Conversation Left Unheard

 About six months, fourteen hours ago everything changed.

Countless times I walked to my car, five/six o’clock, leaving work after too many hours that day. Normally I’d dial you up and we would talk while I drove home. About nothing, but it made my drive easier. Some days it was because I was killing it at work and wanted, with zero specifics, to share it. Other times it was because work was killing me, and without specifics I wanted to share it. That’s just who I’ve always been: short on words, big on thoughts.

It’s taken forever just to remember I can’t make that call anymore. One of the bad ones I was walking to my car, feet hurting, but man did I have a long ass, good day. I thought I’ll give you a call and chat. It took only a second to have that internal “Oh”

We would talk usually 25-30minutes, your normal long distance father-son conversation. How’s the weather. How’s work. What are you having for dinner. Have you seen your brother. How is Sam. How are the dogs. I can literally hear the conversation. You’d tell me about work. About Gmom. About Baxter. About your plans for the house. Something you had for dinner. Somewhere in that conversation you would tell me something that would make me worry, never intentionally, normally about your finances.

Not a day passes that I don’t recall something. Usually young things. Sad things. Happy things. A mixture.

I think a lot now, what I feel is pretty normal, about all the conversations that never happened. Maybe because I left home young. Maybe just because I didn’t reach that age where we have those conversations. Maybe because of how stubborn you were. But damn, there was a lot of talking and learning still to do. And that’s okay. We’ll still have those conversations, but now they’ll just sound a little different.

And don’t worry. It was cold and windy as hell today. I’ll probably have leftovers or something for dinner tonight. I made spaghetti and meatballs last night. Works good like normal. It’s been a bit since I saw Kevin, but I talked to him a couple days ago, all is good. Sam is doing good. She’s doing fine at work. Dogs are good. Kane is still crazy. No school for him lately, COVID and all. And no, I haven’t been snowboarding recently, hoping to go next week.

Scrambled Thoughts and Important Concepts

There's a video somewhere in the world of the internet, it is a interview with Joey Cheek. I can't find it at the moment but I've watched it a hundred times so bare with me on the exact details. He talks about the 2002 Games and winning a bronze medal, a medal he wasn't exactly expected to win. He talks about how awesome it felt and how great it was and the attention he got and then two weeks later no one cared. He talks about knowing in the coming days/weeks that the moment he wasn't having fun skating anymore he would be done. He talks about how everything he thought that medal would bring, it didn't, and even as an olympic medalist he was still just Joey Cheek. In the end, I don't know if he says it or if it's just what I took away from it: whatever closure or feeling you are hoping to gain by becoming an olympian or winning a medal won't be there. If you didn't feel like you had enough before, you won't afterwards. Many years ago this hit home for me, before I got this close, before any of it mattered.

I guess somewhere in here it's important for me to be heartfelt, to tell it like it is, so I guess here we go:
Two weeks from the start of trials, so I guess two weeks and a few days now. I was doing an off-ice workout involving one leg reactionary box jumps (small box) from the side. On my very last jump I had a misstep, I landed awkwardly on my ankle and it ballooned instantly I've never had anything like it. We did an MRI. I had one grade 1 partial tear, and one grade 2 partial tear in my ankle. Everyday I went to practice did whatever I could, went to the training room to work on stability, balance, rehab, recovery, then I went to the pool to do a low-impact workout, and then I went home and did rehab, balance, and stability workouts throughout the night. The first week after the incident there wasn't much I could do, by the end of that week I was able to skate close to normal at a slower speed. The next week was the week leading into trials, I was able to skate everything at practice. I continued my rehab and recovery. We had a tape job we did for practice, and then I would take that tape off and had a different tape job for the rest of the day. On Thursday the day before trials began, I couldn't skate a start with the tape. I kept slipping and had trouble with it. I decided I could skate without tape all together. Hindsight might be 20/20. I don't think I was able to skate without the tape. I had trouble, I had unprecedented falls, extremely high rate of slipping/breaking out, I just thought I was having a bad day... and then a second bad day. The last day was interesting to say the least, I still had a shot and I got pretty close, I also skated with tape that day. Had I skated the first two days like I did the last even with flaws and everything I believe I would have made the team.

