I went to UC Irvine and, long story short, within two months I got kicked off the team for doing mushrooms, smoking weed, being a party boy. We signed a contract we weren’t going to do those things, and someone sent an email and basically told on us. [I got] suspended for a year. Flash forward a month later, get caught smoking weed in a van at 1:00 am in a parking lot at UC Irvine. The cop knows my coach, tells him, that’s it. He makes an example of me and I’m out of there.
Brutal.
That was the first time I, let’s say, lost what I loved in life. I finished out my semester at UC Irvine, met the coach from Hawaii, and Hawaii was like, “Hey, we’ve all been there. Want a second chance? Come to Hawaii.” Boom. I go to Hawaii. We become the worst team in school history, my first year there. And dude, I was still a big time party boy. Very much didn’t learn my lesson, and was just like, well, as long as I don’t get caught, as long as I do well in school and I do well in volleyball, who cares?
I did everything you could imagine you’d want to do in college. I had a blast, just blindly having the time of my life. I was very much the rebellious like, fuck you dude. I ended up playing this little prank in the locker room. They called me into the office and were like, “Dude, we’re suspending you indefinitely.” At that time I was getting shoulder surgery. They were like, “You can use the facility to rehab, but we don’t want to see you. You’re not on this team anymore. You’re done.”
I remember meeting with my assistant coach, just crying. I can’t transfer to another Division-I school. Volleyball’s over, or I have to go play in Canada. That semester, I got a 4.0, I put 11 inches on my vertical. I lost 20 pounds. I was in the best shape that I’d ever been in. Every day I was doing some version of sprints or something in front of the coach’s offices. Six months go by and I was just constantly asking to get a meeting with the coach. Finally, end of the semester, the season’s about to start. I get that meeting with the head coach and he’s like, “Here’s the deal. You have one more chance. Any little screw-ups, you’re done. You’re out.”
They were like, “You need to play this position or you can’t be on the team.” And I was like, “I’ll be the water boy. I’ll do whatever, please.” Flash forward, I graduate two time All-American, best middle [blocker] in the league. We ended up going to the NCAA tournament in my senior year, completely turned the program around.
This is classic sports movie shit.
It’s the truth! Something I just want to mention, too, is I was able to turn my life around and get addicted to things that were healthy for me. That’s the new venture I’m on. Making peace with myself, understanding my addictive personality, and trying to accept some of those things and gear them towards healthy things. That has also been a huge struggle in my adulthood.
