Hi all,

I’m excited to share a significant announcement which I felt like a blog post was most appropriate. As many of you know, I accepted my enrollment into UAMS for this upcoming fall and planned to coach with BEC until school in August. 

However, a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity happened upon me just a few days ago that I’d be remiss to pass up. This message is a story that speaks to God’s infinite potential and overflowing grace constantly pouring over us, available for all.

From the NFL to New Beginnings

When my NFL career abruptly ended in 2018, I struggled with a constant battle against concussion-induced stress and a profound identity crisis. For years, I attributed my self-worth to my performance on the field, and when that was taken away, I didn’t know who I was or even if I was valued.

With a spirit of growth and determination, I learned about optimal health and wellness through ancestral living, hoping to one day promote this strategy for youth, aiming to optimize their performance. While I aimed to help others, I still wasn’t right myself. I didn’t realize there were significant steps I failed to see and significant holes internally that only God could fix and where I wasn’t looking.

Throughout this time, I sold medical devices for a career that felt severely disconnected from my true passion and purpose. After four years of constant stress and discontent, I left med device to discover what God truly had in store for me.

The Turning Point

After struggling to get a health coaching business off the ground, I found, applied, and enrolled in an excellent Master’s program at Georgetown called Integrative Medicine and Health Sciences, which I hoped would help my acceptance into medical school or open up doors that I didn’t know were there. Sure enough, it did both. 

While doing my summer internship remotely in Fayetteville and planning to attend medical school that fall, I started coaching junior high and high school kids after being encouraged by my 7th-grade teacher, Coach Hays, to coach her kids. Soon after, I found a niche and a passion. 

With reticence in my heart, I decided to defer my enrollment to medical school and continue coaching, which I initially regretted. How could I pass up such an excellent opportunity to change my life, change others’ lives, and do what I love? I thought I had made a massive mistake. Retrospectively, it was the best decision I’ve ever made. 

From August until now, God has been slowly chipping away at the parts of me that had previously led to destruction. He opened my eyes to the things leading me astray, allowing me to let go of them and push forward into greater horizons. 

Coaching unveiled parts of me that were yearning for growth and purpose, leading me to start a podcast and organize football camps, culminating in an impactful and fulfilling venture. With immense gratitude and joy, I found an avenue to share all I learned through my coaching practice and podcast. It became the coalescence of everything I believed in and loved and provided relief for what I discovered to be a budding gap in the youth athletic population.

Since December, we have held numerous camps with over 260 kids in attendance, recorded several podcasts with some of the Razorback’s greats, and have seen tremendous growth and development within the clients I coach on a private basis. It is truly the most gratifying and fulfilling time of my life, and I can’t imagine having done anything else…

Until now.

A Dream Comes to Fruition

A couple of weeks ago, I shared an idea with a friend I had for an app I wanted to develop that promoted everything I was teaching through my camps and training. It would include not only physical drills, strength programs, and accountability but also mental optimization tools such as meditative practices, breathwork, journaling tools, and routine strategies designed to help you optimize your performance on and off the field, as football is only a tool for life.

My friend told me I was crazy and that it would be too difficult to implement and build on my own, which it was, and he was right. But I still wasn’t convinced it couldn’t happen. Two other people agreed with my friend.

Then, at my brother’s bachelor party in Miami, one of his friends told me about this opportunity with InnerAthlete and that the CEO, Steve Harrison, would be reaching out. I was skeptical because I wanted to attend medical school and loved building my brand and business.

We eventually spoke, and immediately, I was intrigued. What was apparent was that this company had a strong, faith-based foundation, and his purpose for InnerAthlete was to transform the lives of the youth. After the conversation, he told me he’d be attending my next camp, and sure enough, he was there four days later.

The following week, we had another conversation, and it was clear to me that everything I had been only hoping to build had already been built. God, with His unimaginable and overflowing grace, gave me the opportunity to be a critical part of it. 

InnerAthlete’s main purpose is to help athletes maximize their potential both on and off the field. At my camp, he noticed that the tagline on my hoodies says “Performance Beyond the Field.”

Are you serious? How is this possible? Divine intervention is the only explanation. Trying to understand God is futile but well worth exploring.

Divine Alignment

God’s hand has been carefully crafting the ultimate resume as the General Manager for Football at InnerAthlete for my entire life. To say that I am awestruck by this opportunity to bring this platform to youth, high school, collegiate, and professional teams around the country and eventually around the world is the understatement of the century. God is so good, only good, and is the sole reason I’m in this position.

The World’s Greatest Game

While certainly the game of football isn’t perfect, it has given me the most valuable resources I have in life: friends, teammates, skillsets, connections, and durability unlike any other experience could ever provide. 

As a former player, I now realize that its greatness lies not in the final product on the field on Saturdays and Sundays but in the strong, tough young men it creates through the countless hours spent on the practice field throughout the summer and fall, ones the world desperately needs.

It’s a game that develops you into a leader, a professional, and someone who can make a lasting impact on the world around you. And one that requires not only physical characteristics but mental and spiritual.

There’s a reason not everyone can make it to the league. You can’t rely on speed, strength, height, or even the skill set to succeed. You must also have the resilience to push through adversity, the leadership skills to inspire your teammates, and the awareness to see ahead of you while still taking care of the task in front of you, ie, a charging fullback or a ravenous, headhunting defensive end. Most of all, you must have a purpose beyond yourself to push through the internal and external challenges that will inevitably arise, including injury, personal doubt, and feelings of inadequacy. 

The football gridiron directly cultivates the whole person, the whole athlete– the InnerAthlete.

You must have ALL THREE: mind, body, and purpose, and if you fail to have one, you fail to have them all.

InnerAthlete is a testament to the importance of developing all three in conjunction with one another to optimize athletes everywhere, destined to become the next generation’s leaders. 

Needless to say, I am beyond excited to begin this journey with InnerAthlete and embark on a new challenge where my skillsets will be used to their fullest potential. 

Gratitude and Looking Forward

As I step into this new role with InnerAthlete, leaving my medical aspirations behind, I’m filled with immense joy and the utmost gratitude for every mentor, coach, and friend who’s been part of my journey. This shift isn’t an end but a new beginning, allowing me to leverage my experiences and insights for a much broader impact.

I’m excited to continue coaching, albeit in a different capacity, and to contribute to a movement that promises a brighter, more well-rounded future for youth athletics. Here’s to embarking on this new adventure with InnerAthlete, fueled by faith, passion, and the collective dream of enhancing young lives beyond the field.

Here’s to a brighter future for all.

With deep gratitude, 

BE