To say it doesn't suck would be a lie, it does suck. But it life goes on. Probably two years ago I made the decision that this would be it for me, good or bad. The problem lies somewhere in the journey. My journey is different then others, and I don't mean the whole thing, I'm just talking about the current day-to-day. I'm assuming you already know if you are reading this, but five nights a week I'm at work until midnight. I walk 10-12 miles a night on average. I get 5-6 hours of sleep on those five nights and then I try and go to practice like it never happened. I can't skate if I don't work, and I can't move up anymore at work with skating. This grind is hard on me, its hard on those close to me that see it, that have to deal with only seeing me in the cracks between the two.

I've never once asked anyone for money, never complained that I deserved more, never cried on social media that working and skating is impossible. There was never a gofundme or anything else. The entire time, that was always by design. It wasn't easy, there were plenty of times I wasn't sure if or how I was going to make ends meet and continue skating. I got lucky a few times with unnamed people doing little things to help me out here and there.. this was how I was suppose to make it up to them. This might be one of the biggest parts of the journey for me, because it was my terms. Maybe you call it stubborn, maybe you call it stupid, but I've always said first I am an adult, and second I am an athlete. If I can't support myself as a human being and if I can't support myself as a speed skater then I won't do it.

Some might have seen me, seen my trials and wondered what was going on. Some probably insinuated and thought they knew exactly what was happening because that's what humans do. I guess in the end I can't exactly put my finger on what happened, but I can tell you what didn't happen. I'm a believer in what you tell yourself matters. I never thought for one second that I couldn't do it. I never gave up and I never lost my confidence. When I hurt my ankle I knew if my foot fit in my boot, I was going to skate, and from there I laughed it off. I just starting telling people, I can't do anything the easy way. After the first day, I was pissed off, I thought I let easy points walk away.. but I still thought I was making the team. After the second day I was upset, but I knew there was still another day and because of that I could still make the team.

In the end, it just wasn't in the cards, and that's something I can live with. Judging my life as a success or failure won't be measured by anything I could ever accomplish in sport, let alone on skates. Those guys that I trained with, that we went through some serious highs and some deep lows together, I wish them the best not just in the coming months but in the rest of their careers. If I could keep going on my own terms and on my own time I probably would.

Lastly, I've had a lot of people reach out to me and everyone's message is a little different and I appreciate every piece of it, I really do, even if I haven't responded just yet. One theme that keeps being repeated to me is that they were in my corner, and that they respect my journey and how it was unique and different and at the end of the day no one can rob me of the hard work it took to just get that far.

Without going into too much detail, by every statistical measure I was never suppose to get this far. When you look at backgrounds, and family, and upbringings there's no statistic that would have pointed me here. No matter what, this will be a success story.

Rule #1: Believe in Yourself

Where to start I guess? The last two stops of this years world cup circuit and also the last two Olympic Qualifying events have come to an end. Individually, I got to skate some races and was able to contribute to us qualifying some spots at the games. As a relay, we are coming back with a gold, a bronze, and a world record.

It feels great to string together some solid results as our last international competitions before the Games. There’s still a lot of work to do and even mistakes to fix, but there is no doubt we are on the right path.

For me, one of the biggest changes is just a mentality I chose to accept halfway through our Europe trip. I’ve always believed what you say or tell yourself has as much or more effect on performance as the physical training you do. Part of it for me is as simple as focusing on a few things I have to do in our relay to be successful.. not everything but just a few simple things. The next part is to stop caring about what the other teams might or could do. And lastly, just follow rule #1: believe in myself, and believe in my teammates. 

The path doesn’t get any easier here. We head back to SLC tomorrow where I’ll jump right back to work (as in my job) on Tuesday. While I try and balance a busy time there with probably the most important stretch of training of my career. In less than four weeks we will be competing in Olympic Trials and even with two medals and a world record it doesn’t guarantee myself or any of my teammates that we will be going to PyeongChang in February as our team for the Games is solely decided between three days of competition next month. 

“Life is what you make it. Always has been, always will be.” — Eleanor Roosevelt

Cloudy With A Chance of Rain

I can't describe the complete roller coaster of emotion I had this weekend. I've never been through anything like it. As much as I try to remember it's just never happened before.

But where do I start.

