~BHM, ~FFA, Romance: She wanted nothing to do with a hockey jock; he couldn’t stand a self-centered ice princess. Could this frosty arrangement ever melt into something a little bit warmer?
[Author's note: This is not a gaining tale in the strict sense... at least it’s not a narrative that follows the lovely trajectory of thinner to fatter. But matters of fat and related lustiness meander throughout, so all is not lost]
Part One: Logan
“I’m sorry Logan, I can’t start a 300-pound defenseman this year; I won’t do it.”
“I know, Coach, I just need a few weeks in camp to drop some weight,” Logan reassured the man who had personally recruited him from his AAA league team in suburban Minneapolis to the University of Minnesota’s men’s hockey team. “I can still compete out there. My hip is feeling great and my legs are stronger than ever. I was unstoppable at pickup games this summer.”
“Pickup games against amateurs?” Coach raised both of his eyebrows.
“Hey, I’m an amateur too,” Logan smiled meekly, tried to lighten things up.
“You have always skated well for a big man, but you’ve lost the agility and edge you used to have,” Coach Mike was unfazed, ignoring Logan’s attempt at humor, “and we can’t afford more penalties when opponents bounce off you and land hard on the ice.”
Logan sat silently now, with a lump forming in his throat.
"We knew when we recruited you that you had this tendency to be heavy, but I fought for you because you have so much potential. You’re one of the smartest players I’ve ever coached. And we proved them wrong, didn’t we? You showed them a heavier player can compete at this level. But I can't defend this now," he pointed at the number recorded on his physical report: 291.
Logan just shook his head. Another conversation about his weight. He had always hated the start of every camp, stripping down to his boxer briefs, stepping on a scale in front of the whole team, and having his body fat grabbed, pinched, measured and tracked. But at this latest weigh-in, Logan actually gasped louder than the trainer when the number showed up on the scale. He knew he’d been in denial... massively fat denial.
Why did I eat that huge meal the night before first weigh-in? He kicked himself inside. He could have easily come in under 290 if he had just gone paleo for a couple of days and drank a bunch of diuretic tea the night before.
“Maybe a year red-shirted will do you some good, and give you a chance to reset your priorities,” Coach continued. “We really shouldn’t have let you spend the summer away in Colorado; that was a bad idea.”
The lump in his throat felt like it grew to the size of a grapefruit. He looked down into his lap. What lap? All he could see was his damn fat belly laying on it. Lord, how did I get here?
Coach Mike was right though. Those three months with his cousin in Denver really didn’t do him any favors. His intentions were good going into the plan. He was going to work out with some NCAA players in the Denver area that one of his teammates connected him with. He found a gym and went every day at first, and also got extra time on the ice playing pickup games with guys from local hockey clubs. But when he felt his hip flexor acting up again in July, there was a lot more resting time than active time. And throughout, there was probably too much beer drinking and definitely way too much eating.
“The scholarship situation is iffy; at best you may only get part of it this year. You have the highest GPA on the team so we’ll see what we can do about keeping it going. If you show us some commitment off the ice and improve your practice performance, we’ll try to turn this around for next year,” Coach stood up, signaling that the conversation was over.
So that was it. All of those years of training, dedication... literal blood, sweat and tears. Not to mention permanent scars, injured ligaments and broken bones... all out the window? Seriously? Am I really done competing?
Logan had always fought his tendency to be overweight, but his parents and coaches reassured him that he would thin out with height and more time on the ice, and at times that had been true. When he reached his final height at 6’1” though, there was no more hope of thinning out vertically. His voracious appetite never thinned out anyway, and over the last year, it seemed to have taken on a life of its own. He sometimes felt possessed by a hungry demon that wouldn’t relent until his belly was swollen full. All the calorie-burning time at practice and miles on the cardio bike couldn’t cover every enormous meal, along with the snacking and beer drinking that he sometimes enjoyed too.
He headed back to his apartment, feeling dejected and hungry. Hungry again? Damn. How was he going to explain his shameful demotion to his teammates, his friends, and worst of all, his father? That he had gotten too fat for hockey? The game his parents had sacrificed so much time and money for? His dad had warned him about going to Denver. Logan winced remembering the shocked look on his father’s face when he picked up his son at the airport.
