What’s a Studlete?

I went to a school that demanded mastery in 2 very “different” areas of life. On the one hand we have school and on the other we have sport.

School required full attendance, extra-work when no body was watching, networking with peers, discipline, time management, communication, development and mastery.

On the other hand, we had… let’s stop right there for a minute. Go back to the last paragraph and replace the word school with the word sport.

Unfortunately, like my former self, many kids think school and sport are very different. So many young kids pour everything they have into their sports careers and leave whatever time/energy left to deal with school. In reality, kids should be integrating these two very “different” roles in order to become the best they can be.

Now, why do so many kids look at sport and school as two completely different roles?

Boys and girls who play organized competitive sports that are sponsored by educational institutions are labeled as “student athletes.” Kids are taught that student athletes are supposed to balance the roles of being a full-time student and the roles of being a full-time athlete. However, being labeled a student athlete, automatically trains kids to think that these are two completely different things. Not enough educators and coaches work together to let kids know the role of a student and the role of a athlete are similar in so many ways.

Without even noticing it, kids are using concepts, ideas and lessons learned in school and applying them to help them in sport. On the flip side, kids are utilizing concepts, ideas and lessons learned on the field and applying them to help with school. A kid who understands that athletics and school can coincide to help foster development in both areas is what we at FLG like to call a studlete.

Studlete :: noun :: one who uses integration to create competitive separation.

A studlete understands how preparation for an exam can carry over to the way one prepares for a game. A studlete understands how having the internal patience to figure out a problem will carry over how one figures out a rival opponent. A studlete understands that having respect for your coach & your teammates will carry over to how you respect your teachers and peers. A studlete understands that how one overcomes adversity on the field will carry over to how one responds to a poor grade on an exam.

Please, do not look at school as irrelevant, second choice or unimportant. Look at school as an opportunity to discover, ask questions and generate ways to become better at all phases of life. On the flip side, take the lessons learned on the field and apply them to becoming a better person, student, family member and friend. Think outside the box, be well rounded, integrate and separate yourself from everyone. It’s not too late to start!

Are you a studlete?

 

FLG Select Boys Live the Life of an Ivy League Studlete

On a beautiful, warm and bright weekend in July, the 2019 & 2018 FLG Select Boys head up to Cambridge, Massachusetts on a mission. This mission had less to do with winning a lacrosse tournament and more to do with giving our select player’s a better understanding of what life is like for an Ivy League ‘studlete.’ FLG Lacrosse currently has 4 alumni of the program attending Harvard University. Two of those studletes, Devin Dweyer and Brian Fischer, are studying at London School of Economics for the summer. 

However, the other two studletes, Stephen Jahelka and Sean Mahon, decided to take the FLG Select Boys on a tour of the Harvard University campus. Steve Jahelka pointed out that “…the mission of the tour was to give the FLG select boys a better understanding of what day to day life is like as an Ivy League student-athlete. So many young kids think college is all about lacrosse. In fact, myself and the rest of my teammates have to make a conscious effort to budget our time so we can take care of all the other things we have going on off the field.”

On the tour, the FLG Select boys learned about the history of the school, the history of the lacrosse program, saw where the studletes lifted, trained, ate and even lived! The last stop on the tour was at the Harvard Men’s Lacrosse Locker room. Inside, the boys got to check out where the Harvard Lacrosse player’s watched filmed, got ready for practice and even got to try on some of the player’s gear! The FLG select boys were so excited for that one moment they were in the shoes of a Harvard lacrosse player. 

Check out a video below:

FLG 2019 boys checking out the Harvard Lacrosse locker room! #FLGLAX https://t.co/pCrwGPHBe5

— FLG_LAX (@flglax) July 13, 2013

After the tour of Harvard’s campus, Jahelka and Mahon took the time to sit the boys down and answer any questions the boys might of had. One FLG player asked what type of grades one needed to get into Harvard? Another boy noticed that Harvard had a bunch of team goals written on the wall of the locker and asked if the team had achieved any of those goals last season? Lastly, one boy asked what their coach looks for in a player when they are out recruiting? The two Harvard teammates told them that Harvard wants the type of kid that is selfless, enthusiastic and will work really hard in all phases of life. Jahelka and Mahon did an amazing job getting our boys to realize that lacrosse is just a small part of one day getting the chance to become an Ivy League studlete! 

