As I sit back and reflect on my nearly six months working with AWP I can honestly say I've learned a lot, but that is not even the point.  I sought out a mentorship where I could network myself, learn more about the industry, and enjoy my time doing this mentorship and I did that.  But that is not even the biggest accomplishment I had during this experience.  I found out that I truly love working with people and using sports to build character, find a sense of purpose, and guide and advise people.  I have mentored young people in the past and I feel like I do a good job of it, but I have a ton of room for growth.  This experience has coincided directly with a lot of management classes that I have taken and I've realized that although my MBA concentrations are in Sport Management and now Marketing, my breadth of knowledge gained from the coursework and this mentorship is far beyond simple business, it is a philosophy on life and it is reiterated daily in my constancy of purpose which is a leader.  Success is not possible without successors to continue on the path that is started and although being a mentor myself has been difficult at times I know it is appreciated and I know I can make a difference by imparting knowledge and continuing to master myself.  

I have always said if I can sell history to a high school student, then I can sell them on anything.  I believe in my principles and morals and my time at AWP has emphasized what I have done, but built on it in a faithful way that allows for me to see more perspectives and reach a much wider audience.  The men at AWP are some of the most influential people I have met and their character is a shining example of the possibilities that are present if people allow others to lead them and allow others to influence their lives.  Ultimately the people process, something I learned a lot about in management recently, is the most important factor in both business and life.  A mentor can only do so much unless the protege allows full disclosure and full constancy of purpose to be supplanted into the character of the protege.  

I found a lot of the blogging quite difficult as most of the specific information I had to share I was unable to share, but I hope the blogs provided some insight to what I was learning and what I was feeling at the times I was in contact with the staff and the team.  It is a unique situation because I have had a lot of coaching hours under my belt and the culture was quite familiar to me.  My duties of coaching have always gone far beyond the playing field and it was nothing new for me to do those things at AWP even though some of it was done on my own initiative I was told it was appreciated.

As I complete the mentorship I have been afforded a great opportunity to continue to cultivate my skills as a part of AWP and hopefully spread the positive message beyond just Fort Wayne, Indiana.  

Well it was made official yesterday, AWP has agreed to a partnership with the Ft. Wayne Cubs! This is a great step in the right direction for AWP to grow as an entire sports training brand.  The Ft. Wayne Cubs have been a class organization of youth baseball and travel baseball and softball in Northeast Indiana and with the merger those players will now get quality performance instruction and character development that has been a staple of AWP Sports. 

From a business standpoint it puts AWP in a bigger market and without being bias, creates a situation where the market is driven by AWP.  We have seen other athletic facilities and clubs in northern Indiana attempt to merge and create similar services, but they have failed or they are at the very early stages.  What will make this such a dynamic partnership is that the AWP Cubs program will continue to train sports specifically at The Diamond facility and sports performance (strength/speed/agility/etc.) will be coordinated by and instructed by AWP staff.  The next level to this business will be a continued effort for female sports growth and hiring more female staff members (which is already happening) to appeal to that market.  Our competition in the marketplace is increasing, but AWP is at a point where it is putting pressure on other sports training facilities to expand or be left behind.

I have a few meetings scheduled with my mentor that I will not be able to document, but it's very exciting and the experience has been tremendous for learning and reaching the goals I first set out.  To be honest, I have learned much more than the goals I intended to reach and about three days into the mentorship I realized my goals are simply benchmarks in my growth process.

A link to the story on the partnership can be found: http://www.indianasnewscenter.com/sports/130808-awp-sports-fort-wayne-cubs-travel-baseball-218928871.html

As a marketing strategy offering a free combine is great, but the timing was a little poor.  AWP hosted its second free all sports combine yesterday which ran all day starting early around 8:00 AM and finishing at 5:00 PM.  Numbers for the youth combine were really good with 15, but the middle school and high school aged combine numbers were very small with 12 and 8 respectively.  Part of the reason for that was there was a big tournament that weekend in AAU basketball and also volleyball which pulled a lot of athletes as well as high school football camp and two-a-days starting up around the state.  The good thing is of all the participants in the combine, nearly half agreed to come back to discuss further training and I was able to bring one player from Elkhart (one hour and a half away) who looks to be very promising as a client.   

