Read the associated newsletter titled “Drink it in” for more.

Speech Script (not a transcript)

Thank you Dean Reid, faculty, parents, and the selection committee for inviting me here today. And more importantly – a HUGE congratulations to the graduating class of 2023 of the College of Health and Human performance! I’m so proud of you for being here after the gong show the world gave you during four years here!

As I get started, I thought a lot about how I was selected when Dean Reid reached out, considering how much this place kicked my ass.

In the spring of my freshman year, some how, some way, I found myself with a 1.8 GPA… yeah, it was sweeeet. I may not have known what a mitochondrial cell was, but I knew what a Grog was, that’s for sure.

When I left Gainesville, I certainly wouldn’t have been anyone’s pick to be here today speaking to you. LITERALLY, no one would have had me on their bingo cards!

So I thought a bit more and I’m pretty sure the root of the privilege I’ve been given to speak to you here today as you graduate from one of the most prestigious Universities in the country is because I became the best in the world at RUNNING for FIVE seconds and sitting for a minute. While sliding down hills. Wearing tights.

So if you stop listening now and your main take away is - if at first you don’t succeed, go find the single-most ridiculous thing you can to be successful at – then I’ve done my job.

Ok, for real, when I heard the selection committee chose me to speak to you today, the first thing I asked was if I could talk to a handful of graduating students.

I honestly wish I could have spoken to everyone one of you, but if Leah, Joselyn, and Destiny are representative of you as a whole - I have to say, you are all way more reflective and thoughtful than I was at this point.

Leah plans to spend her career increasing equal access to healthcare; Joselyn, who herself has Type 1 diabetes, worked at Shands throughout the pandemic and plans to go into nursing; and Destiny, who wants to live a life full of travel and hopes to be a part of the change as the level of diversity of sport increases.

Oh - and Leah also told me to be funny and tell stories. And to that, Leah, I say - I’m a bobsledder, I’m not Trevor Noah!

But across everyone, there was one theme I heard in different ways. It was one that Joselyn summed up really well, and was a feeling that I vividly remember when I left here:

“Just as you feel like you’ve got everything figured out, you go on to the next thing - where you know nothing. ”

That landed with me because I know that feeling so well - and ultimately, whether you’re starting from the bottom because you’re new or you’re starting from the bottom because you’re at a low point in your life - the strategies I’ve used are ultimately the same.

You’re going to encounter both in your lives. And if you’re pushing yourself hard, you’re going to encounter both A LOT.

So today I want to share with you two stories about the most difficult, and important, choices I’ve had to make in my life. Both were at low points in my life and both taught me a lot about how to navigate that feeling.

And most importantly, both taught me that this is where life happens. Starting from the bottom, how we handle it, and what we do with it is what turns us into the warriors we need to be to live our dreams.

The first choice from the bottom that I want to share happened just a few miles from here almost 23 years ago. As I sat on my couch in my apartment, in what I think is now Huntington Lake Apartments, I was two days out of Tommy John elbow surgery from a torn ulnar collateral ligament from throwing the javelin. I was a decathlete when I was here.

Sitting on that couch, I saw my athletic career flashing in front of my eyes.

I’d dreamed of becoming an Olympian since my first Junior Olympic track meet at the age of 11 and I became a National Champion in High School and I signed my letter of intent to be a Gator to pursue my dream.

But sitting on that couch, I thought back to before I even arrived, in my senior year of high school, I tore my hamstring.

Then, in my freshman year here, I blew out my ankle while high jumping.

And the same my sophomore year. And the same my junior year. I was even kicked out of the training room my senior year here.

I CLEARLY showed them when I got creative just weeks later and tore my elbow.

The need for elbow surgery was the final nail in the coffin of my Olympic Dream.

But as I sat on that couch – I wasn’t ready to be done. I wasn’t ready to give up on the dream and I didn’t want to think that I’d peaked at age 17.

Into my head popped a comment one of my track coaches, Jerry Clayton, said to me A COUPLE years earlier. He said I reminded him of another athlete of his who went from track to bobsled.

I’d laughed it off at the time and hadn’t thought of it since but the despair, and the pain killers I’d guess, brought it back - so I emailed the Olympic Committee.