Oh, and the media...great... NCAA bloggers could be vicious. He already figured he’d bear the humiliating brunt of the failed athlete trope in the season opening news cycle. They’d go after him especially hard because of his looks. He had been chirped at a lot for being a ‘pretty boy’ his first couple of years as a Gopher, now probably making him an even bigger target for ridicule. Sickened by these thoughts, for once he actually lost his appetite and collapsed on his bed.
Glancing at the mounting texts on his phone, there were too many depressing commiserations coming in to even respond to, and he still had to call his Dad to break the news. But right now he just needed a nap to forget the day’s misery.
As he was about to nod off, he got a text from his Dad:
Logan awoke famished again, just like every time he tried to cut back on meals. Food was like a drug. He could skip eating at times, but only for so long. As soon as he took the first bite, he wouldn’t be satisfied until he was stuffed. At least drug addicts could leave drugs behind, but rabid hunger pushed him farther into an overweight hole with each big meal.
He had kept it at bay at various times in his life, but how would he beat it back now? It was his childhood chubbiness, along with cruel taunts from his older sister that prompted his parents to put him in every sport possible. He remembered feeling like a lumbering fool in soccer and basketball, but on the ice his heft didn’t matter so much. He could use his strong legs to give him speed and defy the gravity that pulled him down in other sports. He also loved the way his hockey uniform and pads hid his extra weight, unlike the tight jerseys that clung to his fat in other sports.
One of his youth coaches, witnessing his exceptional skating ability, fast reflexes and intellect, took an interest in his potential as an elite player. He also gave him a lot of tips on controlling his diet and putting in extra time at the gym. Logan’s weight finally began to relent when he entered high school. His body got to a place that he was almost proud of, save the pesky love handle fat that never seemed to quite disappear. At least his mushy gut was mostly gone, and he felt more comfortable in his skin. During his sophomore year, he finally achieved the ultimate teenage trifecta: athletic success, honor roll grades, and a cute girlfriend.
Abbey liked Logan’s slimmer look and would not allow him to gain an ounce while she had influence over him. The night they first kissed at a friend’s party, she pulled his hand from the carton of pizza he was about to dig into, “You don’t want to get fat again, do you?” Her words still stung in his head, still even to this day.
Logan had crushed on Abbey from the first time he saw her in sixth grade. He wasn’t shy in general, but he knew her enough to know that she wouldn’t set her eyes on the chunky kid, no matter how dominating he was on the ice, or how high his grades were. But as he moved through puberty, the scales trended downward in his favor. He managed to finally drop that frustrating belly flab that had dogged him throughout middle school.
Abbey’s constant and shameful reminders of his weight issues continued to pressure him though. He always felt like he was being shadowed by his chubby past, and that he could easily lose her the instant he couldn’t control himself around food. He even avoided going out to eat with her so that every morsel he consumed wasn’t scrutinized. But he fell in love with Abbey, and for a while, the hunger for food was replaced by the desire for her affection and approval.
His coaches had high praise for his weight loss as well. He got a bit faster on the ice too, even if he lost some of the physical dominance his size had given him. From there he won starting positions on his high school and AAA teams, along with growing notice from NCAA, USHL and WHL scouts.
Laying in his bed now, thinking back to those days, Logan grabbed his phone and scrolled through old photos he had kept of Abbey with him at Prom, looking so happy. He was at least 80 pounds lighter in those photos than he was today. We were a great looking couple, he sighed. They seemed happy anyway, until she announced that she was sick of Minnesota and its brutally cold winters. After being accepted to the University of Texas, she informed him she wasn’t interested in a long distance relationship and ended things that summer before college, which pretty much broke his heart.
He hadn’t expected it to hurt him that much. He was supposed to be on top of the world, with our without her... having signed a letter of intent with a full athletic scholarship to play for his beloved Gophers. Everyone was in his ear about what he could achieve professionally if he set his mind to it. But it wasn’t a coincidence that his weight began a long, slow ascent after Abbey stopped taking his calls.
Despite putting on a few pounds, he had an excellent first season as an impact defenseman, with solid stats in assists and blocked shots. He was always in the weight room, trying to fight any accumulating fat by building more muscle. The trainers made comments, but the coaches didn’t seem overly concerned at first, as freshmen athletes generally got bigger as their bodies matured and strengthened. Entering his sophomore season though, everyone definitely noticed his added summer gain, and pushed him into a low carb diet regimen. By mid-season, he had gotten back down under 230, and enjoyed more on-ice success.
