Category Archives: ITL

‘Getting’ it

02 Thursday Oct 2014

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I remember early in the ’00s, probably around 2003 or 2004, my parents were over for dinner, and I was most likely lamenting something about the challenges of Inside the League in its early stages. It was just in its second year and I was still trying to find an audience, and maybe I was coming across as whiny. It was at that point that my dad asked me, ‘why are you still doing it?’

I wasn’t really offended by his question. My parents have always been ultra-supportive of me; I enjoy a relationship with them that is closer than most anyone I know, and it’s truly one of God’s blessings. My dad just couldn’t understand why I would pour so much effort into something that took away from my time with my wife (we didn’t have our sons yet), especially when I already had a job. Inside the League was spending my time and money. What was the point?

Today, Dad sees ‘the point,’ of course, and is excited for the (limited) success I’ve achieved. He just didn’t have the vision for where I wanted to go with ITL at the time, and who could blame him for that? At the time, pretty much all he knew about ITL was that I had asked him to go to Washington, D.C., with me to meet with the NFLPA, but that we had been snubbed (a story for a different day); that I had had to significantly reduce my initial price point; that it was taxing to juggle a ‘day job’ and a ‘night job;’ and that what I was doing was very different from what everyone else was doing. For what it’s worth, he wasn’t the only one who had doubts.

So here’s the point. I know it’s a bit of a cliche, but you’re going to have to be true to yourself.

I often use this space to encourage people to take the less traveled path — to look for a place in the market that you can satisfy that others don’t see. For example, my friend Ari Nissim, a former cap guy with the Jets, sees analytics as a great untapped market in football. I have another friend and client, Michael Dean, who specializes in concierge services for professional athletes. There’s Daniel Jeremiah, an ex-scout who had so much success on Twitter after getting dumped by the Browns that he left scouting altogether to become part of NFL.com. There are others out there that I haven’t even thought of.

It’s worked well for me, but it wasn’t a direct path. I had to spend a while searching and figuring out exactly where the need was. Along the way, others were questioning me, but hey, I was questioning myself, so who can blame you?

If you follow your passion and wade into this business, there are people who will ridicule you, but to me, they’re kind of easy to deal with. You just ignore them, or respond indignantly, or whatever. The harder thing is when  someone you know and love questions your path. That’s when you have to understand that not everyone’s going to get you. Don’t apologize for that. That may be what makes your business, your idea, your market, special. There’s value in that.

Encouragement

26 Friday Sep 2014

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I hate to be a sap, I really do, but I’ve been feeling encouraged about success in the football world these days. Maybe it’s a new college season and a new football season. Maybe it’s because it’s been unseasonably cooler here in West Houston over the last week or so. Or maybe it’s a couple of experiences I’ve had in the last 48 hours that put a little more wind in my sails.

  • One of them was a phone call I got Thursday from a client who’s a financial planner. He got started with ITL about two years ago, and at the time, he was a successful businessman in the Carolinas who knew nothing more than that he wanted to work with NFL players and saw a need. In other words, he was as green as grass. That first year he was with me, there were numerous conversations about the mechanics of connecting with players, what to say, what their expectation level might be, and questions of every stripe. Over time we got to be pretty friendly, but I came to hear from him less over the last year or so. Now I know it’s because he doesn’t have those questions anymore. In his two years in the business, he’s picked up four clients (a very good rate of success), and he told me that he was going to lunch with one of his clients next week along with a couple of the client’s NFL teammates. In other words, he’s now getting referrals from NFL players. That’s exciting, and it’s gratifying to know I played some small role in his success.
  • The other was Wednesday, when I spoke at the Thurgood Marshall School of Law’s Sports and Entertainment Law Society in Houston. There’s just something energizing about seeing the face of the ‘next wave’ of the business. We had a little less than 30 there. In the crowd, I saw not only eagerness and attentive faces, but also business attire; when I was in college, the closest I got was wearing a shirt that didn’t have any stains. In other words, it was great to be in the company of young people who take themselves and their professional goals seriously. They had good questions, they spoke with purpose, and they were on time. Not a bad combination for people who want to take the next step professionally in a competitive world. When I left them, I told them I’d see them at the top, and I mean it.

