Meet Malcolm Lemmons

Malcolm Lemmons is a former professional athlete turned entrepreneur and author. He's the founder of Players Point Sports, a digital media platform and community that helps athletes transition into life after sports. 

What are some platforms that you feel you've been able to successfully reach out on and get in front of athletes of every sport? 

I utilize as many platforms as possible. I want to say I'm very active on Instagram. You know, I try to respond to a lot of people on Twitter. So wherever athletes are, I'm trying to be there as well. I'm trying to put that like I said, put this content, put this advice, this knowledge that I want to give back to that athletes that may be struggling with certain things that I went through as an athlete and hopefully something that I post or that I I mentioned or that  I retweet may resonate. It may give them that edge or may help them with whatever struggle they might be going through. So that's really you know, what I try to do with social media and try to be as active as possible on every platform that I have.

I'm curious to hear about your writing journey, if it was something for you that began in your childhood when you were growing up, or it really wasn't until you started realizing that your athletic career was coming to an end?

So,  to be honest, it was a little bit of both. When I was younger, I remember drawing a lot I remember writing for for like short stories for fun, but it was something that I never thought could carry me anywhere. I wanted to be an athlete, I didn't think about being an author or a writer or anything of that nature. It was just something that I just like to do, having a pen or pencil in my hand and just doodling in class or whatever. And I never was big in school. I mean, the only reason why I tried to do well in school is because of sports. So that that second year being overseas, I kind of fell into writing to what it is today, just because I had time. I'm sitting in a room outside of Tokyo, Japan. I get there a week after Thanksgiving in the middle of the season and we have a month-long break, so we're just practicing, we don't have any games. And I'm just there. I'm sitting there with a computer, no Wi-Fi. And I'm like, What do I do with my time? I don't know my teammates. I don't have any friends out here. I had this computer and so, I started to think about if basketball wasn't in my life, where would I be? Where would I be doing? I have a lot of friends who wanted to pursue this dream of playing overseas and it never happened for them. A lot of them were just sitting back home waiting for that call or still working out.  They were in this stage where they didn't know what they were doing with their life. And I was like, "What if that was me?" And so, at that point, I started to reflect, I start to think about, "How did I get here? What have I learned from my journey? What lessons have I taken away from all these years playing basketball? Where would I end up once this game is done?" And so that's what really led me to start writing and start highlighting my story and thinking about all those things and really manifested itself into a book. And then from there, I just kind of fell in love with the idea of sitting down and reflecting and thinking and being able to kind of put pen to paper and just put that out into the world being vulnerable and transparent. I think writing is a great medium to do that.

You said that you took the time as you were still an athlete to begin to think about what's gonna happen next, in your experience are athletes today consciously thinking about that question as they play?

I think when we think about athletes in the past, there weren't as many resources or information out there to kind of help them to start thinking about what they could do next, or what opportunities were even out there. I think nowadays you have athletes who are really starting to think beforehand because we live in an age where social media is providing the content, the information, the advice, the opportunities. We're able to network with more people, we're able to put ourselves out there and build a brand and create communities of all these different things. So I think athletes are consciously thinking about it more and more nowadays. And then even with guys like LeBron James and the Uninterrupted platform and what they're trying to do - to empower athletes to start thinking about their next step and building their own communities and brands. I think there's definitely more of an emphasis on it now than there was in the past, and I like to think that I'm adding to that conversation. I think there's a lot of people doing a great job, even such as yourself trying to put this message out there and helping athletes to start thinking about that next step. So I think it's definitely on the minds of a lot of different athletes nowadays, but in the past that really hasn't been.

When you're talking with people who are still currently in the game, and they see the end of the tunnel coming up, what are a couple of highlights that you try to make sure they focus on to allow them to be successful in their next career?