I said I’m this big, I’m this strong, and I’m this fast. Can I do this?

The next day I got an email back saying, Yes. I had to gain weight, I had to get stronger, but I was capable of getting there – and I was off to the races, again.

At that point, I had every reason to doubt myself. By all accounts, I had failed. So when I look back at that moment on the couch, I can honestly say I didn’t believe in myself.

And here’s a little secret (look around slightly) - It’s bullshit when people tell you “you just need to believe in yourself”. That’s what people who have already made it say. They’ve forgotten the doubts, the fear, the paralyzation.

Believing in yourself when you’re down is one of the single hardest psychological tricks to pull off, especially without many reasons to believe. And when things are tough, you want to find things to do that INCREASE your odds of success, not try to pull rabbits out of a hat.

After five years of injuries - how; why should I have believed I could have done it?

What I needed to do was simpler. And here’s the dependable magic trick - I just needed to believe… that I was capable of believing in myself.

Let me repeat that - I just needed to believe that I was capable of believing in myself.

I just needed a crack. I just need an opening of light. I just needed to choose that not all hope was lost. And then… I would work my way into believing in myself.

And I found a way to use my self-doubt to my advantage – anytime I saw a weakness in myself or my team, anytime I thought I wasn’t strong enough or big enough, I went after fixing it. (That would come back to haunt me though, as you’ll see.)

A mentor of mine taught me that everyone has self-doubts, so normalizing them and learning how to work WITH them is so much more productive than spending time and energy trying to get rid of them. Put them to work FOR YOU!

I was fortunate enough to have a chance, to have a shot at pursuing my dream. So I gave it everything I had. I remember pushing my roommate’s car while she sat in the driver seat up the O’Dome parking garage. I’d come back here and train every spring to get some warmth back in my body. I pushed myself harder than I thought anyone could push themselves and I was absolutely relentless for ten years.

Because just adjusting your mindset isn’t enough - you still have to go do the work.

And we did it. Me and my three teammates – Steven “Holcy” Holcomb, Justin Olsen and Curt Tomasevicz did the impossible. We broke a 50-year World Championship gold drought and a year later we broke a 62-year drought for our country to win gold at the Olympic Games in the 4-man bobsled.

To be 31 and achieve your childhood dream is surreal. I watched our flag be raised above the Canadians and the Germans, I looked at my parents and sister in the crowd, and I looked back at 20 years, starting at the age of 11, of perseverance in my life being played to the tune of the star-spangled banner…

Guys – it was incredible… much like the feeling of exhilaration many of you are feeling right now about YOUR monumental accomplishment after the incredible journey you’ve been on.

Now, the next chapter of life after Olympic gold was… (smile) yeah, it was ok – we were on the cover of Sports Illustrated, we flew in an F-16, we met the President, we threw out pitches. A few years later I was selected by the Team USA’s athletes to represent them on the U.S. Olympic (and now Paralympic) Committee Board of Directors, I married my best friend, we had a beautiful, vibrant, daughter, and now a son, too.

Life was good.

On top of all that - I now didn’t want to think I peaked at 31. And I can proudly say Classroom Champions – a non-profit I built with my PhD sister and PhD wife, outshines an Olympic gold medal, to me. With help from over 300 currently competing Olympians and Paralympians, NCAA and pro athletes, Classroom Champions uses curriculum and programs to help teachers teach millions of kids the skills and mindsets needed to succeed in this world – goal-persistence skills, perseverance, emotional management, and teamwork skills. In other words, the kinds of skills you learn as an athlete that ALSO help you throughout school, and your entire life.

But, even as my life was in a better place than I ever could have dreamed, the challenges inside me were real, and they were building.

The internal talk that pushed me to get better as an athlete – the “I’m not big enough, I’m not strong enough” talk I mentioned earlier – that worked in the structured environment of sport.

But in the less-structured environment that is our daily lives outside of sport, it was beginning to take its toll. I would obsess about problems and issues including those I had no control over. I stopped seeing the good in life.

When a mindset you used to become the best in the world at something is causing damage, it’s hard to understand that’s where it’s coming from.