You really can succeed in football. Whether you’re well-established (as is my first example) or just getting started (as are the students in my second), you can do this. Have a great weekend.

Guest speaker

23 Tuesday Sep 2014

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So tomorrow I’m honored to be speaking to members of the Sports and Entertainment Law Society at Thurgood Marshall School of Law at Texas Southern University from noon to 1 p.m. It’s going to be fun; it’s always nice to be among young, eager folks looking to get their foot in the door and build a profile in an exciting industry. I haven’t actually put together the nuts and bolts of what I’m going to tell them yet — I’ll be speaking about making a career in football — but here are the central themes whenever I speak to a similar group.

1. Think long and hard about whether or not you want to do this or not. The odds are long that you’ll succeed, and it may take years for you to see any real gratification from things. I remember during the first six or seven years of Inside the League I contemplated whether or not I’d made a mistake, and didn’t know if it was a service that really had a market, had legs. Finally there came light at the end of the tunnel, but it was a long time arriving. It took real stamina and lots of trial and error.

2. Understand that the career you set out for might not be the one you wind up with. When I launched ITL, I envisioned a service that was equal parts fan site and business site. I actually did mock drafts, rankings and the like, just like all the other websites, but didn’t realize that trying to do what others did was the surest path to failure. Maybe if I had really doubled down on that path I would have found success, but I’m convinced that what makes me different is what makes me successful(ish). I had to be willing to dump my old ideas and strike out in a different direction to really get traction. Good thing my wife offers good advice, and good thing I’m willing to listen to it.

3. Find a mentor, find competition, but don’t necessarily grade yourself strictly by others. Look, finding someone who will help you, who will open doors for you, who will share your vision and will encourage you when you need it is critical. It’s also good to find someone like you who’s having success so you can gauge your progress. However, realize that you are not a carbon copy of anyone else, and your success may come in spurts that don’t exactly mirror the success of others. Realize that if you’re truly dedicated to this business, there will be stops and starts. You have to be in it for the long haul.

So, these are some of the themes I’ll be emphasizing tomorrow. I see them as a common denominator for success in this corner of the world. Got other ideas? Let me know in the comments section. And if you’re in the neighborhood tomorrow, I hope to see you at TSU.

A league of opportunity

12 Friday Sep 2014

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If you follow the football world closely, you know the NFL isn’t the only league playing games right now. There’s the CFL, of course, but very soon, there will also be the FXFL. It’s a startup league that kicks off Oct. 8, and it’s led by Brian Woods, who’s coached at several FBS schools and also worked in the cap department for the Jets.

At Inside the League, we’ve spent a lot of time detailing the new league as it has slowly put the pieces in place for a short, six-game season with its first four teams (Boston, Brooklyn, Omaha and Florida). We even announced the teams’ head coaches today in advance of an official announcement expected on Monday. We see it as a real chance for post-college players to develop their skills and improve the odds they get a second look in the NFL without having to go to Canada and sign a two-year deal, as is mandated by all CFL rookies.

However, the opportunities don’t end on the field. One thing I harp on with people seeking to climb the football business ladder is that, one time or another, you’ll have to work for free. In fact, in most cases, you’ll have to work not only for free, but probably at some cost. The FXFL, given its skeleton staffs and general low-cost business model, gives you an excellent chance to get real-world experience if you’re a student or young professional in any of the four markets where the league will play.

How many times have I worked for free? My gosh, it’s countless. I’ve driven all over Texas to cover a football clinic or work a combine, all on my own dime; spent $300-plus (a lot for me at the time) on a phone bill generated by my (volunteer) work on my first-ever all-star game (plus burned a week of vacation to help run the game); gotten stiffed on speaking engagements; and flown to New Orleans to interview for a job that provided only a stipend, had I gotten it (I didn’t). These are but a few instances, and I’m sure if I had more time I could fill this blog post with them.

But here’s the point: all of these experiences gave me currency with people. They helped me speak with some level on expertise on some pretty nuanced football-related subjects. They gave me the mentors I’ve used to help me advance in the business and build my service. There’s no way I could ever have done it if not for these sometimes-awkward times in my professional life.