I think the first thing you have to think about is, "What are you genuinely interested in? What are you passionate about outside of sports?" We're not just one dimensional, no one's one dimensional, no one just likes one thing. We all have different interests, but it's up to you to kind of figure that out beforehand, and not have tunnel vision just on the game. So I think that's the first thing you have to do first and foremost before anything else is figure out what you're passionate about, because that's gonna be what you're going to put your all into like you did your sport. Then the next thing I feel like every athlete has to understand is that patience is a big part of the process as well. You're not going to just transition overnight, you didn't become a great athlete overnight - it took years and years of hard work. So making that transition is definitely going to be difficult, regardless of whether you have a plan or strategy in place. You just have to be patient and understand that regardless of how stressful or how frustrating it can be to walk away from your sport that you're walking towards something better. Then over time, you're going to get more comfortable with that transition, and more comfortable leaving the game behind. So those are always the two biggest things that I always tell athletes. I try to reinforce, and get athletes to really understand, when it comes to the transition, regardless of how long you play, or what sport you play it is going to be difficult to walk away from.

Do you think the people in charge of college NCAA D-I, D-II or D-III, semi professional leagues or professional leagues across any sport are doing enough for their athletes to prepare them for life after sports?

That's a great question. I'm not really sure everything the NCAA does in terms of preparing student athletes for life after sports. They definitely have a lot of resources on their website, and they try to preach this message of really putting different types of programs or events and content out there to help athletes with this transition piece. I think a lot of it falls on the university, and even more so the coaches because those are the people who are closest to the athletes and have those relationships to where they really need to help guide these athletes to not just be athletes, but to be holistic individuals and citizens. Once you've done those four years, you don't really have somebody by your side like that anymore. College is kind of that last leg where you have somebody there to guide you and give you that advice. Then once you leave school, you're essentially on your own. And so I think coaches really need to be their rock, support and the role models that athletes need when it comes to preparing for life after the game. 

How much do you think coaches are sacrificing on player development outside of just becoming a better athlete, but actually the human development side of things, in order to make sure that they're developing?

I definitely think it varies from program to program. But I mean, when you're coaching at a power five conference school that is what you signed up for. This is why you get paid the money that you get paid. So it's definitely a tight line, and it's really hard to figure out when to, I guess, put more on the athlete side or the athletic side and really getting players prepared to play the game, as opposed to preparing men to be grown men in the real world. As an athlete you live in in a bubble, and so when you get out of that bubble, how prepared are you to kind of step out on your own? I think there are definitely coaches who reinforced that and really put that out there and teach these athletes and educate them on what it means to be a man. But it's like I said, it's very challenging to do. And I think it varies from program to program.

You're in the process of writing your second book. What's it like to write a book? What was that process like for your first one? And how did that change for the second one?

So for me, as I said before, I never had expectations to be an author. So going through that process, it was hard as hell to be honest with you. I don't. A lot of people, I don't think, you know, writing is strenuous. If I can just meet and talk constantly, I'm good. I would only advise people to write books if you absolutely cannot write the book. It has to be a message that you like, and it's in your head and you're like, I got to put this out into the world. And so, writing that first book, it really happened by accident. Everything that I was kind of going through that second year of playing overseas, and then what I was typing out, kind of manifested itself into a book once I started to share with people. And as people gave me feedback and told me, "You have a great story, you have experiences that you've been through, you've had these lessons that you talk about, why don't you write a book?" And I'm like, "Why the hell would I write that? I never thought about writing a book of my life. I don't want to be an author." But then that was kind of backed up with my story how I can help another athlete with the challenges that I went through. Somebody's life can be inspired by this book, and that's why I need to put this out there. And so that first book was that for me, and what it really was, was my story and through basketball, and whatever. Learn from the game and how I've been able to take these lessons and apply it to life.

And so much more...

Meet Mike Kemp

Mike Kemp was brought to the University of Nebraska Omaha as its first head hockey coach on July 1, 1996.   He was elevated to the position of Associate Athletic Director in May of 2009 after serving as the head hockey coach for 12 years.  In March of 2019, he was further elevated to the position of Senior Associate Athletic Director - Events/Facilities.  