Testing provides the basis for all athletes when they first come to AWP and that data is collected and analyzed over time as the person continues to work with AWP.  Fortunately some of the combine participants were already AWP members and having them perform well at this event showed the non-members some of the benefits of being a part of the program which is literally having the product sell itself.  

The next all sports combine should be scheduled at a time where high school sports are on a dead time, perhaps during the moratorium week mandated by the IHSAA.  Although it is very difficult to schedule an all sports combine where no sports are participating I think that could be a good time.  The other option would be to schedule two separate free combines for major target markets AWP is trying to enhance: females and youth sports.

While spending most of June organizing calendars and contacting coaches and making sure players are going to the right camps was taxing it was worth it.  I have made some valuable contacts with coaches at the division I level.  July has been kind of scaling back a lot of my contacts, but still sending periodic texts and e-mails just to stay in touch and keep my players in the minds of the coaches.  I have been spending a lot of time training players at home (in Elkhart) and getting them ready to leave for their college of choice (2013 grads) and still networking my 2014 guys as much as possible.  I have been talking with more division 2 schools to just ensure some guys will have a place to play if the division 1 offers fall through by the time the season is over.  Protecting a student-athlete in the event that something out of their control impacts their recruiting is difficult and that unknown is hard to prepare for, but it is possible with diligence and expedient communication.

I have taken on a new responsibility in the form of trying to get players to attend the free sports combine in Fort Wayne on July 27th that I last blogged about.  It has been difficult because the brand is known, but not that well known among high school and youth kids in my area.  It is important for any future plans of further development or expansion to get the word out about the services offered by AWP.  With high school football two-a-days approaching it is vital to get the word out early because kids will begin to focus their attention on their season.  It is also just now sinking in that I will not be coaching high school football this year, but it is a decision I needed to make to better serve my family, continue my education, and advance my career.  Throughout the season I will be going to certain games looking for underclassmen who may have slipped through the cracks to see if they would want to train at AWP or at the very least play on the 7v7 team.  

All of my virtual hours have been documented in my time sheet because the information is private, but it is fair to say that a majority of my time throughout July has been dedicated to creating contacts, cold calls, building plans, and meeting with players to discuss not only their recruiting, but training in the future (during season and

The IMG experience was awesome.  Simply put to see an event with so many moving parts being organized and run so efficiently was really impressive.  Now that I'm home, I only have one more scheduled time to go to AWP, but I have a lot of things to do on my end!  I got in late Sunday night and went to bed because I had to teach summer school the next morning at 7:30.  I spent all of the 24th after summer school getting film in order and contacting coaches about some players and how they performed in the 7v7 tournament.  Over the next few days I will be making phone calls and sending lots of e-mails and waiting for film to get completed by the staff at AWP to send those out.  I have found that Facebook has been a great tool to contact coaches that I don't have relationships with because their e-mail inbox is usually quite flooded and their Facebook messaging is not.  AWP has a free combine coming up on July 27th which acts as a chance for kids to come get a taste of the experience of being trained at AWP.  Throughout the day I plan on talking with my mentor and just understanding the business more and getting to know what is going on with the business at this point.
Other than the combine, there is so much going on behind the scenes to help build the entire organization it is very exciting to think about and sit back and discuss with Mike and the staff about potential partnerships that will be announced very soon. I have also found this mentorship quite difficult to manage as there are times where I feel a real information overload (which is a good thing), but it requires me to write tons of notes at the end of the day, take voice notes with my phone, and really write it out multiple times before formulating a blog that is somewhat cohesive and makes sense.

Well, we lost to South Florida Express, but it was a very exciting game.  We went back and forth, each team matching each others scores until the last minute and we were down by 6 we had the ball on the 40 and needed to score.  All game without Jordan Hogue we didn't even really miss him much because Shaq Vann, a running back in high school who plays in the slot at receiver for us, from South Bend Adams dominated the middle of the field catching big time touchdown after big time touchdown.  We also had other receivers step up and play great for us.  On fourth down we threw a fade and it was a bad read by our QB and it was intercepted (which gives them three more points) so we lost by 9, but it was a valiant effort on our part and all the members of the team knew we could have won this whole thing if we just took care of the little details here and there.  In sports, in business, in life, it all comes down to details and a constancy of purpose (similar to W. Edwards Deming's first point in his 14 points).  

