When the Jersey Comes Off

There is a moment almost no one prepares you for.

The moment after.

After the season.
After the job.
After the dream.
After the structure.
After the jersey, the title, the routine, the noise.

It might come at 18.
It might come at 22.
It might come at 35 or 52.

But it always comes.

The space between what you were…
and whatever comes next.

That space is disorienting.

Because for a long time, something else told you who you were.

A sport.
A role.
A ladder.
A company.
A mission.

And when that framework shifts or disappears, the question gets very quiet and very heavy:

Who am I without it?

Steven Pressfield wrote: “Our job in this lifetime is not to shape ourselves into some ideal we imagine we ought to be, but to find out who we already are and become it.”

Most people don’t fail in the next chapter because they lack talent.

They fail because they never built the inner operating system required to navigate change.

So when the structure dissolves…
so do they.

When I finished my formal playing career, I didn’t feel free.

I felt exposed.

For most of my life, lacrosse had organized everything:
my time
my relationships
my sense of progress
my suffering
my purpose

And when that chapter started closing, I didn’t immediately feel excitement.

I felt weight.

A quiet, persistent question:

Where am I supposed to make my mark now?

Am I behind?
Did I fail the original dream?
What do I actually have to offer the world?

That space is far more common than we admit.

And far more dangerous than most people realize.

Because without direction, the mind doesn’t rest.

It turns inward.
It rewrites narratives.
It negotiates with comfort.
It detaches from movement.
It drifts.

I carry a referee coin in my pocket every day.

It was my dad’s.

Years ago, before boarding a return flight to San Diego, where I was living at the time, my Dad handed me his referee coin that he has used for years, and asked calmly: “Do you want to hold onto this?” The answer was one of the easiest answers I had to make that day. I slipped the coin into my jean pocket, and have carried it around with me everyday since. I knew that I would want/need that coin with me as we were building a lacrosse program in San Diego, and I believed it be a great way to honor my father and the game that he had introduced to me.

Fast forward a few years, when I was living in Northern California for work, my dad called and told me he had a cyst on his brain. He had a double vision situation while refereeing a local game in Baltimore. He was going through the paces with the doctors and he didn’t yet know what it meant long-term. He didn’t know what the process would look like. He didn’t know how serious it was. We just kept moving forward.

Eventually it was ruled benign.

But in that window, the not-knowing, everything sharpened for me. The coin remained in my pocket and a new tradition was built off of just carrying the coin around with me. Before any big moment, meeting, presentation, practice or game, I honor the coin for a few seconds, pause and take a few deep breaths to slow my mind down.

It reminded me of something we all forget:

You never know what someone is carrying.

Everyone is working through something.
Everyone is navigating something.
Everyone is managing a form of uncertainty.

Some people just wear it better.

That coin isn’t superstition.

It’s a reminder.

Suffering is not a flaw in the system.

It is the system.

Picture Reference Below: My Father’s Referee Coin, passed down to me and an item that I carry with me to this day.

One of the first things people lose in transition is contact with their body.

Routines disappear.
Training fades.
Posture changes.
Energy dulls.
Sleep fractures.

But the body is not cosmetic.

The body is regulatory.

Movement is medicine.

It regulates mood.
It rebuilds confidence.
It sharpens cognition.
It restores agency.
It gives the mind something honest to solve.

You don’t think your way out of disorientation.

You move your way back into alignment.

Pressfield also reminds us: “Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it. Begin it now.”

Not when it’s clean.
Not when you’re certain.
Not when the identity is fully formed.

You begin while you are still assembling yourself.

Transitions rarely collapse people.

Isolation does.

We were never meant to rebuild alone.

We were meant to be reflected.
Challenged.
Steadied.
Called forward.

Culture matters more than strategy.

Environment shapes behavior long before motivation ever will.

And most people trying to navigate a new realm are doing it without an environment designed to support that process.

I am rolling out Atticus Assists to lean into the world and offer a hand and a pair of ears to listen in to what people need and to see if my experiences can help someone navigate their own story line.

This is not therapy, this is simply a safe harbor. A place to share and to listen to what is going on from within.

For people moving from one realm of life into the next.

Former athletes.
Early professionals.
Operators.
Leaders.
People in the middle of something breaking or being built.

This work lives at the intersection of:

identity
mindset
physical reconstruction
culture
purpose
and forward direction.

It is not therapy.
It is not hype.
It is not a course.

It is guided navigation.

Robert Hunter wrote: “Once in a while you get shown the light, in the strangest of places if you look at it right.”

Most transitions don’t feel like light.

They feel like fog.

But fog is not emptiness.

It is an environment asking you to slow down, pay attention, and rebuild how you see.

If you’re reading this and something in you feels familiar…

If you’ve outgrown a chapter but don’t yet recognize the next one…
If your body feels underutilized…
If your suffering feels un-aimed…
If you’re carrying something quietly…

You’re not behind.

You’re not broken.

You’re in the space between realms.

And that space deserves structure.

I’m opening a small number of 1-on-1 discovery conversations for people navigating transition.

No pitch.
No script.
No performance.

A 15-minute conversation to understand where you are, what you’re carrying, and whether Atticus Assists may be useful for you.

Schedule Your Strategy Session With Me

Sometimes the most powerful move isn’t finding the answer.

It’s choosing not to navigate the question alone.