When it presents itself, make the most of it.
4.
Skill, Skill, Skill!
·
As I said earlier, most North Dakota athletes
are physically disadvantaged. We need to be honest with ourselves about our
size and speed. Our climate and heritage put us in a unique spot. You combine
that with sparsely populated areas and next level athletes are hard to come by.
When you consider what we’re working with genetically and climatically, it’s
hard to be surprised about our state’s relationship with hockey. Sports like
baseball and soccer, where our genetic model would fit, tend to take a backseat
because of our climate. I should say that no matter what sports you fall in
love with and decide to pursue, your background isn’t an excuse. There is a way
for you to excel, and it comes in the form of skill development. We see guys
defy the odds all the time simply because they were willing to put in the time
necessary to develop their skills and knowledge of the game. If you are 6’ 4”
playing the 5 spot on your high school basketball team you need to understand NOW that there probably aren’t any
college coaches looking for power forwards and centers your size. You need to
start developing the skills necessary to play other positions. I know you’ve
always been the tallest kid on your team, but at high schools all around the country
young men your size are the ones bringing the ball up the court. If you want to
play next level you need to work harder than everyone else at developing the
skills of your sports. Steph Curry has become the epitome of doing more with
less. He didn’t become the MVP of his league because he was bigger, faster and
stronger than everyone else. He did it because he always has the ball on a
string, has great vision, and can shoot from anywhere on the court. It’s ok
that we’re undersized and fairly slow, but we need to come to grips with it and
find other ways to be successful. The best way to offset your physical
limitations will always be your skills and intelligence. Never stop developing
those two traits.
5.
Ask Questions
·
My freshman year of high school basketball, I
got to play a bit with our JV team. There were some talented sophomores and
juniors on the team so at the time I was proud of the accomplishment. After our
first 10 or 11 games I stopped being asked to dress for the JV games any more.
I played for our freshman team, then got showered up and watched JV and Varsity
compete from the crowd. After a few games of this, I mustered up the courage to
ask why I was no longer dressing JV. Turns out, my dad had told my head coach I
was struggling with my Physical Science grade and asked that I no longer dress
for JV games. A bad physical science grade was limiting my opportunities as an
athlete. I remember thinking for two weeks that I was a worse basketball player
than when I started. Had I never asked why, I probably wouldn’t have ever made
it back to dressing for the JV team. I’ve seen far too many young athletes miss
opportunities because they were afraid to ask what they needed to improve on
and take action. A lot of times, if
you’re willing to ask for advice and take consequent action, you’ll find that what’s
blocking your progress can be fixed more easily than you think.
This is obviously a pretty compressed list of things
athletes from the area can do to be successful at the next level. There are a
number of other things you can do to have a fulfilling “next level” career,
wherever that may be. I think this is a great place to start no matter what
your goal is. They’re applicable to the freshman that is trying to dress for
the JV team, the senior in high school looking to sign a college letter of
intent and junior in college who has yet to receive their opportunity. These
are all lessons I wish I had been given playing sports in rural North Dakota.
If reading this blog gives one young athlete a unique perspective to a
challenging situation or helps guide them to reaching their potential then it
was worth the time.
As always, thanks for reading.
Caleb Heilman
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