Do you think the NCAA is does enough for athletes to prepare themselves for what sports is their athletic careers are over?

I think it's becoming a more increasingly focused area. For example, here, you know, we have we have a academic office, or that has a development director for helping individual development for your future career and experiences. Where will we have various people come in and do lectures with our student athletes to tell you how to work with them on on learning kind of what the life after athletics could be. And I think that important element plus having some practical opportunities to get experiences in the community where you're doing community service and getting exposed to a variety of different businesses. options and opportunities and just getting to meet people in the business world.

You serve on the NCAA committee for men and women's soccer as well for NCAA Division One hockey.  Did you play a role in some of these new NCAA rules when it comes to paying players?

The purview of our committees because the soccer committee is just basically playing rules and enforcement of playing rules.  Our hockey committee is the tournament we manage the tournament NCAA tournament at all levels at the division one level but I should say but at regionals and the Frozen Four, so we don't really get involved with those type of which we called Association wide rules, because that applies to every sport right across the board. And that's done it by at a committee level much higher than ours.

How do you think a that'll affect recruiting and how will it affect student athletes here?

I think the biggest thing is the real test for that is not over with The NCAA is going back and looking at how it might implement that.  I think from the standpoint of the implementation is going to be one of the bigger things and certainly having at this point in time divided decided by the states could have some really interesting significant effects on college athletics. It is one of those things that I think is still so fluid and liquid, it's going to be hard to tell what real effect will have.  We're a mid major and in all sports we would be classified as a major in hockey but in our other sports, we're a mid major institution and I think opportunities to take advantage of name image and likeness for our athletes might be a little less lucrative than it is for power five conference athletes, so that's gonna be an interesting part of it.

After serving as a head coach for 10 years, 12 years and then assistant coach before that, since the mid 80s. How do you see recruiting today in comparison to what it was 20 years ago?

It's interesting. It's so different. today. Of course, there's so much more access to information, whether it It's video that you can just get online or information online, you know, back in the late 70s, early 80s and through the early 90s, when I was recruiting coordinator at the University of Wisconsin, it was largely you're digging through newspapers you had to call a coach to get their schedule. Can you fax my roster and what do you fax me or stats, a fax machine was working overtime. And we didn't have cell phones so we were in a rink watching a junior game in Canada and you're standing in line three or four guys deep to call some recruit and you're waiting for the payphone and waiting for this other coach to get down at the payphone to make your call.  I mean, it's changed dramatically. I think from the standpoint of you know, guys today the negative of that is you never get away from it. You know, you're caught you're constantly texting. You're right, that Computer you have in your hand is monopolizing your time. And so you know, from that standpoint, the information is better, the actual work might be actually harder because you can't get away from it. The other thing that's changed a lot is the fact of the matter is the family advisor has got a huge effect on what and when kids make decisions and what kind of decision they make as far as where they're going and when I was doing that as a full time job recruiting, you didn't have the agents weren't involved.

What are some characteristics that you hope to get out of the people that you have play for you as student athletes or  work here?

I think one of the great things about the staff that I have here in hockey program is that two of the three full time coaches are former players of mine. So they played here, they understand the culture that we set when we started the program in 1997.  There are guys who live by that culture, which is hard work, we realize that, in many cases, we may or may not be the most talented team but we will outwork anybody, we're very committed to that. The staff and our coaches reflect that and I think, part of whatever we do here, and I believe this in any aspect of leadership, is you model certain behavior and you model what you expect to have athletes who actually run reflect the what you model.  I think that's kind of one of the keys that we've always emphasized here is, we model hard work, we model consistency, we model honesty, we model character. And that's what we expect out of the student athletes that are going to compete for us.

What was your approach to coming to a university that didn't have a hockey program, you had to build it from the ground up?  What were some of those important pillars that you knew you needed to put in place in order to be successful?