If you’re serious about working in football, the opportunities are there with the FXFL. Reach out to the teams on Twitter or email the FXFL (it’s easy to find an email address if you’re aggressive searching on Google). The opportunity presented by this new league is one you won’t often find. I encourage you to go for it.

 

Parental guidance

04 Thursday Sep 2014

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This morning, I read an email from the parent of a player who was part of the 2013 draft class. This player was an average draft prospect; he participated in an all-star game, but not a top-rated game such as the Senior Bowl or Shrine Game. He played at a big-name, high-gloss, nationally ranked program, but wasn’t a four-year starter and wasn’t highly decorated. Despite this solid-but-not-glowing resume, his parent was decrying the NFL for snubbing him and trashed the FXFL, the upstart league that kicks off this fall and hopes to become a developmental league for the NFL.

This afternoon, I was talking to an agent who’s also a friend; he’s been an ITL client for years. We were discussing a member of the 2014 draft class who had beaten the odds and signed with a major agency despite meager long-term NFL prospects. My friend said his agency had taken a run at the player, but pulled off early because his parents saw him as The Second Coming, and had been dismissive toward most agents during recruiting in his senior year. He wound up going late in this spring’s draft.

On Wednesday, I read an email from an agent who’s a longtime client. He signed a player as part of the ’14 draft class from a small-time FBS school with a mediocre record during his career. This player only started one season and recorded minimal stats his senior year, but he tested out of sight at his school’s pro day, and on the strength of his 40 time, landed a camp invite this summer before getting cut last week. This agent, who’s very conscientious, led off his email with the statement, “If I don’t get him a workout, his father will blame me for the rest of his life.”

So here’s the common thread to these three stories, which aren’t uncommon this time of year: unrealistic parents. If you’re the parent of a college athlete who entertains dreams of an NFL career, please read and re-read the following paragraphs.

The NFL is not a league for good players. It’s a league for great players. The league also offers no reward for starting four years in college; or for being a scholarship player at a big-name school; or because a player’s parent is an ex-NFL great.

If your son is ‘on the street’ right now, i.e., not on the 53-man roster OR the (newly expanded this year) practice squad, it’s because he’s not good enough, and he has more work to do. Don’t take this personally, but also, don’t dismiss this. If he’s truly interested in playing in the NFL, he needs to find a place where he can get better. Now.

I know that, for parents, it’s very frustrating to see a son miss out on opportunities, given that he’s always enjoyed success on the gridiron. However, if you’re truly interested in helping him get to the NFL, swallow your pride and take a good look around, and acknowledge that he’s got a long uphill battle if he’s not in the league. His failure to make it is not due to his agent, or a coach, or a league that’s unresponsive. It’s simply because he’s not good enough (yet). Do what you can to help him improve his game. Don’t blame someone else.

WSW: My two big personnel mistakes

03 Wednesday Sep 2014

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We’ve spent this week, and a little last week, discussing how players slide through the draft or otherwise get overlooked by NFL teams. It’s probably a good time for me to tell my two stories about the times I was guilty of exactly the same thing.

In both cases, the stories involve running backs. All I can say in my defense is that running backs are harder to evaluate than one might think, and there’s plenty of evidence of that around the league. That said, both were just plain ‘ol mistakes, and I have to own them.

  • The first one I missed was in late December of 2006, when I was working with a game in Houston called the Inta Juice North-South All-Star Classic. I was a volunteer helping populate the rosters, and this was in the early days of ITL. Our game was in mid-January, and we thought we had a pretty complete roster; at the time I didn’t realize how much turnover there is in the last two weeks before a game, when players’ commitments start to waiver and some agents get cold feet realizing this is their last chance to pull a kid if they get a better offer. Anyway, we got a call from an agent I didn’t know plugging a kid from the University of Illinois. I demurred. At the time, I had heard of Pierre Thomas, but didn’t know much about him. We were excited about our roster of rushers that included future NFL legends Alvin Banks (JMU), Cory Anderson (Tennessee), Germaine Race (Pittsburg St.), Quinton Smith (Rice) and Abdulan Kuuan (Grambling). Pierre went on to become an integral part of one of the most explosive offenses in the league and helped his team — my favorite team, no less — win a Super Bowl.
  • The second one I missed was a year later, in early January of 2007, when I was Executive Director of the 2008 Hula Bowl. I got a call from Joel Turner of North Myrtle Beach, SC-based Turner Sports; Joel is one of the true wizards of finding under-the-radar NFL talent. He was pitching a rusher from Coastal Carolina that he had just signed. Joel always calls late in the process to promote players because, unlike a lot of agents, he doesn’t rush to get a kid into a game so the kid can turn around and hire another representative. This time I was no volunteer, so I had no one else to blame for passing on Mike Tolbert, who is now with the Panthers after a successful early career with the Chargers. I guess Tolbert profiled as a fullback (we already had two) and came from a barely established school, so it was easier to stick with the guys we had, like Ohio’s Kalvin McRae, Oregon State’s Yvenson Benard and Minnesota’s Amir Pinnix. Oh well. At least we got Chadron State’s Danny Woodhead right, and another running back, Toledo’s Jalen Parmalee, is still active.

