Athlete For Life
My Kids Have Only Heard About The Athlete I Was
by Jeremy Hudson, Athlete For Life

I can dunk a basketball.

That’s a lie. Let me start again, the way I actually say it to my kids: I used to be able to dunk a basketball.

They’ve heard that one. They’ve heard about my high school hockey team going undefeated. They’ve heard that their dad was athlete of the year in his final year of high school.

And if you get me out with my old London Majors buddies — usually a few drinks in, when the stories start flowing — you’ll hear the big one. The night I stood up in front of the entire team and told them I was going up there to hit a home run off a pitcher who’d thrown in the major leagues. Called my shot, out loud, to everyone.

Then I did it.

And the next man up went deep too — back-to-back, off an ex-big-leaguer.

I love that story. I’ll tell it until the day I die.

The Night I Heard Myself

But a while ago, mid-story, standing in my kitchen trying to inspire one of my kids to push a little harder at something — your dad used to be able to… — I stopped, and I heard myself. I really heard myself.

Every athletic story I have is thirty years old.

And when I asked myself the obvious follow-up — okay, so what’s the recent one? — the honest answer was flat-out humiliating.

My most recent athletic story is a torn adductor. I did it playing with my kids. Not competing. Playing.

Before that? I was told I need a shoulder replacement. That shoulder has history: I had it surgically repaired back in 1999, and that repair is the only reason I was able to keep playing ball — it bought me the rest of my baseball career, including some of the stories above.

Twenty-five years later, the joint is worn down to severe arthritis. That was the trade: more seasons then, a new shoulder now.

I just had an MRI on my knee and I’m awaiting the results — that one happened demonstrating a single-leg bound for a client, an advanced exercise I’ve done a thousand times (a story I’ve told elsewhere, and yes, I see the irony).

And because I’ve been limping around on that knee, my hip has started barking too. One thing compounding into the next.

And this is the part that’s embarrassing, the part I didn’t see coming: apart from that shoulder’s long history, every bit of this — the replacement verdict, the knee, the hip, the adductor — landed in the last few months. Not decades of gradual decline. A few months.

The truth is, I thought I was okay. But I wasn’t testing myself. I wasn’t competing, and I never once held myself to the standards I hold my clients to. Everything slipped under the radar — because I wasn’t running one. And then it all hit at once.

So there it is, in one man’s scorebook: back-to-back homers off an ex-big-leaguer on one page. A shoulder replacement waiting to be scheduled and a knee MRI on the other. Thirty years of nothing but reruns in between.

Your Scorebook Looks a Lot Like Mine

I’m telling you this for two reasons.

The first is that I’d bet money you have your own version of that scorebook.

Maybe your stories are about a state final, a college season, a club championship, a playoff hat trick, or a marathon PB. Maybe your name is still on a banner in your old school’s gym.

Maybe you tell them to your kids like I do, hoping some of who you were rubs off on them. And maybe, like me, you’ve felt that little drop in your stomach when someone asks — or when you ask yourself — so what have you done lately?

Here’s what I’ve learned about that feeling, from 27 years of coaching and from living it right now: loving the old stories isn’t the problem. Athletes are supposed to have stories. The problem is not having any new material.

When the highlight reel stops updating, those same memories start doubling as evidence — evidence of a gap between who we were and who we’ve let ourselves become. And once you realize that, every story retold stings a little.

And no — you can’t dodge that sting by telling the stories less. That’s avoiding the pain, not fixing it. The only fix is giving yourself something current to say.

New Material

The cure for glory days is a scoreboard with today’s date on it.

Not a feeling. Not a vague intention to “get back into it.” A number — measured now, written down, with a retest date on the calendar. That’s what a season looks like for an athlete: a baseline, a schedule, and a championship date when you find out if the work paid off.

Every one of us performed inside that structure for years. Then the structure disappeared, and we’ve been trying to freelance our fitness ever since, wondering why nothing sticks.

So this is me, publicly, putting a scoreboard back up — starting with myself.

Now, this is the part where a typical fitness influencer would be writing to you from a mountaintop — shirtless, at sunrise, holding a green smoothie. Not me. For one thing, I’m writing from the bottom of my own Rebuild. For another, with this knee, I’m not climbing anything this month.

Shoulder, knee, hip, adductor — I’m walking into my own assessment the way I’d walk any client into theirs: measure everything, find the weakest links, rebuild from there, retest in 90 days.

My Athletic Age is about to get calculated, and I already know I’m not going to love the number. That’s fine. The number isn’t a verdict — it’s not the end of my story. It’s a starting line — time for the second half to begin.

Calling My Shot Again

And I finally put my finger on what makes that story my favorite. The home run isn’t actually the best part. The best part is that I called it. I stood in front of my whole team and made a promise out loud before I ever stepped in the box — and then I had to go be the guy who backed it up. That’s what made it unforgettable. Public commitment first. Then swing for the fences.

Thirty years later, I’m calling my shot again. Different ballpark.

Ninety days from now, I’ll have new material. Not a dunk. Not a home run. Something better than both: proof, with today’s date on it, that the athlete didn’t retire — he just missed a few seasons.

I’m telling you before I step in the box, same as I told my team back then — because I remember stepping up to the plate knowing I had to deliver. Once you’ve called it, there’s no going back.

And I remember that at-bat vividly. I was swinging for a home run on the very first pitch. That first pitch came in the dirt. Didn’t matter — standing there, I knew the next one was mine. And it was.

If your last comeback attempt landed in the dirt, remember that. A pitch in the dirt doesn’t cancel a called shot. The next one can still be the one. And me? I’d rather go down swinging than not try at all.

So my shot’s called, and I’m stepping into the box — banged up and all. Now let’s talk about yours — it’s time you had some new material too.

It starts the same place mine did: with a number. The Athletic Edge Scorecard takes about five minutes, it’s private, and no one is watching you take it. It won’t tell you who you were. It’ll tell you exactly where you are — which is the one story you can actually do something about. Consider it your radar — the one I wasn’t running.

Take the Scorecard — get your first piece of new material at athleteforlife.ca.

Get your number. Call your shot. I’ll see you at the retest.

Stay athletic,

Jeremy

P.S. — I’ll be publishing my own numbers as I go — the assessment, the setbacks, the 90-day retest, all of it. If a coach awaiting a shoulder replacement and an MRI result can put a scoreboard up, so can you.

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Jeremy Hudson is a strength and conditioning coach (NSCA-CSCS) with 27 years in the field. He runs Athlete for Life in London, training adults in their 30s through 60s to move like athletes again. Curious how you’re actually holding up? Find your Athletic Age in three minutes: athleteforlife.ca