Off-ice success was more complicated. There were always girls hanging around the team, and it was kind of alarming to suddenly get so much aggressive attention. He had been so devoted to his high school girlfriend, that he had rarely noticed other girls. It was always all about Abbey. And before Abbey had come along, he had spent enough sensitive years bearing the brunt of fat jokes from opposing teams and their fans that he had learned early how to cut himself off mentally from what was happening in the crowd.
But the crowds were so much bigger now, and there were so many more fans... once he started paying attention again, he realized he was getting noticed as an object of hockey groupie desire. He smirked to himself, thinking of the fun he had with it for a while, but womanizing was not a comfortable way of life for him. He wouldn’t admit it to any of his teammates, but deep down he preferred a stable relationship over serial hookups.
Logan’s player days ended during his sophomore season, when he met Emily, a friend of one of his teammate’s girlfriends. She kind of reminded him of Abbey, with girl-next-door looks, and a curvy little body that he loved lying alongside. She was more interested in academic achievement than parties, which fit well with his student athlete regimen. Staying out of trouble and getting good grades was a necessity for NCAA eligibility, so he was relieved to be with someone who would keep him on the right path, unlike the barrage of puck bunnies that his coaches repeatedly warned him about.
There was a downside to settling down, though. He got comfortable with her and began to slide on his diet discipline in a way that Abbey would never have let happen. After a spring of rehabbing his hip and a summer of relaxing a little too much, he started his junior season hovering at 245, and then no one was happy. The constant lectures about dropping weight and cutting fat were unrelenting, and usually resulted in daily penalty time on the stationary bike and treadmill. It got worse when one of his teammates made a joke to Emily that she was making Logan fat. Then she started to pick at his weight too, nagging him when he’d eat a big meal and scold him over his penchant for late-night study snacks.
Around the same time, she also began to pick at his values too. Logan had never really been interested in politics, and wasn’t overly concerned with religious dogma either. He had a ‘live and let live’ independent philosophy of the world. His parents were both school teachers and moderate Lutherans who valued tolerance and fairness as much as personal responsibility and individual freedom.
Emily’s ultra conservative beliefs were too extreme for him though, and it began to cause a lot of friction between them. He could have handled polite disagreement, but her rigid intolerance made nearly every conversation about something in the news turn into in an argument. Finally fed up with her condescension of his views and nitpicking his weight, he broke up with her the night before The Mariucci Classic. In a zone of totally focused anger and resentment, he played one of the most physical games of his college career.
In spite of his talents, more than ever, Logan was relying on his hockey uniform to hide his bulging details and flabbier bits. Just like when he was a kid, the gear was once again his protective armor against the microscopic lens of spectator sports. Pushing 250, he wasn’t overly confident about his body, and got plenty of flak from his coaches and teammates about it.
It’s not like he was hugely overweight, he had a broad frame with a lot of muscle. But in their world, standards were different. Body fat numbers above 15% raised all eyebrows, and a few extra pounds over that might as well have been morbid obesity. Worst of all, some of the younger guys started embarrassing him with fat jokes in front of girls, which bothered him more than anything else. As a kid he had suffered the mercilessness of his sister fat-shaming him in front of her friends. That humiliation was buried deeply inside him, and continued to haunt the way he felt about himself around girls.
That roller coaster of a season ended in a critical game against rival North Dakota. He suffered a pretty severe hip flexor tear and was sidelined for the remaining games, missing a chance to play in the tournament. Disappointment, frustration and lack of exercise didn’t help the trend on the scale, as he slid into the offseason edging closer to 260.
So here he was now, much heavier than that, and paying dearly for letting his weight get completely out of control. Coach Mike had exaggerated, Logan wasn’t quite 300. But to be fair, it wouldn’t have taken too many more pizzas, burgers and beers to get him over that threshold. Now he was going to get a trainer, who was going to put him on a degrading leash. He could only imagine the hyper-fanatical fitness bro he’d get stuck with. Those guys knew everything about getting lean and cut, but they didn’t know a thing about what it takes to win in a high-pressure team sport. But Coach and Dad had it all worked out: work with a trainer every morning, go to class, join the team in the weight room, then night practices, studying and nothing else. No games, no fast food, no beer, no fun and no life.
(more to come soon...)
