I was the kid who was
told he'd never play.
Forty years later,
I'm still proving
that coach wrong.
I was undersized, overlooked, and dismissed before I'd had a real chance. I learned what it takes to become undeniable — in the weight room, on the field, and eventually watching my own kid navigate the same pressures from the other side of the fence. I built Slash Athlete so no athlete has to figure that out alone.
The coach who said
I'd never play for him.
My junior year of high school, the varsity baseball coach looked at me and said I would never play for him. I was undersized, overlooked, and dismissed before I'd had a real chance. That could have been the end of it.
Instead, it was the beginning of something I didn't have a name for yet. That summer, I was introduced to strength training — and everything changed. I gained thirty pounds. I showed up my senior year a different athlete. I earned a starting spot. And then our team went on a run — eight wins to close the regular season, four more in the playoffs — that ended with me stepping into the batter's box in Dodger Stadium with two outs, a runner on base, and everything on the line. I hit the ball where they weren't. We won the LA City Championship. The LA Times ran a story about what I'd overcome.
But what I remember most isn't the hit. It's what I learned that summer in the weight room: that the body responds to the work. That strength is the foundation everything else is built on. That no one who told you what you couldn't do gets to be the last word.
"We're intentionally walking you."
I had walked on at Brandeis University and spent three years being pushed aside. I outworked everyone until it was undeniable I should be the starter. In my senior year, I helped lead our team to the program's first NCAA Regional bid — and our coach's first NCAA wins. In the semi-final, I came to bat in the eighth inning. I was 6 for 9 in the tournament. The catcher stood up and held out his arm. I asked what he was doing. The umpire told me: "Sit back and enjoy the fact that they fear your bat." My dad had flown in from Los Angeles to watch. He was in the stands. He was crying.
We lost in the semi-final.
My last at-bat ever
was that intentional walk.
Our ace came in to pitch the ninth inning. He gave up six runs. We lost. My last at-bat in organized baseball wasn't a strikeout or a ground ball. It was an intentional walk — the ultimate sign of respect from a team that didn't want to face me. I never stepped into a batter's box again. I sat with my back against the left field wall when it was over. Everyone else had gone. My dad sat down next to me on the warning track. Both of us in tears. Everything I had worked for — completed, and gone, at the same time.
I've thought about that moment every day since. Not with regret — with clarity. Because sitting on that warning track, I understood something I hadn't been able to articulate before: the point was never the championship. The point was becoming the kind of athlete who gets intentionally walked. The point was the work, and what the work makes you.
I also know this story from the other side of the fence. I was a parent of a young athlete — watching from the stands, wanting more for my kid than I knew how to give them, and learning the hard way that pressure from a parent sounds no different to a teenager than being told to clean their room. I sat in those stands. I watched my kid's face. I learned when to push and when to step back. That knowledge is in every conversation I have with a parent before the first session begins.
One session.
Everything becomes clear.
Every athlete who comes to me starts with one session. Not a consultation — an actual workout, built around a full assessment of how your athlete moves, where they are in their development, and what their body is ready for. By the end of it, I know exactly what their movement reveals, what needs to happen next, and how to build a program around them specifically. Not a template. Not what worked for the last kid. Around yours.
Speed is a product of technique — and the strength to repeat that technique, stride after stride, at full effort. Young athletes are still growing, and their nervous systems are working overtime to coordinate bodies that won't stop changing. Understanding that — knowing how to work with it rather than against it — is what separates a program that produces results from one that just produces tired kids.
Every session is different because every athlete is different. An athlete deep in their season may need mobility and durability work more than sprinting. A younger athlete may need more time on mechanics before adding any load at all. I read the athlete in front of me — not the plan on the board.
The things I know
to be true.
The car ride home matters more than the session.
After the first workout, I want your athlete to be honest with you about whether they want to come back. Not because they have to — because they want to. If they dread the work, the work won't last. My job is to make it hard enough to matter and engaging enough that they show up again.
Accountability has to come from the athlete.
A parent telling a teenager to go train sounds exactly like being told to clean their room. For this to work — really work — your athlete has to own it. I help them build that ownership, first toward me, then toward themselves. That's what carries them past the season, past the career, into the rest of their life.
Getting to the next level takes real work.
I won't sugarcoat it. There is broccoli with the dessert. The athletes who reach their goals are the ones who show up consistently and push through the hard sessions. My job is to make that work specific, intentional, and worth doing — not to make it easy.
I'm building athletes for life.
When your athlete's playing career is over — and it will end — I want them to know how to move their body, to appreciate doing so, and to feel confident enough that when someone says "want to play beach volleyball?" they think: I'm an athlete. I know how to figure this out. That confidence is worth more than any trophy.
Start with
one session.
You don't have to commit to anything beyond the first workout. Bring your athlete, let me see what their movement reveals, and we'll have an honest conversation about what comes next. That's all it takes to know whether this is the right fit.
Get in TouchStudio City, CA · slashathlete@gmail.com · 310.245.6988