Athlete Builder

Ten episodes. One system. Turn opinions into a plan.

A coach scores his 12-kid roster on Tuesday and rearranges practice by Thursday — because almost nothing was where he thought. The "lazy" kid was under-recovered; the "choker" was under-informed. In the finale of Build Champion Athletes, Jim Beebe runs the full system on a whole team: the mechanics, the four rules for reading results, one inch per kid per quarter, the clipboard method that turns a habit into an identity, and the operating rhythm — score, prescribe, win the days, re-score, forever. Coaches: run your roster this week. Parents: run your kid tonight.

▶️ The scoring tool (free, ~10 min per athlete): https://athlete-builder.com/assessmenttest 🎬 New listener? Start at Episode 1 and run the series in order. 📬 Newsletter: https://athlete-builder.com/newsletter · 📘 Book: https://athlete-builder.com/booka

Ten episodes. One system. Keep stacking wins.

Win the day. Stay relentless.

Brian Harper walked on at Weber State as a quarterback and worked his way to number two on the depth chart. Then, two weeks before the season opener, they moved him to tight end. He weighed 215. The next lightest tight end on the roster was 235.

He didn't quit and he didn't pout. He said it felt like being back in seventh grade — the game was brand new again.

That instinct is the whole episode. Brian is a decathlete, a former D1 football player, a CrossFit coach who made the online semifinals this year, an ocean lifeguard in San Diego, a soon-to-be firefighter, and a bobsled push athlete chasing the next Olympic quad. We get into what a position change actually does to an athlete, how you coach someone who isn't wired to compete, why he thinks the hardest rep anybody does is walking through the door, and how he's structuring four years across a career and two sports without going broke or burning out.

IN THIS EPISODE 01:24 — Coaching CrossFit: from an internship credit to running classes 01:51 — Making the online semifinals, and the goal for next year 02:43 — First bobsled run: "get in, hold on" — pure adrenaline and chaos 03:58 — Green Wall: nearly drowning during lifeguard academy, and the four weeks that fixed it 06:31 — Jim's Statue of Liberty swim and the buoy that ripped on impact 15:29 — Narpocalypse: Brian's new show on life after sports 16:20 — Ten events, one nemesis — the decathlon event that humbles him 17:53 — Walk-on to number two: the spring that changed everything 19:20 — The meeting: "Creighton had a better day, we're moving you to tight end" 20:18 — 215 to 225 in two weeks, and why it felt like seventh grade again 21:58 — Head and body: running Brian's story through the six blocks 23:29 — Getting fired from a job you've held your whole life 25:24 — The offer he turned down out of high school, and what he'd tell himself now 26:19 — Too many irons in the fire: how do you plan a four-year quad 29:05 — Olympic champion or CrossFit champion? 31:24 — Coaching competitors and coaching everybody else in the same hour 33:54 — Why trust gets built off the field, and what one selfish player does to a room 35:45 — "If I'm not competing, I don't know what I'm doing" 39:48 — Finding the spark in an athlete who doesn't think they're competitive 43:01 — The hardest rep is walking through the door 45:03 — What a week actually looks like, and why sleep is non-negotiable 49:12 — How Brian finds the limiting factor in a new athlete 52:11 — What he wants people to say about him in thirty years 54:24 — Bobsled metrics: the body weight and squat numbers on the World Cup team 55:59 — Jim on adding size the right way, and why you retest instead of guess 58:11 — Lightning round: Warrior, Brett Favre, Isabel, and a Lombardi quote worth keeping

Where's your athlete actually losing ground? Take the free Athlete Builder Scorecard — six blocks, six minutes, one honest answer: athlete-builder.com/assessmenttest

The Two Minute Drill — one short read every Thursday for coaches and parents who want athletes built right: athlete-builder.com/newsletter

Find Brian: @_brianharper on Instagram · his show @narpocalypsepod Connector credit: Sydney Milani, @syd_milani — founder of Peerless, supporting Olympic hopefuls.

Three tenths off the 200m race isn't chased in May — it's built in January, in a thousand invisible reps. In Episode 9 of Build Champion Athletes, Jim Beebe hands over the operating system of the whole series: Win the Day. The cascade from quarter goal to one daily habit, streak over mood, the identity shift ("I don't miss"), killing the two lies, the weekly stick, and the boring wins that separate good from great from elite. Goals are just targets. The system that gets you there — that's for winners.

▶️ Free assessment (finds the inch your habit should attack): https://athlete-builder.com/assessmenttest 📬 Newsletter: https://athlete-builder.com/newsletter ·

📘 Book: https://athlete-builder.com/booka

Win the day. Stay relentless.

Conor Hughes runs the weight room at West Point — ten years at Army, a 635-pound school-record squat, and five former assistants who've become FBS head strength coaches. Every time he loses one, his program gets better. A self-described D3 lineman who wasn't a great athlete, Conor fell in love with coaching on day one and built one of college football's most respected development programs. In this conversation, he and Jim dig into his ten daily non-negotiables, the "hive brain" of a team, radical ownership, telling the truth, and building a culture strong enough to survive losing your best people.

🎧 Full episode everywhere you listen 📊 Free Athlete Builder Scorecard: athlete-builder.com/assessmenttest 🌐 athlete-builder.com | ✉️ [email protected]

Win the Day. Stay Relentless.