There are probably dozens of other players I was offered in my days running games but turned down. However, these are the ones I still remember like it was yesterday. But hey, as I’ve said many times in this space, no one bats 1.000 and this is an inexact science.

WSW: All Wet in Washington

23 Wednesday Jul 2014

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Johnstown, Pa.-based Casey Muir of CRM Sports Management is a longtime ITL client who was certified in 2010. Brick by brick, he’s carved out a niche in the business despite launching his agent career without significant financial backing or affiliation with an established firm.

Though Casey has found his way in the business, it wasn’t always such a smooth ride. Take his experience on Exam Day 2010. Here’s his story, in his own words:

“So this was the agent exam of 2010, the last one before the lockout, and it was pouring, an absolute monsoon in D.C. the day of the agent exam.

“I was staying at a friend’s place outside of D.C. and took the Metro in, and when I left my friend’s place, it was not raining. So I get on the Metro, get off the Metro, and it was an absolute monsoon, just a complete downpour. The Metro let me off about four blocks away from the Four Seasons, which is where they gave the test back then.

“I walk through the doors and it looked like I had just jumped into a swimming pool. I was dressed business casual, and my slacks, shoes, socks, shirt, everything was soaking wet. I had my bag and study materials, which were also soaking wet. So I said to the girl at the receptionist’s desk, ‘Do you have a dryer?’ And she’s just looking at me dripping a puddle in the hotel lobby, and she said, ‘Hold on, I’ll be right back, let me get a manager.’

“So I’m standing there and people are coming in with their umbrellas, and everyone’s just looking at me. That’s before I had an iphone, so I had no weather app. We’ll blame it on that.

“But anyway, they’re like, ‘Listen, go in the bathroom and take off what you want us to dry,’ and I take off everything. I think I still had my boxers on. So this dude from the hotel comes in and gives me a robe and slippers, and I’m like, ‘All right, here we go,’ and I’m about to go in and take the test.

“So while I’m putting this robe on, other people are coming in and going out of the bathroom. Another guy looks at me and he’s soaking wet, too, and so he did the same thing. So there’s two of us who walk into the exam wearing a robe and slippers. I have to go through registration in my robe and my Four Seasons slippers. I took the test, and sometime during the test, they brought me my clothes. It was a nightmare, and you talk about embarrassing. . . .

“That’s how I started my career as a sports agent. In a robe and slippers. And now look at me, you know. So no matter what anyone does on that test this weekend, they’re not going to start out any worse than I did, and I turned out OK. I took a selfie in the bathroom of me in my robe. It might have been my first selfie. It was an interesting experience for sure.”

The Dead Period

15 Tuesday Jul 2014

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At ITL, we focus on the game behind the game; once you start to understand how the business of football works, it can be just as exciting as the game on the field. With that in mind, we thought we’d take a look at what’s going on behind the scenes in football this time of year, a time when most fans are working themselves into a frenzy counting down the minutes until camps start.

AFL: Arena teams are making their final pushes for the playoffs. Many teams are frantically trying to plug holes created by injuries, ineffectiveness, etc. Team officials, most of whom do their own scouting, are trying to find impact players, and more importantly, hoping to find agents or other contact info that can get them to the players they need.

