Next Chance You: Tools, Tips, and Tough Love for Bringing Your A-Game to Life

Introduction

Have you ever heard the quote, Everyone is fighting a battle you know nothing about? We are all struggling with something in our lives at this very moment, even if that struggle changes a little day-to-day. We might be facing difficulties in our marriage, a setback in our careers, a family dispute, or even a serious health condition. There are times in life when we all get stuck and desperately need a do-over or a second chance to prove, if only to ourselves, that we have what it takes to be great.

As an academic counselor to some of the country’s top athletes at East Mississippi Community College (EMCC), I was surrounded by student athletes battling for their second chances every day. They came there for different reasons: poor grades, behavioral issues, run-ins with the law. But at the end of the day, they all had the same goal in mind: their chance at redemption. At success. At a way out. I came there to build something. To help build a program from the ground up, but really to build better people. I came there to change lives; to help these athletes become better versions of themselves, and carve out a better path for their future. The funny thing is, even though I wouldn’t admit it to myself until much later, I was also looking for my second chance alongside theirs—a chance to be better because of my experiences instead of becoming bitter; a chance to break out of the excuse mindset and actively create a change in my life and career; a chance to provide bigger and better opportunities for myself and my daughter, Kennedy. Maybe fate put me on this parallel path. Or maybe part of it was that we often attract to our own lives what we are focused on, and what we are throwing out into the universe. I had been focused on my brokenness and acting like a victim. Therefore, I was attracted to a place where I would be surrounded by brokenness and victims. I would not allow myself to sink into that dark hole only because I had to be strong enough to fight for the others. All the while, the others would teach me how to save myself.

While the work I did at EMCC was some of the most important I would ever be part of, I also recognized that when my chance came, I needed to be ready for it. It was only after I engaged in the hard work of changing myself and my mindset from the inside out that my next chance opportunity came to me in the form of a phone call from a Hollywood producer, wanting to film me for a new show called Last Chance U on Netflix. While I was not part of the original show idea, I was added in afterward. This was a fortuitous addition. The show became a runaway hit and ultimately gave me a platform—and a second chance—to pursue a new path and make an even bigger impact on this world.

It wasn’t easy, and it wasn’t a given. Last Chance U was Netflix’s first original sports documentary series, and we had no idea if it would resonate or not.

The show came about because of a feature story that GQ Magazine published in 2014. They sent freelance writer Drew Jubera to East Mississippi Community College’s campus to follow our football program. Although one of the most successful in the country, producing a slew of players who went on to the NFL, junior college programs were the least well known among the public. Though the feature story that appeared in the magazine was only about four pages long, Drew spent six months in tiny Scooba, population just barely over 700, often in my office and on the sidelines during the team’s football practices and games. Other than my small hometown newspaper, I had never been written about before. GQ even flew in a photographer to do a photo shoot of the team. It was incredible! I called my mom, dad, sister, and all my friends. The November issue, you have to go get it the day it comes out, I told them.

November rolled around and I drove to Books-A-Million with a huge smile on my face. I was going to buy every copy the store had in stock. Matthew McConaughey was on the front cover—even better! I grabbed the issue and sat down on the floor, flipping to find our story. There it was! But I couldn’t find a mention of me anywhere. Well, that’s disappointing, I thought. I felt ignored, irrelevant, and mortified that I had bragged to my family and friends. I bought one copy and quietly walked out of the store.

Gathering with my family for a private watch party for the premier of Last Chance U.

By the time Netflix called about five months later, I was convinced that I wasn’t an important member of the team or the football program. Ironically, it was Drew Jubera who told the Last Chance U producer that Netflix didn’t have a show without me. Apparently, he’d written a rather lengthy section about my work as the athletic academic counselor that GQ had cut.

© Terry Zumalt

On the sidelines before kickoff of an EMCC football game.

I spent fifteen years working with college athletes. I coached them on how to be successful in the classroom, which in turn kept them eligible to play on the field or court. But I learned the hard way that academic issues were almost never about academics. As it turns out, athletes with superhuman abilities are, like the rest of us, mere mortals. Like us, they are also a product of their experiences, environments, and deeply held beliefs about themselves.

At EMCC, we got the players no one else wanted. The guys who weren’t good enough in the classroom to go straight to the four-year powerhouse programs. The guys who were incredibly talented but couldn’t manage the pressure of the big-time program. The guys who failed drug tests, got arrested, cussed out a coach, or were caught on video punching someone in a bar. The players whose names run across the ticker of ESPN on any given weekend.

I saw my job as a counselor as bigger than crisis management or eligibility maintenance. The young men I counseled didn’t start out with a level playing field, and they had much to overcome: the neighborhood they grew up in, voices from the past that told them they weren’t smart enough to go to college, the negative self-talk that played on a loop in their heads, and the pressure to perform in front of a very demanding crowd who expected them to shake off injuries, score touchdowns, make tackles, and always win. And somehow, I had to help the players make their second chances work.