[Author's note: This is not a gaining tale in the strict sense... at least it’s not a narrative that follows the lovely trajectory of thinner to fatter. But matters of fat and related lustiness meander throughout, so all is not lost]
On Thin Ice
By Ashblonde
By Ashblonde
Part One: Logan
“I’m sorry Logan, I can’t start a 300-pound defenseman this year; I won’t do it.”
“I know, Coach, I just need a few weeks in camp to drop some weight,” Logan reassured the man who had personally recruited him from his AAA league team in suburban Minneapolis to the University of Minnesota’s men’s hockey team. “I can still compete out there. My hip is feeling great and my legs are stronger than ever. I was unstoppable at pickup games this summer.”
“Pickup games against amateurs?” Coach raised both of his eyebrows.
“Hey, I’m an amateur too,” Logan smiled meekly, tried to lighten things up.
“You have always skated well for a big man, but you’ve lost the agility and edge you used to have,” Coach Mike was unfazed, ignoring Logan’s attempt at humor, “and we can’t afford more penalties when opponents bounce off you and land hard on the ice.”
Logan sat silently now, with a lump forming in his throat.
"We knew when we recruited you that you had this tendency to be heavy, but I fought for you because you have so much potential. You’re one of the smartest players I’ve ever coached. And we proved them wrong, didn’t we? You showed them a heavier player can compete at this level. But I can't defend this now," he pointed at the number recorded on his physical report: 291.
Logan just shook his head. Another conversation about his weight. He had always hated the start of every camp, stripping down to his boxer briefs, stepping on a scale in front of the whole team, and having his body fat grabbed, pinched, measured and tracked. But at this latest weigh-in, Logan actually gasped louder than the trainer when the number showed up on the scale. He knew he’d been in denial... massively fat denial.
Why did I eat that huge meal the night before first weigh-in? He kicked himself inside. He could have easily come in under 290 if he had just gone paleo for a couple of days and drank a bunch of diuretic tea the night before.
“Maybe a year red-shirted will do you some good, and give you a chance to reset your priorities,” Coach continued. “We really shouldn’t have let you spend the summer away in Colorado; that was a bad idea.”
The lump in his throat felt like it grew to the size of a grapefruit. He looked down into his lap. What lap? All he could see was his damn fat belly laying on it. Lord, how did I get here?
Coach Mike was right though. Those three months with his cousin in Denver really didn’t do him any favors. His intentions were good going into the plan. He was going to work out with some NCAA players in the Denver area that one of his teammates connected him with. He found a gym and went every day at first, and also got extra time on the ice playing pickup games with guys from local hockey clubs. But when he felt his hip flexor acting up again in July, there was a lot more resting time than active time. And throughout, there was probably too much beer drinking and definitely way too much eating.
“The scholarship situation is iffy; at best you may only get part of it this year. You have the highest GPA on the team so we’ll see what we can do about keeping it going. If you show us some commitment off the ice and improve your practice performance, we’ll try to turn this around for next year,” Coach stood up, signaling that the conversation was over.
So that was it. All of those years of training, dedication... literal blood, sweat and tears. Not to mention permanent scars, injured ligaments and broken bones... all out the window? Seriously? Am I really done competing?
Logan had always fought his tendency to be overweight, but his parents and coaches reassured him that he would thin out with height and more time on the ice, and at times that had been true. When he reached his final height at 6’1” though, there was no more hope of thinning out vertically. His voracious appetite never thinned out anyway, and over the last year, it seemed to have taken on a life of its own. He sometimes felt possessed by a hungry demon that wouldn’t relent until his belly was swollen full. All the calorie-burning time at practice and miles on the cardio bike couldn’t cover every enormous meal, along with the snacking and beer drinking that he sometimes enjoyed too.
He headed back to his apartment, feeling dejected and hungry. Hungry again? Damn. How was he going to explain his shameful demotion to his teammates, his friends, and worst of all, his father? That he had gotten too fat for hockey? The game his parents had sacrificed so much time and money for? His dad had warned him about going to Denver. Logan winced remembering the shocked look on his father’s face when he picked up his son at the airport.
Oh, and the media...great... NCAA bloggers could be vicious. He already figured he’d bear the humiliating brunt of the failed athlete trope in the season opening news cycle. They’d go after him especially hard because of his looks. He had been chirped at a lot for being a ‘pretty boy’ his first couple of years as a Gopher, now probably making him an even bigger target for ridicule. Sickened by these thoughts, for once he actually lost his appetite and collapsed on his bed.
