Becoming the Athlete My Kids Deserve: How a 90’s Skater Found His Purpose in Exercise, Nutrition and Sleep

Growing up in the early 90s, I loved all sports. I grew up in Queens, NY and I remember spending a lot of time outside playing football, baseball, hockey, and basketball. I was a huge fan of the NY Knicks, especially John Starks. Early on, my Uncle would take me to Yankee Stadium to see my favorite player, Don Mattingly. We would also attend the Old Timers Games and I was able to Witness some of the greats play like “The Yankee Clipper” Mickey Mantle.

As I got older, I remember watching the first X-Games in 1995 and I convinced my grandmother to buy me my first pair of rollerblades, K2 Fattys!  I would skate around town looking for ANYTHING to jump off of and any rail or curb to lay some wax on to grind on it. My friends and I had our favorite spots. Sadly, the sport wasn’t as accepted as it is today so we had our run ins with the police (or should I say run aways from). 90s skaters were the hoodlums of our generation. We were the ones that weren’t welcome at local businesses, parents didn’t want us around their kids, and no one wanted to hear the racket of the music we were listening to; Nirvana, Biggie, Soundgarden, Live, Nas, Offspring, RATM, Less Than Jake and so many more artists (the 90s seriously had the best music).

I played High School football my Freshman year while retaining my skater mentality. I showed up to practice with a bleach blonde mohawk, as you can imagine I wasn’t the winner of instant friends.

Spending my years in high school as the only child left in the house and a latchkey kid, I didn’t really have the guidance or direction to keep pushing me. It was too easy to stay up late, hang out with friends, and call ourselves “skaters” simply by name alone.

Through all the athletics of my childhood, I never saw myself as an ATHLETE!  I was never told I was an athlete. To me, athletes were the ones we watched on the tv. Athletes were those that lived the rich and famous lifestyles we only heard about through news and media.

Fast forward some decades later and I find myself being the guy that uses the resort gym on vacation, religiously eating the same meals for breakfast, lunch and dinner, and prioritizing QUALITY sleep.

I was faced with the question again, “Am I an athlete?” This question made me ask more questions. Why after 16 years of smoking cigarettes did I quit? Why was I so focused on my nutrition, exercise and sleep? What was it all for?

It was for my future children, it was for my want and need for movement, to explore the world by reaching some of the highest mountain tops, successfully using primitive hunting techniques (bow and arrow) to chase elk around the Rocky Mountains, it was to prove my genetic makeup played little in the role of my bodies appearance and abilities, and a salute to my younger self, that little boy who knew there was an incredible athlete in him.

So there we have it. I am an athlete. I am an athlete because I choose to be one. I am an athlete because I choose to focus on three key pillars that dictate my future success in ALL aspects of life; chasing my kids on the playground, running through the splash pads in the heat of summer, being the trophy husband Raechel has always wanted, and most of all being an example to all the kids and adults out there questioning if they themselves are athletes.

That same athlete is in all of us and it is fueled by exercise, nutrition and sleep.  It’s not too late nor is it ever too late to tap into our inner athletes, and help our children to become the best athlete they can be.  I’ll go deeper into these three pillars in future blogs, for now lets just have a general understanding that, like a high performance race car,  the performance of that car is STRICTLY dictated by the things that are put into it and the care given to it. Don’t expect to be a Ferrari when you’re only giving Ford Pinto effort.