Several weeks ago, I finished up a practice and just didn't feel like myself. It was just hard. Not just a hard work-out (it was) but it was just hard for me to do anything. I skated poorly. Afterwards I talked to my trainer and coach, we decided to take the next day off. The next week it was more of the same. I just couldn't do anything. I'd show up and literally not be able to warm-up for practice. I didn't have the energy to do anything. This was an issue, I have a very demanding schedule with work and skating. After about a week and a half I started feeling like my old self again. I was worried that I missed too much training. Getting that close to trials. Two weeks before trials I started skating better almost everyday, somehow I figured out the simplest of technical things that helped put it all back together. The week of trials my concern was gone, I was skating great.

Fast forward a few days, Saturday morning. It was an early start for me. I'm not a huge morning person. The very first heat of fall trials I always have a tiny bit of nerves. I just have to get that first easy heat over with and I'm fine. Except I wasn't. The semi I deployed my usual strategy, and it worked but it didn't feel great. I tried to block it out. In the final I again used a strategy I've used a number of times and it never failed me. But this time it did. I actually died out in a race. That doesn't happen to me. Nothing changed that day for me and it felt way too much like the issue I had several weeks earlier. For my 1000m semi I went it with the mind set that it was my A final because I knew if I could get through it I wouldn't have anything left for the final. I fell with 7.5 laps to go while leading the race. It was a big disappointment. I left that day feeling as if everything went about as worse as it could have, but I was also afraid I wouldn't wake up feeling any better Sunday.

After cooling down and chatting with my coach, I was driving home when I heard a song on the radio I had never heard before and something about it caught my attention. I downloaded it, listened to it a lot.

The next morning I woke up and felt better. Tried to pack more calories into my breakfast to get me through the day. I left for the rink, plugged my phone into the car and turned that song on repeat. Time after time it just kept hitting me hard.

In the 500m I was able to skate my own race, something that sounds easier said than done when it comes to the 500m for me. I was skating very, very well. In my semi while in first place, I fell down. I didn't slip and didn't see it coming. I just put my blade down while crossing over and it didn't grab the ice. I went down fast. I've never.. ever had a fall that just sucked the life out of me like in that moment. I was skating so well, definitely on a high note thinking I was turning my trials around for the better.. That I could right the ship from yesterdays turbulent waters and then in the blink of an eye it was completely gone. Now I was in extreme danger of not even making the team at all.

The 1000m I didn't know what really to expect. I knew for the most part, it would come down to me and another skater and I wanted nothing more than to have an opportunity to race that person in the deciding race. In the semi that's exactly what happened. I skated a good race, not spectacular but mistake free and qualified for the A final.. giving me that final world cup spot. In that very moment the largest weight I've ever actually been able to feel came off of me. The expression is there, we've all heard it and probably have used it.... But in that moment it wasn't just an expression I actually could feel it come off of my shoulders.

In this crazy, wacky, and unpredictable sport I compete in anything can happen. It doesn't matter how good or bad you feel. For the overall point standings at the end of the competition I sat in third place, by the criteria they use to select our world cup team I finished 6th.

I Can't Keep Quiet -- Let Me Explain

I sat down the other day and read the entire McLaren report. The entire thing, you know, the report implicating a mass state-wide doping scandal in Russia. It's a pretty remarkable thing, at some point when this story has an ending I'm sure a movie will be based off of it (or maybe an ESPN 30for30). Reading the report it just sounds like something out of Hollywood.

Furthermore, today the IOC (International Olympic Committee) announced it would not exclude the Russian Olympic Team from Rio despite the suggestion from WADA (world anti-doping agency), and numerous other anti-doping organizations. Let me explain, should every single Russian athlete be banned? Probably not, but I don't have all of the details. If you are Russian, train outside of Russia for a length of time, and have a history of being tested out of competition by a non-russian anti-doping agency then you should be allowed to compete.

Again, I am no expert, I only have knowledge of the media and the McLaren report. But, if the allegations are true, which evidence and logic suggest they are, a state-sponsored doping program means that as an athlete you could have been exposed to forms of doping at a young age, it could be all you know as an elite athlete.

The allegations are so intense, so mind-boggling that a strong rash punishment is needed. It isn't as simple as going back and retesting samples. Thousand(s) of samples have been destroyed, samples switched with the presumable positive tests being poured down the drain, samples being found with multiple DNA's in them. These types of corruption do not deserve a benefit of the doubt.