Steve Jahelka & Sean Mahon with the 2019 FLG Select Team! 

 

After getting a tour of the campus late Saturday afternoon, the 2018 & 2019 FLG Select boys were determined to come away from the Crimson Classic on top. For the 2019 boys, they were on the brink of elimination two times. After being down in two games late in the second half, the FLG 2019’s rallied to come away with two big wins! They eventually topped the Connecticut Chargers in Championship! For the 2018 boys, at the end of Sunday mornings games, FLG was in a two way tie for second. After some close deliberation, they would advance to and eventually with the Championship due to stellar defense and goaltending! 

Overall, it was a great weekend for FLG Select not just because both teams won a lacrosse tournament, but more importantly because a group of young studletes got great insight into what it takes to become an Ivy League lacrosse player. Thanks again to all the FLG Alumni that have inspired, educated and motivated the young players in our program to become more than just athletes!

For the first time ever, FLG Lacrosse is launching an electronic newsletter! Each month FLG Lacrosse will be blogging, emailing and posting their eNewsletter to the web for you to see! FLG’s goal is to give you a better understanding as to what our mission is as a program, read about the amazing stories and people who are involved in our program and generate interest around the FLG Lacrosse Program. The June, 2013 newsletter for FLG recaps how our boys and girls select lacrosse teams performed during tournament play, highlighted some of FLG’s premier STUDLETES, talked about events ran by the FLG Staff, mentioned the whereabouts around some of the FLG Alumni and much more! We are honored, privileged and thrilled to give you the first ever, FLG eNewsletter, enjoy!

                                               FLG June eNewsletter 

FLG Long Island Select Team Lacrosse Tryouts 

Registration is now open for select travel lacrosse teams on Long Island. This year, for the first time, FLG Long Island is having Select Travel Lacrosse teams in elementary, middle and high school. Lacrosse tryouts are open to both boys and girls, FLG Long Island will have select teams in 3^rd thru 11^th grades. All boy’s tryouts will be 2 days. The maximum amount of players for each grade is 69 kids! After the first day, FLG LI will ask back a handful of players to compete for a spot on a FLG LI select teams. All girl’s tryouts will be 1 day. With a maximum of 69 kids at the tryout, teams will be picked within 2 days of the tryout. To register for tryouts and learn more about FLG Long Island select lacrosse teams, CLICK HERE! 

Respect and Fear

Two concepts with an abundance of different meanings. Some people feel that the two words go hand in hand while others dissociate one from the other entirely. With so much gray area as to what the two words actually mean, is it possible to know which school of thought is correct? Does fear imply respect or are respect and fear indeed mutually exclusive? Not that I think anyone sits around all day and debates this concept with themselves but it is really interesting when you start thinking about it, which is what I did when Corey [Winkoff] brought it up to me the other day. It is something that applies to everyday life as it does to all sports, including lacrosse, and every athlete should understand the difference between the two. While they might seem trivial and almost irrelevant in the world of sports, respect and fear often are the difference between winning and losing.

Both concepts respect and fear relate to any sport as well as life. In lacrosse, you should always respect your opponent but never fear them. But what does that even mean? Let’s start with respecting your opponent. No matter how big or small the game is in your eyes, you should prepare for every game like it is the biggest game of the season. At Garden City, Coach Flatley would always remind us that, “everyone always gets up to play Garden City,” meaning that, although it might not have seemed a big game to us, it did not mean that our opponent was going to come in and “lie down” because of the name across our chest. Week in and week out, we needed to work and prepare for each game like it was the State Championship. Respecting your opponent means watching extra film, getting your extra wall ball work in after practice, and focusing the entire week to make sure that you take care of business on game day. The last thing you want your team to be is complacent all week in practice and have a flat start to a game. Before you know it, you’ll be in a one-goal game with a team that has no business being on the same field as you. 

