WOW! What an incredible time in Canton, OH, for the Pro Football Hall of Fame induction ceremonies. I can’t even explain the emotion behind seeing Drew Brees inducted into the NFL Hall of Fame. Surreal in so many ways.
Incredible NFL Hall of Fame Ceremony Honoring Drew Brees
As you may know, I have had the opportunity to work with Drew for 23- years now as his trainer/coach and almost all 20-years of his NFL career. We started working together when we were both young puppies. He was just in his rookie year with the San Diego Chargers and I was a young early 30-something, who had just opened a training studio in San Diego to help people get better.
People often ask me, “How did you start working with pro athletes?”
I often say, “It was all because of a fluke and a broken massage table.”
The truth is that I was not working with many athletes at the time when I opened my first business (Fitness Quest 10). I had a lot of average/regular “Joe’s & Jane’s” coming in to lose weight, improve their health, and feel better. And the next thing you know… BOOM. (Here’s the real, behind-the-scenes story of how it all happened starting in 2003)….
(Pause for a moment. What do you do?
Do you stop the session because you no longer have a table to work with?
Do you stop the session because you are a bit flustered that your table just broke with a $20 million dollar athlete (at the time in 2003), let alone your 1st pro athlete, on it?
Or do you keep going? I decided to KEEP GOING!!)
Vaughn asked, “What NOW?”
Well, fortunately I had literally just watched a VHS tape a week or so earlier on the art of Thai Massage. So what did I say and do?
“No problems Vaughn. One of the things I do is Thai Massage.”
I took off my shoes an before you know it, I’m walking on his back, stretching him in ways he didn’t know he could bend, and breaking out techniques I had never practiced before.
Man, I was sweating so much that it is comical to think back on. Truth is, I had no idea how to do “Thai massage” at the time. I was just staying completely immersed in helping him with some unique stretches & fascial work.
Why do I share this story? Because when we were done, Vaughn loved the session so much that he said he knew the Head Athletic Trainer (James Collins) for the Chargers well and that he would advocate for me to get in with them to do the Massage & Bodywork on Monday’s after their games.
Well, guess what?
All because of a broken massage table and NOT stopping the session because I had no idea what to do NEXT.
Well, here we are today!
So many things to be grateful for.
So many workouts.
So many throwing sessions.
So many heart-to-heart talks.
So many big wins and huge celebrations. Heck, even a Super Bowl in 2010.
And even some very painful moments & memories over a 20+ year period.
While I will do an upcoming podcast on Drew & some of my top memories, I can’t help but think back to the core of it all…
Non-stop, intense, focused, knock-down, drag-out workouts with some absolute legends all in the building. You name it, they probably trained with Drew. But some of the ones that pushed and competed in the gym hard over the years were guys like LaDainian Tomlison, Darren Sproles, Chase Daniel, Justin Peelle, Carson Palmer, Gerald McCoy, Zach Ertz, Reggie Bush, Peanut Tillman, Aaron Rodgers, Derek Smith, Brett Rypien, and the list goes on and on…
Legendary…focus. Intensity. Push. Drive. Motivation. Competition. Smiles. Sneers. Grit.
Day after day. Week after week. Month after month. For 20+ years. That’s tens of thousands of hours of training & preparation over a career. Not dozens of hours. Nor hundreds of hours. Nor thousands of hours. Tens of thousands of hours of blood, sweat, tears…and a lot of hard work.
And to me, that was the BEST of it. Those hours. In the middle of the hard part. The sweat. The grind. The labor.
Kind of like the one “Jersey Boys” song when Frankie Valli says, “It doesn’t get any better than this…4 guys under a street lamp just making music. That’s the best part.”
I feel the same. The best part wasn’t the ESPY’s. Or awards shows. Or the other “cool” things we got to do.
The best part was when we were in the gym, turned on the Rocky IV soundtrack (all the way to when we only had an old-school Boom Box up in the Roots), the chatter would stop, the focus would heighten, and ‘the LOOK’ was on. And the next thing you know we were all immersed in a flow state of exploring our peak potential. Pushing. Pulling. Twisting. Rotating. Lifting. Running. Throwing. All while visualizing our greatest performance that was still to be had.
That to me was the best…the workouts! Just makin’ “music”.
Drew, congratulations man. You always did it the right way. There is not a kid, an adult, a coach, or a teammate out there who could ever say you did NOT. The integrity, work-ethic, belief, grit, loyalty, humility, and desire to be a Godly man for your family, community, team always shone through.
It has been an honor to be on this journey with you and I love seeing your bust forever shrined into football immortality. To know I had a very small piece of it will make me proud until the day I die. Thank you!
NFL Hall of Fame. Football immortality. Many kids dream of it. Very few ever make it. Only 387 total men have now been inducted in HOF history. Drew Brees (#383) is someone who made the game of football BETTER… both ON the field… and OFF the field.
And to think that I got the chance to work with him all because of a broken massage table…WOW.
Much love…and a TON of IMPACT!!
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