Leave Your Mark - Derek Guidmond

The Leave Your Mark Series invites current and former college athletes to address their former selves to provide advice, comfort, or anything else they feel may be important for up-and-coming generations to consider when determining their college athletic goals.

To read the entire Leave Your Mark Series, head over to www.athletestoathletes.com

Dear Derek,

When it was time for you to pick a university, I think you did it just right. Loyola University Chicago or Pepperdine, that was the question. 

Stanford didn’t work out, unfortunately, we just didn’t have what we needed on paper. U of I could have been great. They have one of the best club volleyball teams in the country – but it will be just like high school and you need to grow. 

Playing D-3 at Carthage or NYU could have been interesting, but Carthage didn’t have the right feel and NYU was 50k per year AFTER scholarship…..  

You can try to walk on at LUC or Pepperdine. California! The infinite summer! That Honors Program at LUC was too enticing, especially because if and when you don’t make the team then you could fall back on your books, and the corresponding academic scholarship was pretty good. 

Look, I know it sucks you didn’t get any D-1 offers. But the reality of the situation was that you had only been playing volleyball for 3.5 years. You still need to learn SO much about the game… That’s no consolation for you though, you’re too stubborn. 

What if I told you that you would win that bet with Dad? You will get a volleyball scholarship, after all. You will get your MBA paid for in England! 

I know that everything seems so scary and frustrating now considering all those options of where to go to school, sheesh look at me stating the obvious… Just be true to yourself and follow your heart, it hasn’t and won’t lead you astray. 

Make sure you keep working hard, for the both of us, on and off the court, your work ethic on the court, in the classroom, in the workplace – that is what is going to set you apart. 

Keep hustling. 

Grit your teeth through the inevitable; the blood, sweat, tears – stick to the process – especially when it seems most futile. 

Never give up on yourself. 

Of course you chose Loyola! You’re a “Town Kid” after all, might as well stay local! Chicago’s pretty big and pretty amazing, anyway. You’re in for a doozy. 

Getting cut from the walk-on roster freshman year is going to sting, that’s for sure. I wish there was something to say or do that could help, but there isn’t. You’re just going to have to suffer. You need to learn resiliency anyway – still one of the biggest smacks to the face. It’s going to become your biggest “character building” exercise ever. 

You’re going to find your identity not as a volleyball player but as a person. 

You’re going to join a fraternity, become the captain of the LUC club team, you will join extracurricular clubs, get internships, earn your EMT, flourish as a Chicagoan, as a member of the community, as a brother, son, as a friend – but that pain, that knowledge of never being good enough, of never becoming a college athlete – that despair is never going to leave you. 

That’s why watching LUC win a national championship from the stands, watching your friends claim that most illustrious title became a mixed bag of emotions: respect, pride, and admiration for your friends and existential doubt, self-pity, insecurity as an individual – but don’t worry, you’ll get another chance at glory. 

You will train that whole summer with the team, grinding it out in the gym, on the beach, you will eventually walk onto the team when the opportunity arises. You will earn Academic All-Conference honors in your first and only season as an NCAA D-1 athlete. 

Sure, it will be one of the most humbling experiences of your life, getting punished when the freshmen screw up, running lines for things you weren’t a part of, setting up the net every day and taking it down because you’re a rookie – a freaking senior rookie – first one ever! Look at the bright side, you’re a part of something bigger, and we’ll be damned if you’re gonna give up on your dream whilst you’re living it! 

You will go to California! The 2015 NCAA National Championship will be at the Stanford campus you never attended, and you will witness firsthand one of the greatest finals in NCAA history. You will taste the glory of 4 years’ exodus’ worth of hard work come to fruition and you will now always be a member of the 2015 Loyola Chicago Men’s Volleyball National Championship Team, bearing the championship ring to prove it. 

You will play with future Olympians and against former Olympians. 

You will compete against former and current professionals, and you yourself will become a professional athlete! 

You eventually run the entire gamut of the sport in your career: from Freshman B late tryout to Freshman A, to Junior Varsity to Varsity (all in one season) from no D-1 college offers, to walk-on prospect, to college club athlete, to D-1 National Champion walk on to National Champion, to International Student-Athlete to Semi-Professional Athlete to U.K. Cup and National League Champion to Professional Athlete. 

Competing in the CEV Cup, NEVZA, Packed stadiums, Skra Belchatow, Cyprus, Belgium, Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, Gdansk, Hungary, France, on the beach, on the grass, on the hardwood, on concrete – it just doesn’t matter. Anytime, anywhere, anyplace, any weather you are an athlete and you are tough. 

Remember when we were freshmen in high school and the basketball kids and football kids were asking why we were choosing volleyball? 

‘A girl’s sport’ and then those same kids were asking us our senior year if we were going to play professionally? Professionally? There’s professional volleyball? 

What a long, strange journey it’s been, reading up on Karch Kiraly, watching any and all videos, movies, books, articles, data, etc.

You will eventually become a professional agent and recruiter, you will hone your craft, and help other athletes to pursue their own opportunities to play internationally. 

You will give back to the community. You will help other former club athletes to follow in your footsteps. You will help to change the opportunity landscape for former collegiate athletes. 

Who knows where we might be in another 10 years? I wish we could ask a future Derek but I guess it will be up to us to learn for ourselves. This lesson has to be learned though by yourself because telling it to you won’t be anywhere near the same as ascertaining it for yourself. 

Don’t despair at what you might perceive as failure when everything, absolutely everything is an opportunity in disguise.

– Future Derek