While fear and respect often have overlapping concepts, they definitely do not have to belong in the same sentence.  Yes, you should respect all opponents but you should fear none of them. Absolutely none of them.  A large portion of lacrosse is mental and if you go into a game, or anything in life for that matter, afraid of your opponent, you have already lost. The mind is a powerful thing and can either work in your favor or against you. Growing up, my dad always told me “if you think you can, you can. If you think you cant, you cant.” What he meant was, if I made up my own mind that I was going to do something, I could do it. However, if I had already determined that I was going to lose, then I was destined to fail from the start. So when you step onto a field, there should not be a shadow of doubt in your mind that you can win the game. At the end of the day, they eat, sleep, and get dressed the same way you do, right? All the preparation you have done during game week like film, wall ball, etc. because of the respect you had for your opponent should erase any fear you may have. No matter whom you are playing on the sports field or in life, anything can happen on game day. That’s the whole reason we play every game.

So I guess my own interpretation of respect and fear is that the relationship is somewhat inverse. The more you respect your opponent, the less you will fear them. The more preparation you put in during the week, the less nervous you will be come game time. Once the opening whistle sounds, you’ve done all you can do to get ready. All the scouting reports have been read, the film watched. Be confident in who you are as a person and a player and leave it all on the field for 60 minutes.

For more articles, news and information stop by www.stephenjahelka.com 

or follow him on twitter @JahamaMama

It isn’t a secret that Floyd ‘Money’ Mayweather is the athlete people love to hate in today’s society (and it isn’t exactly hard to see why). Since his rise to stardom in the late ‘90s, Mayweather has been known for his trash talk in the media, the lavish lifestyle he doesn’t hesitate to flaunt and his activities outside of the ring, which has always included the clubs, strip clubs and confrontation. Personally, I have always been a Mayweather fan for what he has done in the ring and nothing more. All the extra curricular stuff he did in his personal life always made it hard to like him as anything other than a boxer. So you can imagine how surprised I was when I learned something of value from Mayweather that translated from life in the ring to his home. 

Like a lot of other people, I made sure to watch the ‘All Access’ episodes on Showtime that were shown in the weeks leading up to his fight with Robert Guerrero, which took place this past weekend. The hype around the fight grew day by day. His dad was coming back to train him for the first time in 13 years, he hadn’t fought in a year; the list went on and on. And despite all the diverse situations, everyone was wondering the same thing: Could the Floyd Mayweather of old make a comeback?

The answer? Complicated. He still seemed to be in great physical shape but it seemed something had changed. Pissed off by the chatter that he could not come back as strong as he was, Mayweather put in countless hours of ‘sweat equity,’ working out three sometimes four times a day. Instead of leaving the clubs at 2 or 3 AM, he was leaving the gym or getting home from a long run around LA. Time he spent running his mouth to the media now appeared to be time spent with his camp out to eat or at family events such as BBQs. He continued to work on areas that needed improvement and seemed more open minded to the dad’s ideas, the same ideas that tore them apart thirteen years ago. I am not saying that the club hoping Floyd Mayweather was left back in his prison cell but, from the outsiders perspective, Mayweather seemed to be more focused, more determined, or as he put it “All Business.”

Mayweather’s determination is something athletes everywhere from every sport can take and implement into their own training. It is a great example of a guy who wanted something bad enough that he just put his head down, ignored the distractions, and outworked his opponent, day in and day out. It took jail time for him to realize how important it is to win with class, something all coaches try to teach their athletes. Most importantly, he finally figured out that you don’t need to run your mouth to win; you just need to show up and get the job done.

Fast-forward to last Sunday Morning around 1 AM and you could find Floyd Mayweather interviewing with the ring side announcer after his decisive win over Guerrero. When asked about the fight, Mayweather kept it brief. He thanked his camp, thanked his supporters, and left the ring, much to the dismay of the ringside announcers.

No trash talk. No fanfare. All business.

For more articles, news and information stop by www.stephenjahelka.com 

or follow him on twitter @jahamamama