Glancing at the mounting texts on his phone, there were too many depressing commiserations coming in to even respond to, and he still had to call his Dad to break the news. But right now he just needed a nap to forget the day’s misery.
As he was about to nod off, he got a text from his Dad:
Talked to Coach, we have a plan.
Logan sighed. At least his dad already heard the mortifying news directly from Coach, and he wouldn’t suffer the further humiliation of having to report the gory details himself.
You need to stay committed on the ice
Practice every day with the team
But we’re going to get you a trainer too
Some cut, crazy, meathead who will make me feel like crap about myself, I’m sure, he thought. He leaned back and fell asleep. Practice every day with the team
But we’re going to get you a trainer too
Logan awoke famished again, just like every time he tried to cut back on meals. Food was like a drug. He could skip eating at times, but only for so long. As soon as he took the first bite, he wouldn’t be satisfied until he was stuffed. At least drug addicts could leave drugs behind, but rabid hunger pushed him farther into an overweight hole with each big meal.
He had kept it at bay at various times in his life, but how would he beat it back now? It was his childhood chubbiness, along with cruel taunts from his older sister that prompted his parents to put him in every sport possible. He remembered feeling like a lumbering fool in soccer and basketball, but on the ice his heft didn’t matter so much. He could use his strong legs to give him speed and defy the gravity that pulled him down in other sports. He also loved the way his hockey uniform and pads hid his extra weight, unlike the tight jerseys that clung to his fat in other sports.
One of his youth coaches, witnessing his exceptional skating ability, fast reflexes and intellect, took an interest in his potential as an elite player. He also gave him a lot of tips on controlling his diet and putting in extra time at the gym. Logan’s weight finally began to relent when he entered high school. His body got to a place that he was almost proud of, save the pesky love handle fat that never seemed to quite disappear. At least his mushy gut was mostly gone, and he felt more comfortable in his skin. During his sophomore year, he finally achieved the ultimate teenage trifecta: athletic success, honor roll grades, and a cute girlfriend.
Abbey liked Logan’s slimmer look and would not allow him to gain an ounce while she had influence over him. The night they first kissed at a friend’s party, she pulled his hand from the carton of pizza he was about to dig into, “You don’t want to get fat again, do you?” Her words still stung in his head, still even to this day.
Logan had crushed on Abbey from the first time he saw her in sixth grade. He wasn’t shy in general, but he knew her enough to know that she wouldn’t set her eyes on the chunky kid, no matter how dominating he was on the ice, or how high his grades were. But as he moved through puberty, the scales trended downward in his favor. He managed to finally drop that frustrating belly flab that had dogged him throughout middle school.
Abbey’s constant and shameful reminders of his weight issues continued to pressure him though. He always felt like he was being shadowed by his chubby past, and that he could easily lose her the instant he couldn’t control himself around food. He even avoided going out to eat with her so that every morsel he consumed wasn’t scrutinized. But he fell in love with Abbey, and for a while, the hunger for food was replaced by the desire for her affection and approval.
His coaches had high praise for his weight loss as well. He got a bit faster on the ice too, even if he lost some of the physical dominance his size had given him. From there he won starting positions on his high school and AAA teams, along with growing notice from NCAA, USHL and WHL scouts.
Laying in his bed now, thinking back to those days, Logan grabbed his phone and scrolled through old photos he had kept of Abbey with him at Prom, looking so happy. He was at least 80 pounds lighter in those photos than he was today. We were a great looking couple, he sighed. They seemed happy anyway, until she announced that she was sick of Minnesota and its brutally cold winters. After being accepted to the University of Texas, she informed him she wasn’t interested in a long distance relationship and ended things that summer before college, which pretty much broke his heart.
He hadn’t expected it to hurt him that much. He was supposed to be on top of the world, with our without her... having signed a letter of intent with a full athletic scholarship to play for his beloved Gophers. Everyone was in his ear about what he could achieve professionally if he set his mind to it. But it wasn’t a coincidence that his weight began a long, slow ascent after Abbey stopped taking his calls.
Despite putting on a few pounds, he had an excellent first season as an impact defenseman, with solid stats in assists and blocked shots. He was always in the weight room, trying to fight any accumulating fat by building more muscle. The trainers made comments, but the coaches didn’t seem overly concerned at first, as freshmen athletes generally got bigger as their bodies matured and strengthened. Entering his sophomore season though, everyone definitely noticed his added summer gain, and pushed him into a low carb diet regimen. By mid-season, he had gotten back down under 230, and enjoyed more on-ice success.