Today the IOC made a decision to balance responsibility and "individual justice to which every human being and athlete is entitled to." Individual justice to several hundred Russian athletes instead of the individual justice of hundreds of thousands of individual athletes worldwide, both Olympians and Non-Olympians that have spent there athletic careers competing clean and doing things the right way.

Don't get me wrong, for the most part, I have sympathy for the Russian athletes. I really do. If your country, government, NGB (national governing-body), and organization tell you to 'take this' or 'drink that' because it will help with recovery, or help you.. You probably trust them and just do it especially if it starts at a younger age. But when they ask you to swish a PED cocktail around in your mouth and then spit it out that seems strange. Or when they test you before leaving for a competition and then decide to not send you that also seems strange.

My entire involvement in sport from the very beginning, was in search of proving I could do something. I want nothing more then to earn a medal every competition I attend, to stand on the most elusive podium in sport, as an Olympic Champion. But I could never look at that medal with an asterisk. I could never do anything to compromise my raw ability to possibly earn a medal it wouldn't be worth it. The whole concept for me is if I make an Olympic team, and I earn an Olympic medal it will be because of the hard work I put in. And if I fail to meet either of those objectives I will be able to walk away knowing I gave it the best chance I had.

A Letter To My Younger Self

Before I begin let me explain. If you've never checked out the Player's Tribune you have made a mistake. It's a fantastic website that allows you into the life of athletes in a way that hasn't been done before. One of the feature columns or articles consist of professional athletes writing letter's to ones own self at a younger age. Helping them, guiding them, informing them of the future. So I love it. I want to do it myself. I'm a speed skater, far from the level of professional athlete. I'll probably never have an opportunity to contribute to something like the Player's Tribune so here is my own version. Obviously, I am not retired, or retiring. Right now if I stop skating it would probably be called quitting more than retiring but I want to write this now. Maybe one day I'll have the chance to go back and rewrite a more formal version that can highlight from beginning to end.

Dear Keith,

The last thing you want to do right now is listen to anyone, about anything. You can hear people speaking but you just wish everyone would stop. But if you can find a way, I'm going to give you some advice, let you know what to expect going forward. I'm here to help.

Right now you are sitting down at the Indoor National Championships for speed skating. Over the last year you thought this was your time. Last year you skated well, not well enough to medal overall but you were younger then everyone beating you. This year you would be older and you would be winning. But right now you are sitting down on the floor, head resting on your knees, going over everything that went wrong while tearing up.

You just lost. You just failed to qualify for the final. You've always hated losing. But this time is different. You weren't good enough to compete for a chance to win.

Savior this loss. Before you even realize it, this single moment will shape you into the athlete you become for better and for worse. You are only 14 and nothing gets easier. Life will get hard, then it will get harder. Skating will take you on a roller coaster you couldn't have imagined.

You know at this point in your life that some have it better then others, you know some families don't have to live or struggle like yours. You don't understand how other people's emotions work and how their sacrifices come in to play but one day you will understand. You know right now, your father is upset. You think he's mad at you, and maybe he is a little bit. He wants you to succeed but he wants you to understand how much is sacrificed just for you to have this moment. He wants you to take advantage of it because you might not be able to afford it tomorrow.

He'll get upset enough that he doesn't come to the rink the day of the medal ceremony. After all, it would be a long shot for you to manage to land on the podium at this point. There is still one more distances final to be raced but you didn't qualify for it either and even though you won a distance you failed in the other two. The cards will fall very oddly. That year four skaters make the podium instead of three and you will end up fourth. You don't have your uniform or your skates with you. You call your Dad and just hope he answers the phone because he needs to bring your stuff or you can't even stand on the podium. He does.

You'll go home after this trip. You'll never be short on focus another day of practice in your life. People will tell you that it isn't possible but you have a feeling etched into you that you can't get rid of. You are not a loser. The next season will challenge you mentally and emotionally. Every indoor meet you go to that season you will be winning or skating very well but you will fall down.. every single one.

At home your parents fight. They always have. Usually it's about money. Your dad works as much as possible. He always has. Your mom is on worker's compensation after an injury, you don't know much of the details and you never really will. They sit and try to figure out how to pay the bills. Which one can we afford to make late, how do we pay for the next month of skating. You hear it all but never dare say a word about it. You learned the value of a dollar at a young age.