As much as I wanted to change their lives, in reality they were changing mine. I loved their stories and their determination and drive. I loved how sometimes they wanted to give up because it was hard, but very few of them did. I loved how they could smile through almost anything.

Those athletes prepared me for a lot; yet nothing could have prepared me for what happened after the first season of Last Chance U was released—the outpouring of love from viewers near and far; the articles that identified me as the heartbeat of the series; the phone calls, messages, and tweets I received from the likes of Reese Witherspoon, Dax Shepard, Kristen Bell, Ricky Gervais, and Snoop Dogg.

Filming an episode of Last Chance U.

While my next chance was, admittedly, a tad dramatic, I had to put in the hard work up front so that I could seize the opportunity when it came. I’m still a work in progress, and I still wake up every day to my next chance. A new opportunity to be better and do better than the day before. You do, too. Life isn’t a one-shot deal. We aren’t working on our last chance, but our next chance. We don’t have the opportunity for only last chances, but many chances to get it right. We’re on this Earth to learn to be our best selves, one chance at a time. Every day we are alive is Next Chance You. While most second chances in life require a massive amount of patience, perseverance, and persistence, we can prepare for these openings each day by cultivating the habits, mindset, and skills required to capitalize on the opportunities that come our way. We can invest in our growth and lean into our best selves in anticipation of our big breaks, maybe even attracting those opportunities in the process. When we make mistakes, we can choose to learn from them and start fresh the next day instead of letting our errors hang over us. When we shift our mindset to one of openness, evolution, and curiosity, we come to see that we can start over at any point, and that every day can truly be a new lease on life.

In the pages of Next Chance You, you will find inspiration, practical tools, and real stories designed to help empower you along life’s journey. Filled with what came to be known on Last Chance U as my signature tough love and practical truth, this book will help everyone—no matter your background, circumstance, or level of education—find the secret ingredient inside you to make every day count.

When I left Scooba, Mississippi, to launch my own company, 10 Thousand Pencils (10KP), I realized there are persevering athletes like Ronald Ollie and Dakota Allen everywhere; people who have had a difficult hand dealt to them, or maybe brought problems on themselves, but have a fighting spirit that just needs direction and a little lift. We have all faced a second-chance opportunity at some point in our lives. The longer I’ve observed, the more certain I am that each of us wakes up every single day with a new opportunity to be better than the day before.

Every day is your next chance.

With Kennedy at a Last Chance U press event in Los Angeles.

CHAPTER 1

Show Up. Be Present.

The art of life is to live in the present moment!

—EMMET FOX

Thanks to Netflix, I am the most well-known guidance counselor or academic advisor in the world. Literally. That means I am super intelligent, right? I must have breezed right through my schooling with straight A’s, always doing exactly what I was supposed to do. Academics must have come naturally to me, and I likely loved every second of my education, right?

Nope. That was my older sister, not me. I struggled in school. My studies were neither fun nor easy for me—ever. I am a rule follower. So I did, by nature, tend to comply with people’s expectations of me. I distinctly remember when following the rules became a challenge. During my sophomore year of college, I transferred from a small private university with a tough academic curriculum to a large public state school in order to take advantage of what I’d hastily decided was my major. The rules changed—along with the stadium size and football talent.

At the private school, my professors had taken attendance and mailed each student’s absences home to their parents. My dad had given me my very own attendance lecture at the beginning of the fall semester. Dr. Buddy Wagner had done the math and calculated how much each individual class was costing him. He told me I could miss as many classes as I wanted, but I would be responsible for paying him back the per class fee. It was not a small number, and I never skipped class again while attending that institution.

The next year, when I arrived at my athletics-loving, public state school, they didn’t give a flying flip if I went to class and my dad had no idea what I was up to. Nearly 300 students attended my Chemistry 101 class, and nobody gave a shit if I was one of them. I never went to that class. I remember calling my mom and preparing her for the D grade I knew I was going to make. I had tons of excuses and the truth was not in a single one of them.

The irony is not lost on me that in my role as an athletic academic counselor, one of my primary responsibilities was to convince struggling students with mounds of athletic ability to simply attend their classes. It was, in fact, the first rule I put into place.

GO TO CLASS! I pleaded with them at the beginning of every semester. You will not make the best grade possible in a class you do not attend. East Mississippi Community College had a strict attendance policy: Students were allowed only four unexcused absences in each class. On the fifth absence, they were automatically dropped from the class—no questions asked, no excuses heard.

Starting today, I am going to monitor your every move, I informed the 200 student-athletes sitting in front of me at our very first academic team meeting. "I will know when you skip class, when you are late to class, when you sleep in class. We may do nothing else, but we will go to class! You know why? Because no matter where you came from, how much money you have, what your ACT score is, or how many tackles or touchdowns you have on the field, every single one of you can show up and be where you say you’re going to be. Showing up is not dependent on any level of intelligence or social status, but upon your own effort and determination. We will all show