NFLPA agent exam: Aspiring NFL contract advisors are gearing up to travel to Washington, D.C., next week for a two-day seminar that ends with a three-hour, open-book test covering 60 questions on the CBA and other related matters. They’ll find out at the end of September how they did. Historically, about 200-250 take the test and about 75 percent pass.

Agent days: Speaking of agents, several schools will hold meetings between the contract advisors registered with the school and the seniors who will be draft-eligible after the 2014 season. Typically, agents submit the names of players they wish to meet with in advance, and the school notifies them of the players who have expressed a mutual interest in meeting. The school usually asks agents to refrain from any other communications with players until after the season, which is problematic, but best left for discussion another time.

Training facilities: With the advent of a new CBA in 2011, much of the offseason emphasis for training switched from team facilities to training facilities all over the nation. Especially in NFL cities, you can find athletes at selected gyms, especially those that focus on combine prep, especially those in the Southeast.

Job-hunting gets tough: The desperation really sets in for NFL scouts let go in after the draft (as well as those who were dismissed in 2013). There’s a flurry of job-seeking for scouts in early June each year, but those jobs are filled quickly, and once they’re gone, opportunities are rare. Some scouts will find places with AFL teams, but not until after the season is over later this summer. Others will try to latch on with colleges in the increasingly common ‘director of player personnel’ roles, but most schools are looking to fill these jobs with young (and less expensive) coaches.

All-star games: Many groups see all-star games as a good way to bring the excitement of the gridiron to a city that doesn’t have an NFL team or direct affiliation with a major college football program. They use the summer to explore the viability of bringing 100 draft-eligible players to their local stadium in January to be studied and evaluated by NFL teams. Right now, we know of at least three games that are in exploratory stages, and I’m in preliminary discussion stages of running one of them. If I come to terms with the game’s organizers, I’ll announce it in this space.

I know this kind of information isn’t necessarily the kind that gets your blood pumping and your heart racing, but if your aim is to be part of the game — and this blog is designed for just such people — it helps to start thinking of the football biz as a 12-month proposition. Knowing what’s going on all around the game will help you find your niche.

Finding my ‘champion’

13 Friday Jun 2014

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I didn’t really start this week with the idea of talking about finding mentors (and in one case, going in the exact opposite direction), but since we’re here, I thought I’d close the week talking about my mentor in the game of football, John Paul Young.

I met John Paul in the summer of 2002. At the time, I was a low-level writer/editor at the Houston Chronicle, and I had heard of a football clinic that took place every June in San Angelo, Texas, called Angelo Football Clinic. It was one of the best-kept secrets in football, even in Texas. San Angelo, like most of West Texas, is a pretty remote place, but coaches came from all around (some as far north as Minnesota) to come hear the lineup of coaches who would come in and speak for 90 minutes about the nuances of the game, then retreat to a classroom afterwards to answer questions for hours afterwards. Name a notable head coach in college or pro football over the last 30 years, from Bill Walsh to Nick Saban, and he’s spoken at Angelo Clinic.

Anyway, I made my way to west Texas that year knowing I would launch ITL in a few short months, and I was looking to make contacts. As someone with a black-and-gold heart shaped like a fleur-de-lis, I felt John Paul, one of the clinic’s founders, would make a great one. He’d been Bum Phillips’ right-hand man at nearly every coaching stop, from the Luv Ya Blue days with the Oilers to the frustrating seasons with the Saints. Then, following Bum’s retirement, he’d coached with Bum’s son, Wade, in Denver, as well as Kansas City. He was a coaching veteran and a man I knew would have a thousand stories. There was one problem: he had no idea who Neil Stratton was and absolutely no reason to care.

After hanging around for three days with few connections, I’d arrived at the last day of the clinic. Poised to leave within hours, I happened upon John Paul in a small group of other coaches, laughing and telling stories. I could tell he was busy, but I knew it was now-or-never time, so I approached him, interrupting him mid-conversation, and introduced myself as a guy from the Houston Chronicle who was in town seeking stories about the clinic.