Based off of last year you didn't set extremely high goals.. you didn't believe in yourself yet. You'll go to jr world trials with your only expectation to not embarrass yourself. Before your first race your coach will do this weird thing in the car, he says its so when you win a medal he won't have too much energy and can act like it isn't a big deal. You feel a lump in your throat, you don't want to let people down but there is no way you can win a medal.

Your coach is a smart man who knows the sport. You'll win a medal, in that very first race. It'll be one of the purest moments of satisfaction,success, and surprise you will ever feel. Before the last distance you are on the cusp of qualifying for the jr world team. It was your goal to accomplish it in another year. Your coach tells you that you can decide your fate. If you go out and win the race you will make the team. If you lose, you go home. You lose again. It's bittersweet. On one hand you performed so much higher then you imagined but you still feel like you failed.

In a month you will go to indoor nationals just hoping not to fall down. You'll walk away that weekend as a national champion. You'll set three national records that weekend. You'll finally feel a little redemption.

After you get back your parents will split up, your dad moves out. All of your siblings, including you stay at home with your mom. Shortly after that you'll break your collarbone in two spots during a race. You'll skate 11 miles with a broken collarbone because you are not a loser. You'll stand on the podium as the winner of a season of outdoor races broken collarbone and all.. then you will go to hospital.

You grew up thinking your mom was great, she was always there at home while your Dad was at work. Over your childhood years, probably not intentionally, she will make you think less of your dad then you ever should have. Over the next year you'll start seeing your mom less. First she won't be home to cook dinner. Then she won't be home at all. When you get up for school she'll still be sleeping. When she gets up she'll be in her own world. You know she's fallen back into her old ways. She's an alcoholic. You don't know anything about drugs and how to identify if someone is on them but you think it's more then alcohol. Then she'll just stop coming home. You'll go days without seeing her. You are a smart kid so you learned how to cook but inside you are livid that your thirteen year old brother is without a mother to care for him. When winter comes around the heat is shut off. Your electricity too. You drive without a drivers license, to the grocery store to get food for home. You tell your brother it will be okay.

You'll make the decision to move out. You and your brother are going to stay with your dad. You won't even tell your mom you are leaving. She'll see the uhaul outside she'll come out to ask what is going on and you will tell her. She will cry, she will say she doesn't understand, there is a slur to her words. You will barely say a word, you will show no sympathy. This will be the last time you speak to the woman you thought would always be there for you and your siblings. You won't hold a grudge, you will forgive. But you will believe in surrounding yourself with people that are good for you and she won't fit the mold.

Skating takes off for you. Sponsors begin calling. You'll hurt your back before your next jr world trials and have to skate without being in the best shape but you will make the team. A former world team coach will tell you that you didn't deserve to make the team. She'll come up to you, introduce herself and then say you didn't deserve it. You go home, and train a minimum twice a day. Three times a day, whatever it takes. When worlds comes around you aren't skating like someone that barely made the team. That same coach will tell you they were wrong. You'll skate a relay and then call your coach that night. You'll tell him, "Jeff we did it, we won a silver medal."

A respected member of the skating community will publicly say your indoor national title the previous year was a fluke. He'll guarantee you can't win again. But you will. You'll lose the first race and then lead every lap the rest of the competition and you will win. Think about what I just told you. You'll lead every lap, 1500m, and win. Right now you can't imagine yourself ever having the endurance to win a longer race.

Skating will continue to go well. Money will continue to not go well. At one point you'll be taking change to a coin collecting machine in Walmart just to scrounge up enough money to pay the entry fee for nationals for you and your brother.

You don't know yet but you want to transition to ice. But you tell yourself you need to win an individual medal at the inline world championships first. You weigh your options heavily and try to decide what is right. After high school you get a full time job at Target, you work your way up to a department manger. Then a year later you decide its time even though that medal never came. You move, along with your girlfriend, all the way to Utah to tackle a dream. You move into a house with 4 other skaters, some big time names. Joey Mantia, Josh Wood, Justin Stelly, Hank Gailbraith. It's a big house and pretty cheap.

You have a little income but not much. Finding a job for you and Sam turns out to be a little harder then you expected. You'll struggle for awhile but get by. You'll excel on the ice very quickly. After a year you and Sam will move in with Jake Powers in a cool townhouse and you'll get two dogs to call your own. They are funny creatures.. absolutely nothing like you can currently imagine.