I was at the University of Wisconsin at that time and it was one of the three, four top successful programs in the country for a long period of time. I'd been there 14 years and a lot of people asked, they couldn't believe I was leaving to go to start up a program, I wasn't going to be waiting for an established program to have an opportunity for me.  The reason I made the decision was I thought, how many times in your life do you have an opportunity to put your stamp on every single element of the program?  You're either going to inherit a program that has to be rebuilt, or  you're going to go in there and repair something, or you're going to be maintaining a program that's had great success, but where do you actually get to start where you design the uniform you are involved with every aspect of what was going to be in place. I had the privilege of putting in so it was an opportunity that was rare. I don't know very many other people have ever had that opportunity in college hockey today. So for me, that was part of the lure of taking the job. But the things that I thought were most important, most critical for me, first and foremost, and I think it always is, I had to do is get a good quality coaching staff and support staff. I was very fortunate. The first hire I made turned out to be an incredible hire. That was David Quinn, who's now the currently the head coach in the New York Rangers. He was here from day one with me starting the program during the recruiting of that first team. Both of us work together. 

What do you think goes into play there from a mentorship perspective and how coaches work together and are able to advance each other's careers?

You know, none of us we're born coaches, most of us have to have somebody we model after.   I was incredibly fortunate because every step of the way, I was under an incredible mentor. My college coach Don Roberts is one of the winningest coaches from the MIT in Minnesota Division Three conference, where I went to college and played and coached under for five years. And then I went from him to Bob Johnson, of course, who is as recorded, he's a hockey legend. And then from him, it was Jeff Sauer who is the winningest coach in Wisconsin hockey history. An incredible man and you know, from each one of them you take something, you learn something. It's not just X's and O's. In fact, in every case, it was far less the X's and O's.  It was way more the how do you deal with people. How do you treat people, how do you motivate people?  What's important? All of those things and everything that I would say that I put into the UNO program here is a reflection one way or the other of each one of those gentlemen.   Those are the things that's truly important.  I've tried to do that myself  with these various assistance I had throughout my 13 years of coaching here, as the head coach, each guy that was on my staff, I tried to find something that I could bring to them to help them in their careers.

And much much more....

Mike Kemp Bio

Meet Mason Eddy

Mason spent his life up until his early 20's pouring all of his energy and time into developing as an athlete, it all ended and his life came to a cross-roads.  He had lost the camaraderie, performance based leadership, personal growth, outcome focus, unlimited growth potential, and that "game time" feeling that comes with athletics at a college level.  Mason was diagnosed with post-athletic depression.  Applying the same principles as he did in athletics, he was fortunate enough to develop a relationship with a coach/mentor. As of a function of the mentoring relationship they established, he and his wife have learned how to scale up multiple business assets outside of their careers. 

Mason on his soccer career and what followed once his career was over. 

I love the idea that athletics has truly been the foundation for who I've become. And I love this podcast as a function of that. Well, I'm a huge fan of what you're doing here. So give you an idea of where we've came from. My whole my whole life was tied to sports. That's what kept me out of trouble and got me in trouble.

And so I ended up going and playing in the university system played for a division three school, sat the bench for two years and and then ended up going and playing four years, made it to a final for sweet 16, two year captain, played every minute, and ended up over in Europe.  In that moment, my whole life was defined by soccer. That was my self image.  After that was stripped away from me I went into a pretty deep depression with which they defined as post athletic depression.  That is actually diagnosed today. The level is very sure, just like any depression, right? But there's depression that's caused by bipolarism. There's a lot of triggers that cause, you know, depression, but this one was caused by my athletics kind of getting stripped away from me. So my identity was stolen. And when that was stolen, I didn't know who I was.  I came back from from Europe, basically, not knowing where I was going to go. And so my story had its peaks and valleys through athletics, but the biggest Valley I was ever at was when athletics was stripped away from me, for sure.

How much does youth sports play a role in that and continuing up through the college and then certainly the professional ranks?