And then, in 2017 I got a phone call from my teammate Curt – Holcy, the driver of our gold medal team and my close friend, had died of an alcohol and sleeping pills-related overdose. A few years later, another Olympic teammate and former roommate, Pavle Jovanovic, took his own life.

I slid in the Olympic Games with six guys – two of them had killed themselves by the time I was 40.

And the truth is - here’s the thing - I don’t like talking about this stuff. I don’t. I don’t enjoy. It makes my stomach turn and it feels awkward. Vulnerability as an athlete is something you’re taught is bad. But that’s how my friends ended up where they were. And doing things in life that we don’t like is how we get stronger. It’s one of my Rules of Getting Better, so here we go.

You see, it took me a long time to admit this but my mental health was spiraling downwards, too.

And this brings us to the second major life-choice I found myself needing to make from the bottom. If you remember, the first life-choice was on that couch here in Gainesville - but this next one in front of me could have had very different consequences…

Just under ten years after climbing the podium, I was at the opposite end of the human spectrum of emotion.

Every morning for years, and still to this day, I wake up before 530am and head down to the gym to get my training in.

Suddenly I found myself waking up, heading downstairs and instead of going to the gym, I’d end up on the couch… sobbing, at times uncontrollably. My wife would come down, for weeks in a row, and find me there. She’d curl up with me, and she’d love me.

It was a cycle I’d never experienced before.

I didn't realize it at the time, but luckily my wife did. I was in full-blown depression.

It came fast and it came hard.

Another life moment on the couch – except I wasn’t at the bottom yet.

Days later I was downtown, walking to a meeting, and Calgary’s lite rail system, called the C-Train, went by. I vividly remember looking at the C-Train on a cold winter day in Calgary and thought – “Am I, and others, better off with me in front of that?”

That moment was what triggered me to make a choice. A choice that began really simply.

Could I choose to simply believe that I was capable of believing in myself, again?

When you’re in a depressive pit you can’t necessarily believe. I couldn’t even think straight. But if you can find just a little part of you that believes one day maybe you WILL believe, that’s the part to hang on to.

Here’s the thing I learned about depression - When your brain is the problem, you can’t think your way out of it. It’s a very strange feeling. It felt like my brain was broken, just like my UCL almost twenty years earlier. And just like when a physical injury is the problem and you can’t train your way out of it by yourself, I needed help - and I had a lot of choices to make.

So - I chose to go to the doctor, I got on medication, I found a counselor, I called my closest friends; I chose not to be ashamed.

When that counselor heard my life's story he helped me realize that ANY time I'd been faced with adversity I found a way to change.

And I had choices I needed to make if I were to change.

I could choose to look at my mental health like I did the sports injuries in my life and get help for them, without shame.

I could choose to remember that day on the couch here in Gainesville. Remember that from one of my lowest points came the best things in my life.

I could choose to realize this was MY life. This was my one opportunity - that yesterday is gone and tomorrow is possible.

I could choose to change the way I looked at and framed my situations. I could choose to change the way I treated myself and others. I could choose to change where and how I found joy in my life. And I could, with a team around me, choose to decide that even though I’ve experienced the same head trauma through bobsledding that my teammates’ did - their fates didn't have to be my own.

And I’m still standing here, so you can guess which choices I made. And it was hard. It took work, and I’ve had to find ways to be relentless in the way I both treat myself and think of things.

But I’m grateful for those moments of struggle, of being at my very bottom, because they’ve brought me to where I am now – which is a place of more peace, ease, honesty and joy than I’ve ever had.

Today, I’m more accomplished because of my bout with depression, not in spite of it; just like I was more accomplished as an athlete because of my injuries.

My belief in myself is stronger not because I never doubted myself, but because I did.

So, Joselyn, and anyone else nervous about the uncertainty of the future - remember that THIS is where life happens. The uncertainty, the self-doubt - DRINK IT IN.

You have already accomplished so much by graduating here today. And now as you go out into the next chapter of your lives, as you embark on new adventures and challenges, remember this:

You don’t have to believe in yourself. Not fully.

You just have to choose to believe that one day, you will.

And in the meantime - be relentless, find your cracks to go through, and don’t let anything stop you.

Thank you for allowing me to be here. I truly wish the absolute best for each and every one of you.

Go Gators.