A wrestler drills harder than anyone in the room and keeps losing off the same tie-up. He doesn't need more effort — he needs a diagnosis. In Episode 8 of Build Champion Athletes, Jim Beebe delivers the system that ties all six inches together: the SWOT, translated for athletes. Strength becomes your competitive advantage, weakness your limiting factor, opportunity your target, threat the enemy. Run it on all six blocks, find the real weak link (it's almost never where you think), and turn the diagnosis into one daily habit.

▶️ The free assessment runs this exact system on your whole team in ~10 minutes: https://athlete-builder.com/assessmenttest 📬 Newsletter: https://athlete-builder.com/newsletter · 📘 Book: https://athlete-builder.com/booka

Win the day. Stay relentless.

Matt King walked into Maine as a four-sport kid and left an All-American linebacker. Then he chased the NFL through three leagues — arena, the CFL, and pro camps with the Jets and Steelers — before spending 14 years building college weight rooms at UConn, Michigan State, and Texas. Today he coaches in the NFL with the Arizona Cardinals. In this conversation, Matt and Jim talk about process over outcome, developing people in the weight room, and what it takes to chase a dream across three leagues and never give up on it.

🎧 Full episode everywhere you listen 📊 Free Athlete Builder Scorecard: athlete-builder.com/assessmenttest 🌐 athlete-builder.com | ✉️ [email protected]

Win the Day. Stay Relentless.

Five matches, one Saturday. Match one she's flying; match four she's a step slow. Same skill — the difference is who recovered. In Episode 7 of Build Champion Athletes, Jim Beebe covers the most neglected inch: Recovery. Sleep as the #1 steroid, recovering on purpose between games, recovery as a system, the 50% rule for wrecked days, the Gift of Injury, and the downshift that prevents burnout. The best ability is availability.

Lingering or sharp pain goes to a medical professional — rehab is run by pros.

▶️ Free assessment (10 min): https://athlete-builder.com/assessmenttest 📬 Newsletter: https://athlete-builder.com/newsletter · 📘 Book: https://athlete-builder.com/booka

Keep stacking wins. Win the day. Stay relentless.

Pedro Arruza was born in Spain, lost his father at seven, and arrived in Miami barely speaking English. He became an English teacher with a master's degree — and then built one of the best sustained runs in Division III football: 22 years as head coach at Randolph-Macon, the longest-tenured coach in Virginia, with a 2025 ODAC title to add to the collection. In this conversation, Pedro and Jim talk about the coaches who shaped his life and faith, the seed one man planted that changed everything, why he's never chased the D1 job, and what it really takes to live your standards out every day instead of just talking about them.

📊 Take the free Athlete Builder Scorecard: athlete-builder.com/assessmenttest

In this episode: — The unlikeliest origin story you'll hear: Spain, Mexico, Miami, and an English degree — The words a seventh-grade coach said that changed the trajectory of his life — Why he's stayed at Randolph-Macon for 22 years when he could have left for D1 — Living your values vs. printing them on a t-shirt — What he learned from Nick Saban about never stopping the climb — Why he still power cleans once a week

Connect with Pedro Arruza 🏈 Randolph-Macon Football — rmcathletics.com

🎧 Full episode everywhere you listen 📊 Free Athlete Builder Scorecard: athlete-builder.com/assessmenttest 🌐 athlete-builder.com | ✉️ [email protected]

Win the Day. Stay Relentless.

A kid flies around the field for twenty minutes and walks by the sixtieth. That's not always conditioning — it's an empty tank. In Episode 6 of Build Champion Athletes, Jim Beebe breaks down Nutrition, the second body block: why it's two-thirds of the result, the four fuels, the Survive-Thrive-Win climb, the bomb shake for hard-gainers, and the Jack story that proves you can't beat the math — and that without a stick, there's no change. Plus the Nutrition Top 10 you can start Monday.

Fuel, don't restrict — for weight or body-composition goals, especially with a young athlete, work with a registered dietitian.

▶️ Free assessment (10 min): https://athlete-builder.com/assessmenttest 📬 Newsletter: https://athlete-builder.com/newsletter · 📘 Book: https://athlete-builder.com/booka

Keep stacking wins. Win the day. Stay relentless.

Taggart Brown traded dirt bikes for a headset — and never lost the mentality that got him down the track. The offensive coordinator and QB coach at Bethel College joins Jim to talk about coaching without hesitation, the Event + Response = Outcome formula he teaches his quarterbacks, the grind of college coaching with a newborn at home, and why he believes most young athletes aren't physically strong enough for what the game asks of them. A walk-on turned conference player of the year turned play-caller, Taggart's story is about competing with no fear of failure — on the bike, on the field, and in life.

In this episode: — How a motocross racer's "no fear of failure" mindset transfers to calling plays — Event + Response = Outcome: the one thing you can always control — The walk-on tryout that produced his best man — The real cost of the coaching grind on family — Why he thinks most young athletes aren't strong enough — and how to fix it — The four most powerful words you can tell a young man: "I believe in you"

Connect with Taggart Brown 𝕏 Twitter: @taggart_brown 📸 Instagram: @taggart.brown

🎧 Full episode everywhere you listen 📊 How good is your athlete? Take the free Athlete Builder Scorecard: athlete-builder.com/assessmenttest 📰 Two Minute Drill newsletter: athlete-builder.com/newsletter 🌐 athlete-builder.com | ✉️ [email protected]

Win the Day. Stay Relentless.