My dad, just a quick background. My dad played football for Auburn. So he was a high caliber athlete. I was going to the gym with him since the day I can remember working out of some caliber.  I think as we as we grew up, you know, the the idea in his mind was athletic. Athletics is going to kind of define you as a man, right? It takes boys and helps them become men. And he wasn't doing that verbally, but he was doing that through the way he coached us right away.

(My dad) would be the one and anybody that was in my youth growing up with me would tell me he was the loudest guy and he didn't necessarily mean it in a hard way.  What happened to him, this is really important is he played football through his sophomore year at Auburn, and then he quit.  His dad stopped talking to him for six months and I think that is when I look at our youth and athletics. He always told us that he didn't ever want to put that same pressure on us. However, I think it happened as a function of kind of the relationship and kind of how seriously he took athletics.  I think that that pressure started to build. And we started to build all of our identity into that.

You were in an environment that fed off of competition?

Yeah. and I think, you know, as I went into my college years, one of the things, one of the biggest lessons I learned was the growth mindset. When it comes to athletics. I was fixed minded. I didn't realize it. 

What do you mean by fixed minded?

I think if I looked at it, I was good at it, so therefore I did it. I think that's a fixed mind, right? A growth mind says, If I'm not good at it, I just keep doing it and I'll get better and eventually I'll become better at it. So I went into college, fix mind and saying,  I'm good at this. So I should do it. And then I sat the bench for two years because I wasn't growing as an athlete. That was nobody's fault. Sitting the bench I mean, just realizing him just getting humbled totally down to my core. And I think one of the things that he did as a coach that helped me in my sophomore year, I'll never forget this. He talked about how athletes plateau.  They either go up or they go down.  Though they'll hit this plateau, every athlete hits a certain plateau in their career. And he said, right now I see you at that plateau. And he said, this summer is gonna define if you're going to go up, or you're going to go down, and he said, if you go up, you're going to make the team because we had to try out every year.  And so he gave me those three things, and I worked on them and that led to and so that was the summer where I said, I'm gonna have a growth mindset. 

Would you say the Depression was worth the toughness? Or would you say I would have preferred that I had other things in my life that were as important and therefore, I wasn't as connected. Then maybe the the post athletic depression would have never been a part of your journey?

I think as a human we have to rationalize what we've been through.   We have to justify it and, you know, one of the things that happened over the later years is I grew up in an area of my faith and kind of started to discover these things.  One of the things that I thought about was, and learned was that if there's something that in my belief system, if God's doing something to you, then he's trying do something through you.  So he's trying to do something through. It's not a, he's not just trying to put you in a bad situation. He's trying to mold you and kind of carve you to do something through you. So looking back, I think that's where the intersection was coming in, was that he could do now something through me.  But if you asked me eight years ago, and I would have said, Are you kidding me? This was the worst thing ever. I wish I would have never played soccer. I told you. Yeah. You know, I literally didn't want to even watch the sport for multiple years after that.

And much more from Mason...

Mason Eddy on LinkedIn

Meet Katherine Reutter-Adamek

Katherine competed on behalf of the U.S.A at back to back Winter Olympics and is a 2xOlympic Medalist.  After retiring from the sport of Short Track Speedskating in 2018 Katherine began her work of empowering others to improve the way they move, think, and feel. She is owner and operator of Fix Your Mindset and combines decades of experience as an athlete and coach with the latest research in sports psychology, nutrition, and exercise physiology.  Her background in high-performance and passion for personal development allow her to share practical strategies to improve total body movement, health and well-being. 

On winning and sharing her Olympic Medals..

I have had some little kids try to run off before it's actually quite cute. You know? Yeah, they come up. They don't really know what they're even in line for. And you tell them like, Oh, do you want to see a metal to an autograph and they take and it's fun to share them. It's it really is the most fun to share them with others.  I have a story I often tell and right after I won them, I went home and I was home for a couple months just you know, getting a much needed break and one day my dad woke me up and it wasn't crazy late. I think it was like nine or 930 and was like Katherine Get up, my friend is here and he wants to see your metal. I was sleeping in pajamas. And very kindly. You just said "You didn't win those medals So you can sleep in, you won them to share? Let's go!"

