Before I Knew My "Why"
When I think about the mentors who shaped me, one of the first people who comes to mind is my old soccer coach, Rich Wengel, the head coach of the Downers Grove Roadrunners. The team was spilling over with talent, but it was Coach Wengel who changed the way I understood myself at a pivotal age.
I wasn’t an exceptional soccer player. I had a strong left footed shot, decent speed, and mediocre ball control. One dimensional. But joining Wengel's team cracked something open. Watching those guys practice, the pace, the precision, the confidence, the artistry... It showed me what was possible. I was inspired, but also intimidated.
I played left wing and I had a decent formula. Take it up the sideline, cross it into the box, and let one of the other forwards finish it. I was, for lack of a better phrase, the assist guy... fast, direct, reliable.
The Coach Who Let Us Play
What made Coach Wengel different from other coaches was his philosophy. Most coaches relied on rigid patterns and set plays. They didn’t want improv, they wanted control.
Coach Wengel wasn’t like that.
He gave us structure where it mattered, but he also gave us space to play. He talked about “creativity” on the field. I hadn't really ever heard the sport described that way. He treated the game like a stage, and us like the jazz musicians who just needed to riff.
That alone made him stand out.
But what I remember most was what happened every time I was subbed out of a game.
Without fail, as soon as I stepped off the field, he would look directly at me and say:
“Good job. Get ready to go back in.”
I didn't hear it at the time. I didn't understand it.
It meant:
I see your effort. I acknowledge your contribution. You’re tired. That’s okay. Rest. But we need you. You still matter. And you’re not done yet.
The Moment I Realized This Meant Something
It took years for the hidden meaning of that phrase to sink in.
I didn’t understand it when I was 13. I understood it when I became a teacher. And again when I became a father. And when I became a manager. And when I started coaching athletes of my own.
His voice kept coming back. Not loudly, just steadily. A reminder that rest isn’t failure, stepping out isn’t quitting, and needing a break doesn’t decrease your value.
The Power of Being Seen
Most young athletes don’t need to be told they’re destined for greatness. What they really need is to be recognized as present. There’s something profoundly human about wanting someone to look at you and say, “I notice you. I see the effort you’re putting into this.”
Encouragement is not flattery. It is acknowledgment and acknowledgment is a kind of oxygen for developing minds.
When a coach reflects a positive identity back at you, even something small, like a nod, a comment, a look that lingers long enough to matter, you begin to see yourself differently. That’s the quiet sorcery of mentorship. Someone perceives potential in you before you have the language for it.
Coach Wengel did that for me. He didn’t inflate my ego. He didn’t tell me I was special. He simply recognized my contribution in a way that said,
“You belong here. You’re part of this. You are with us.”
It’s amazing how far a young athlete will go when they feel like they belong.
The Coaches Who Didn’t See Me
The contrast matters, because I’ve also had coaches who didn’t see me. Not maliciously, but absently, the way someone overlooks a chair or telephone poles. Their attention was somewhere else, and I disappeared in the space between their expectations and their indifference.
When a coach doesn’t see you, something subtle and corrosive starts to happen.
You don’t play worse out of defiance. You play worse out of shame.
Shame makes you small. It collapses your posture, your instincts, your courage. It teaches you to avoid mistakes rather than pursue opportunities.
Positive momentum builds, but so does negative momentum. And while some people can survive long stretches of discouragement, it’s rarely sustainable. Most of us eventually withdraw into the version of ourselves we think others expect... the quieter, more hesitant, less creative version.
A child’s sense of possibility is fragile. It doesn’t take much to dim it, but it doesn’t take much to ignite it, either.
That’s why leaders matter. Because their attention creates the conditions where a person either grows or retreats.
A Parallel to Endurance Sports
As an endurance athlete and coach now, I see Coach Wengel’s lesson everywhere. Endurance sports are built on a paradox. Progress requires both surrender and persistence. You push, you fail, you rest, you rise. You wrestle between capacity and limitation, and somehow, you become someone new.
- Intervals demand it.
- Long rides demand it.
- Life demands it.
Every workout is a miniature cycle of effort, fatigue, recalibration, and renewed commitment. Endurance sports, at their core, are not about suffering, they’re about the quiet courage to return after the suffering is over.
That’s what “get ready to go back in” really means.
It is not a call for toughness. It is a call for continuity.
A recognition that resilience is not created from a single act of heroism, but in the willingness to keep entering the arena after rest and to refuse the belief that fatigue equals weakness.
To be an endurance athlete is to practice return from failure, like so many human struggles.
The Regret and the Promise
Rich Wengel died in 2025. I never got to thank him for what he modeled for me. I wish I had told him how much that simple phrase meant. How I reference it in job interviews. How I repeat it to myself when things get really tough.
But I can honor it by living it forward through how I coach, how I lead, how I manage my teams, and how I show up for my kids.
Full Circle
And now, when one of my athletes hits a low point, when they’re tired, overwhelmed, discouraged, or unsure if they have anything left, I say some version of what Coach Wengel said to me:
“Rest for a moment. Catch your breath. I see that you're tired and hurting, but you’re not done yet.”
Closing Reflections
There is a quiet thread running through all of our lives. The handful of people whose small actions end up shaping entire chapters of who we become. Most of them never know the impact they had. Most of them weren’t trying to be profound. They were simply present, attentive, and human at the right moment.
Coach Wengel taught me something that I now see everywhere. Progress is not linear, identity is not fixed, and encouragement is not optional. We rise because someone once lifted us. We endure because someone once showed us how. And we return, again and again, because someone once told us we could.
Get ready to go back in.
Three decades later, it’s still among the most generous pieces of coaching I’ve ever received. And although I'll never get to tell Coach Wengel how important his words were, I do have a chance to share them with others.
Maybe that's enough.