Never settle
wants to succeed no matter what.
I met Ty about a year ago and have seen a lot of progress in him in the last 12 months. I made a comment to him the other day about how far he had come and how I could see that he clearly had been working very hard. His response was not “I train when I am obligated to,” but “I train whenever I get the opportunity.”
This is the type of response that you will get from a determined individual or athlete.
One of the tests that we did on the athletes from Ty’s lacrosse team was the 40-yard dash. This is a typical test done for any explosive-type running sport such as lacrosse. The athlete runs as fast as they can for 40 yards and is given a time result.
What was interesting though was that you could see the determined versus undetermined athletes during this test. Some athletes would pull up at about the 35-yard mark and coast across the line while athletes such as Ty ran as fast as they could past the 40-yard mark. You could see the determination in Ty’s face as he clearly worked as hard as he could to get across that 40 yard line in the shortest amount of time possible.
This type of determination is an innate quality that few athletes possess. My first exposure to this type of determination was my older brother Trevor. I watched him train when no one else would and eat properly when everyone his age was not. As a result, he was successful as an athlete and continues to be successful as an adult in his professional capacity.
All of my brothers have this type of determination, and I believe that it was my parents who instilled that in us. They always taught us nothing comes easy and you need to work for everything that you get in life.
I remember as a child growing up in the greenhouse area of Redcliff and waking up at 5:30 a.m. on Saturday mornings to pick cucumbers. We would work hard and at the end of the day, we would go to the local drugstore where my dad would buy us a package of hockey cards. I remember how excited I would be to open up that package; it was the highlight of my week.
Little did I know at the time that my Dad was instilling the concept of working hard to get what we desired in life. He taught us many valuable lessons growing up that have stayed with us.
Cory Coehoorn is the coordinator of the Alberta Sport Development Centre – Southeast. He would love to hear from you and can be reached via email at ccoehoorn@mhc.ab.ca or via phone at 403-504-3547.