We talk often about how it takes a village and it takes a family, it's not just to increase performance but you know, I love how your podcast is called the sport of business and something I often refer is the sport of life.  Nobody's achieving all their success alone, like you have people in your corner and my mom and dad are the originals.

How did you deal with nerves on the big stage and on the little stage and whether or not you feel that nerves can be turned into fuel for success?

Absolutely. And so I view nervousness in the same way that I view any emotion, which is your body generates emotions in order to keep you happy, productive and safe.  So even negative emotions they're given to you because if this bad thing happens, you may not be happy, you may not be productive, and you may not be safe.  It's important for you to know that. So if you're experiencing nerves going into something, your body's telling you like, hey, this, you got to do a good job here, right? This means something and that doesn't mean you know, or better not mess up. That means to recognize, man, what I'm doing is important and when you're coming at anything with that mindset of like, yeah, like you said, nerves aren't bad nerves are my brain reminding me that I'm into what I'm doing right now. I'm excited about my process. I'm excited to see where I'm at in terms of performance. And when you learn that lesson, when you get past that initial feeling and you learn the lesson being taught to you, the lesson is generally that you need to keep on your process, keep doing what you're doing. You're nervous for a reason. It's because you're doing a good job. You're either or the next option would be that no action is necessary. You don't actually need to be nervous. You just need to do do the job and get back to work, but no, whatever. And sometimes you need more information to find out. So especially in races, if I'm nervous, it's because I don't know what's going to happen. I don't know what my competitors have in store for me that day. Sure. And there's nothing I can do about that. There's no single bit of control. I have what what others will I have over what others will do. And so, at some point, my nerves aren't helping me. If I can't actually do anything, I'm just wasting energy, and it's better to just let go.

How do have your emotions and nerves translated to the owning a business and the business world?

Again, you need to be aware of the things that can go wrong because awareness of what could go wrong is what lets you prepare ahead and do things, right. But there's a certain point same with that initial nervousness response that at some point, it's completely out of your control. You could be the best boss and do the best job and have as much success that is reasonable within your amount of control. Someone will find a way to think something bad about you. Yeah, someone will find a way to complain about something or like there's just, you don't control that. Right. And so I agree with I agree with that. That example I understand it. And yet I think that there's this underlying piece to stress and anxiety where there's something that's being taken personal and some fear that the outcome is going to say something about who you are as a person. Sure. And that's, you know, you hope that that's not true. But if you're the kind of person that's really nervous and anxious and internalizing all of this stress, I think it's a safe bet to make that you're probably spending too much time Fearing what other people are going to think or what they're going to say, and instead of being focused on what do I control, how do I make it better? And if the answer is I'm completely out of control, and there's nothing I can do, then you don't need to play that fear based story over and over in your head. If I literally already done everything you can, you deserve to give yourself a little bit of a break and say, like, here's the best I got and you know, the world is gonna play out the way that it's gonna play with or without me and the best I can do is be your be my best self along that journey.

Actually, way earlier than my first Olympics when I was struggling just to stand out on my team, let alone stand out internationally in competition. And he said to me that there's a difference between lions and kittens. And kittens are really cute. They always want attention. They always want to play games they like they want to play Right, right. Right. And it's easy to get wrapped up in the cuteness of them. Sure, but a lion doesn't care a lot. Lions Don't play with kittens. Yeah. And so when I think of someone who's got a really harsh, intimidating face on, I think that's a lion. Right? You know, and certainly like they're, they they've put me in a position where I can also be alone. Or I can be a kitten. But the thing is that lions Don't play with kittens. Kittens play with themselves. They cause their own drama. They're cute. They're fun. But when it's time to get work done, you're going with the lion. Other people can own that mindset perfectly. And it's really a matter of how do you choose to respond? Does that amount of you know, no, we're on the radio so your listeners can't hear. But that amount of like, Ah, I see it. Just listening.