Off-ice success was more complicated. There were always girls hanging around the team, and it was kind of alarming to suddenly get so much aggressive attention. He had been so devoted to his high school girlfriend, that he had rarely noticed other girls. It was always all about Abbey. And before Abbey had come along, he had spent enough sensitive years bearing the brunt of fat jokes from opposing teams and their fans that he had learned early how to cut himself off mentally from what was happening in the crowd.
But the crowds were so much bigger now, and there were so many more fans... once he started paying attention again, he realized he was getting noticed as an object of hockey groupie desire. He smirked to himself, thinking of the fun he had with it for a while, but womanizing was not a comfortable way of life for him. He wouldn’t admit it to any of his teammates, but deep down he preferred a stable relationship over serial hookups.
Logan’s player days ended during his sophomore season, when he met Emily, a friend of one of his teammate’s girlfriends. She kind of reminded him of Abbey, with girl-next-door looks, and a curvy little body that he loved lying alongside. She was more interested in academic achievement than parties, which fit well with his student athlete regimen. Staying out of trouble and getting good grades was a necessity for NCAA eligibility, so he was relieved to be with someone who would keep him on the right path, unlike the barrage of puck bunnies that his coaches repeatedly warned him about.
There was a downside to settling down, though. He got comfortable with her and began to slide on his diet discipline in a way that Abbey would never have let happen. After a spring of rehabbing his hip and a summer of relaxing a little too much, he started his junior season hovering at 245, and then no one was happy. The constant lectures about dropping weight and cutting fat were unrelenting, and usually resulted in daily penalty time on the stationary bike and treadmill. It got worse when one of his teammates made a joke to Emily that she was making Logan fat. Then she started to pick at his weight too, nagging him when he’d eat a big meal and scold him over his penchant for late-night study snacks.
Around the same time, she also began to pick at his values too. Logan had never really been interested in politics, and wasn’t overly concerned with religious dogma either. He had a ‘live and let live’ independent philosophy of the world. His parents were both school teachers and moderate Lutherans who valued tolerance and fairness as much as personal responsibility and individual freedom.
Emily’s ultra conservative beliefs were too extreme for him though, and it began to cause a lot of friction between them. He could have handled polite disagreement, but her rigid intolerance made nearly every conversation about something in the news turn into in an argument. Finally fed up with her condescension of his views and nitpicking his weight, he broke up with her the night before The Mariucci Classic. In a zone of totally focused anger and resentment, he played one of the most physical games of his college career.
In spite of his talents, more than ever, Logan was relying on his hockey uniform to hide his bulging details and flabbier bits. Just like when he was a kid, the gear was once again his protective armor against the microscopic lens of spectator sports. Pushing 250, he wasn’t overly confident about his body, and got plenty of flak from his coaches and teammates about it.
It’s not like he was hugely overweight, he had a broad frame with a lot of muscle. But in their world, standards were different. Body fat numbers above 15% raised all eyebrows, and a few extra pounds over that might as well have been morbid obesity. Worst of all, some of the younger guys started embarrassing him with fat jokes in front of girls, which bothered him more than anything else. As a kid he had suffered the mercilessness of his sister fat-shaming him in front of her friends. That humiliation was buried deeply inside him, and continued to haunt the way he felt about himself around girls.
That roller coaster of a season ended in a critical game against rival North Dakota. He suffered a pretty severe hip flexor tear and was sidelined for the remaining games, missing a chance to play in the tournament. Disappointment, frustration and lack of exercise didn’t help the trend on the scale, as he slid into the offseason edging closer to 260.
So here he was now, much heavier than that, and paying dearly for letting his weight get completely out of control. Coach Mike had exaggerated, Logan wasn’t quite 300. But to be fair, it wouldn’t have taken too many more pizzas, burgers and beers to get him over that threshold. Now he was going to get a trainer, who was going to put him on a degrading leash. He could only imagine the hyper-fanatical fitness bro he’d get stuck with. Those guys knew everything about getting lean and cut, but they didn’t know a thing about what it takes to win in a high-pressure team sport. But Coach and Dad had it all worked out: work with a trainer every morning, go to class, join the team in the weight room, then night practices, studying and nothing else. No games, no fast food, no beer, no fun and no life.
(more to come soon...)
