Wake Up Call

by Brian Olsen
May 14, 2006

This monthly column is aimed at youth and junior athletes with high aspirations.

Imagine having a coach tell you that if, you are patient, a little talented, and extremely dedicated, you can plan to make an Olympic Team.

Now, factor in the fact that you are also among the most uncoordinated kids to ever grace America.  You can’t swoosh hoops, strike a baseball, or dribble across a soccer field without tripping over the ball.  You get lapped in the 800-meter run because you have few sprinting muscles in your body.  You can’t do a pull up because your arms are as thin as toothpicks.  Even in your best sport – cross-country skiing – making the high school varsity team is the highest you have ever set your limits.

But this coach tells you that none of that matters.  What will be critical if you are going to make that Olympic Team – and he assures you that you can and will, even as your gaze sinks to studying the floor – is how much you want that dream to become a reality and how much work you are willing to do along the way.

That kid was me, 15 years old, in a room full of Minnesota’s greatest teenage cross-country skiers, in April 1999.  The coach was Piotr Bednarski.  He was flanked by Minnesota’s older, elite biathletes – some Olympians, some on their way to becoming ones.  They stood by him, as if to say, “Just listen to what he’s saying, follow his guidance, and the plan will work out.”  If their gazes of confidence didn’t succeed, the slideshow of where we could go if we signed up – think images of Italy, Japan, Norway – sealed the deal for most of us.

That room was in a lodge up in northern Minnesota.  We were all gathered there for a weekend to hear the biathlon pep-talk and to complete a battery of tests to gauge if we were good enough to be singled out as special – because everyone wants to feel like that, of course.  After that keynote address, we filed out of the lodge to the bunkhouses.

Greeted by a warm and clear spring night, many of us decided to rough it and slept outside in sleeping bags.  We took every opportunity to show the staff that we were more dedicated than the other 60 athletes around us were.  As chitchat quieted to silence, the stars came into focus, and the words Piotr spoke turned into dreams.  That was the first night that I started to think of myself as a biathlete.

The next morning, we went through another battery of tests.  While I admitted earlier that I was far from the world’s greatest athlete, this battery made that fact even clearer.  The endurance test was just about the only thing that distinguished me.  Alas, I was not judged as special, and not recommended for the coveted offer to go to the National Talent ID Camp in Marquette.

Yet, seven years later, I can proudly inform you that I am now an Olympian.  While that title is an honor, the previous seven years are what define the journey for me.  Experiences and challenges are what help us become better people, not our competitive results.

What I lacked in strength and talent in my younger years, I made up in dedication and perseverance.  When someone told me that I wouldn’t succeed, I felt like I was being ordered to prove that person wrong.  Often times, doing something to prove others wrong backfired on me.  After a while, my love for biathlon, skiing, and just training outside every day took over and this became my new motivation.  Hour after hour, week after week, I trusted that I was progressing.

Most likely, you have had more success in skiing than I did when I was younger.  You may be more talented, too.  But success and talent will only take you so far.  Perhaps they will take you to the state meet and wins at the weekend Junior National Qualifiers, but previous success and talent alone will not take you to further success at the elite level.  Work is the only way.  Work is necessary over many, many years.  Improvement is often slow, so patience is critical.  Challenges lurk, and you will fail many times.  If you persevere through all of it, the journey will be your reward.  The title of Olympian will be secondary.

Consider this your wake-up call.  Pretend that you’re looking around the room, seeing your skiing competitors.  Many of them will be reading this, but how many will heed the call to action and brave the humidity of the Midwestern summer to do bounding intervals, skip watching daytime MTV to do core strength, or go an extra mile when they are feeling tired?  Will you be the one?