As I sit here in the air port writing this all down waiting for a flight from Tampa to Charlotte, I think back at the weekends events and one of the biggest things we had to manage as a staff was the mindsets of the players.  The mental approach they take day in and day out and in football each drive is a mental stressor for offense and defensive players to forget what happened and make changes for the next drive.  So many players need to be coached in different ways and getting to know them over the past few months has been vital in becoming an effective coach to them.  To see these kids come from all different backgrounds and work together and our coaches come from just as diverse of backgrounds and experiences and find commonalities to grasp onto and create a successful environment it is clearly a small scale example of what life is all about.  Finding your niche, competing, overcoming adversity, and being emotionally invested in something even if the outcome isn't favorable is all beneficial for personal growth and development. 

Flight's about to leave my lap top must be shut off.  I will post tomorrow when I get home after summer school!  What an experience I had a ton of fun and learned so much about these people and myself.

We took the hard way.  We defeated Winning Strategy this morning, then lost in our second matchup against the Florida Fire which knocked us into the loser's bracket.  We have done a great job of managing injuries thus far and our first game in the loser's bracket was against Cam Newton's All-Stars, NFL QB Cam Newton's team.  Cam was talking a lot of trash to us on day one, wished us luck, but didn't think we'd make it far.  Cam's team had South Carolina commits, but it was not a difficult matchup for us as we destroyed them 37-6 putting us in our SECOND matchup against Core 6 from Chicago (again, we have never lost to them in our existence) and we defeated them again this time the closest game we've had against them 24-20.  The difficult part about the loser's bracket is all the games are back to back and there is no rest in between!  Our guys did a great job and really sucked it up.  We played a close game against Team Delaware, whom we defeated in Youngstown State earlier in April - they were led by a Boston College QB commit, but we came out on top by two scores.  

Final game of pool play we came back and defeated the Florida Fire out of Miami.  Much of the day was extremely hot and all the while the team was getting some significant recognition as a real threat for the championship.  We defeated one of the teams expected to be a favorite (Florida Fire) who was loaded with division 1 recruits and the Core 6 team who is full of Big Ten commits and a team from Texas that didn't look the part, but played very well together.  

As pool play began, one of our team leaders, Indiana University commit Donovan Clark (DB - Ft. Wayne, IN - South Side HS) tells a story about one of our players who is physically unable to play because of a serious condition.  This type of raw emotion is something that can fuel a team and it did just that.  It is great to see a young person have the fortitude to stand in front of his peers and lead through words and then follow through with actions.  Donovan is the emotional leader on the team and always steps up when a big play is needed.  That type of leadership is crucial for any organization's success and he clearly possesses it.  It will be interesting to see how he applies this in his post-playing career.  After our 7 AM practice, pool play began at 8:00 AM.  We won our first two pool play games over Core 6 of Chicago who we have never lost to as an organization, and also against a club team from Florida.  We now have about a 30 minute break before our final pool play game at 1:00.  Going into this break the players will treat their bodies and coaches will get food and meet to discuss what has happened so far and any adjustments we need to make.  

We arrived a little late for the Skills Challenge, but that’s alright we weren’t going to have anyone compete in it anyways.  As we walk in we see all the teams who are participating and it is a pretty cool feeling to be one of the elite teams in the country, but also frustrating because we should have two teams on that board if our Grey team would have won one more game. 

A lot of the kids are looking for Cam Newton, but he’s not hard to find.  6’6” 250lbs is easy to see, especially with his flamboyant clothes! 

There is a lot of competition going on and more than that it’s interesting to see this grand of event and how it is organized.  I talked to an intern who actually attended Indiana University and she was explaining some of the organizational processes that have gone on earlier in the morning and even months prior to the event.  My initial duties were to work with another staff member to get all the kids signed up and submit the signed waiver form and hand out the uniforms and “goody bags” that are provided by IMG. 

Unfortunately during my duty, my mentor got a private tour of all of the IMG facilities!  Fortunately we are talking about that experience right now.  IMG, who does a great deal of marketing and media, opened their academy and have incrementally added more sports and students to their enrollment.  They are building a brand new football stadium and outdoor track and they have renderings posted all over the complex so the $60,000 per year tuition fee per student is going to good use! 

After nearly 10 hours out here this Florida heat is tiring, heading back to the condo to relax before a late night meeting TBA and an early 6:00 AM wake up for 7:00 AM practice!