The whole time you are in Utah you'll work a full time job along with your skating commitments. You are the only guy working full time all year round. You are a senior manager at Target now. You skate all morning long, lift weights, run, bike, do dry land exercises, and then work all night. Some times you will go weeks with no more then 6 hours of sleep a night. You'll work overnights occasionally and then go to practice. One common theme will always be repeated to you, how do you do it. The first time someone asks it catches you by surprise. You never thought of it that way. You've always knew that skating was a privilege not an entitlement and that you had to work in life for things you wanted. You just start telling people when you have no other choice you have to do it.

Most of your time on ice will be riddled with scandal. Everything about this sport spells drama. You'll  get invited to skate with the national racing program and a coach that is everything you could want. He'll turn you from an inliner with knives on their feet into a short track speed skater. He'll get you to a high level in just one summer but you won't pickup on the racing side of the sport. You'll keep falling just barely short of the world cup team. They will keep telling you its because of your lack of experience. You'll get mad at your self. How can you falter at the exact thing you thrived at on inlines? You'll qualify for the 2014 Olympic trials. You won't be a favorite but you are a small threat. You'll fail and it will make you contemplate quitting. But you have never quit anything and you are not a loser.

The next year after the entire men's Olympic team chooses not to return to the sport you qualify for both world cup teams and world championships. You won't be allowed to work with your coach. He can't give you a training program and he can't help you at world cups. The following year you won't be allowed to skate for him. You'll be devastated. It's your career that is being hindered and no one will seem to care. But you are a resilient and smart guy. You'll pull from the very moment you find yourself at right now, you will remember that utter disgusting feeling and decide you cannot be a loser and you will go back to work. And the rest has yet to be written.

Take care of yourself kid and most importantly remember that you achieve nothing if you don't work hard at everything, every single day.

-Keith

In order to get where you are going, you have to remember where you've been.

When I had a chance to visit home my reason for making the trip was to get my mold done for my new boots. I've had 1 pair of boots since I switched over to ice and it had been some time and I thought it was the right time to get a new pair. Turns out my feet are a little different now then they were then so it was a good idea.

Anyway, I had the all important decision of trying to figure out my color scheme for my boots. My old pair I had this super out-of-this-world scheme and then I ditched it for an all black pair with yellow logos (i got nervous). This time I wanted to do something a little different but I struggled with what to do. White looks nice, but scuffing it up looks bad and I am that type of skater so I scratched that idea.

What I ended up doing means a lot to me and where I have been and I am glad I made that decision because not a day will go by that I will ever forget that. I've written a number of times about the journey.. about being just a little kid that wanted to skate and how terrible I was for like three solid years and then something clicked. Then I was all business. It was all skating all the time and I wanted to be the best I could everyday at every thing. What you do as a child can easily mold you as an adult and thats a concept that holds true for me.

So, I spent my childhood inlining like most of you already know. And I wouldn't be an ice skater, let alone short track, or be in the position I am today without that and whether or not I ever compete on my wheels again I will never forget that. More importantly I spent my days at the roller rink I visited in my last post. Skateaway in Shillington, PA. I left a lot at that rink. Time, sweat, blood, tears, struggles, success, wins, losses, everything. Without that rink I'm not me, plain and simple. Then at that rink I spent that time as a part of the SOS Speed Team. I wore that skin suit proudly and I loved my team and my environment and it means the world to me still. I can recall tons of races from start to finish still. I can walk in that rink and relive some tough days mentally, physically, and emotionally. I can remember some of the talks the team had and I still take a lot of that stuff to heart. I recently wrote an essay about me, about my history with inline and my struggles through it all and what I believe and what has molded me as an athlete and person. Almost every piece of that essay came from my time on that team and in that rink.

Anyway, every time I achieve something on the ice. I still wish I had that uniform on to wear it proudly because I stopped skating for just me a long time ago. Now I skate for me and I also skate for everyone that's helped me through the years and there has been a ton of us. Every time I workout or race I have so many memories with me. One of the things I've been asked is what would it mean to achieve success and to mean it will always mean we've done it together, all of us.

So with all of that being said, my boots that I just got in the mail today have a color scheme I am very proud to wear. This is probably the last pair of short track skates I will ever get as they will last me through the Olympic season in 2018 and if I'm able to make it and have that opportunity I am proud and glad to say I'll be wearing these colors. It means a lot to me that every practice I have now I can always look down and have a little something extra to help me get through it.