Instead of brushing me off with a “not now, son,” he greeted me warmly. and we exchanged a few friendly words as we traded business cards. Sensitive to taking too much of his time, I awkwardly thanked him and excused myself, then got back on the road. I’d been traveling about three hours when my phone rang. To my shock, it was John Paul. “You never gave me chance to tell you more about the clinic,” he said, and we launched into a lengthy conversation about the history of the clinic, that year’s speaker lineup, his time with the Saints and Oilers, and a number of other topics. From there, we forged a friendship that is entering its second decade, and helped launch Inside the League as well as a number of other projects.

One of them is Champions Search Firm, the company we work with in helping high schools across Texas fill their athletic vacancies, especially at the head coach/AD position. As two of the firm’s six partners, we help good coaches find good situations leading young men on the football field and in life. In my capacity as a Champions partner, I’ll be among the speakers at Angelo Clinic next week alongside Lane Kiffin, Wade Phillips and other recognizable football names. It’ll be a true career highlight for me, but there’s really only reason it’s happening, and it’s because John Paul was willing to help a young man who was eager, respectful and most of all, grateful for his help.

But this story is more than just a sweet reminiscence. If you’re hoping to fight your way to the top of the football world, I encourage you to do what I did. Take a chance and go to out-of-the-way places. Be willing to put yourself in front of influential people, even if you don’t have a clear plan on what to say when you get there. In short, go for it and be aggressive about creating opportunities, but cultivate the relationships around you once you create them.

Here’s something not to do

12 Thursday Jun 2014

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On Tuesday, we discussed the value of having a ‘champion,’ or someone of influence in football who’s willing to go bat for you, even though he gains nothing from it. There’s a corollary to that, and here it is: Don’t intentionally piss off someone who might even be the slightest bit of help to you.

Case in point. There’s a school not too far from me that I’ve reached out to in the past 12-18 months, volunteering my help any time they might need me, and offering to give a hungry intern a chance to earn class credit while having a little fun along the way. The professors I’ve worked with at this school have been absolutely first class in every way, and have exceeded expectations. One’s even become a pretty good friend, and at the very least, someone I respect. That’s why when he contacted me earlier this summer with a possible intern, I was pretty excited. My consulting service, Inside the League, is growing in traction and starting to outpace our fledgling staff, and I’m always looking for a young gun who could, in time, be a foundation member.

The young man contacted me via email and seemed nice enough, and genuine, but a little dubious about what ITL does, which is understandable; I often joke that not even my wife can explain what I do. I tried to be as explicit as I could and make it clear that we are still a growing service, far from a finished product, and occupying a niche in the industry. He continued to express hesitancy over the course of a week as we exchanged emails in short bursts: me, replying to one of his, then waiting a couple days to hear back, then him responding with questions, me emailing back immediately, then another lull. Again, understandable. I realize that I’m not getting swamped with potential interns, and this is an unpaid internship we’re talking about. And life happens, after all.

However, after a suitable period, I was ready to move forward or move on, so I emailed him again, trying to be welcoming and trying to convey an earnest interest in him without coming across as impatient. “Can’t remember where we left things but I wanted to see if you had made a decision, or if you still needed time, or were leaning against working with ITL. Any thoughts?,” I asked in a well-meaning but direct way.

About three hours later, I got my answer. He indicated that, “right now,” he was “leaning toward working with (my) company” (still not the decisiveness I was looking for, but fair enough). He asked a few questions about whether or not he could work from home (also very understandable), and if he could in fact go home for the summer (certainly within bounds), and then threw his, probably unintentional, haymaker.

Now, before I let on what this blow was, a few thoughts.

One, in a world brimming with ‘draft gurus,’ it’s really hard to understand what ITL is and isn’t, and what we are not is another draft prognostication service. We have a very small — very small — series in the summer that takes a preliminary look at draft projections for seniors at all FBS schools, but everyone understands that these projections are written in pencil, and with an eraser the size of a toddler’s fist.

Two, I think there’s a very good chance he didn’t mean to sound as dismissive and condescending as he sounded.

Three, email is an impossibly bad forum for discerning intent. All of these things I know.

Still, he closed his email with this: “I also had a few questions on where the information on the site is derived.  I couldn’t help but look at the projections for Craig Loston and notice that his projected round was the first yet he signed as an undrafted free agent.”

I probably should have explained that predicting the draft is impossibly hard to do a year out. That we don’t claim to be draft gurus in any case. That every year the two services that project seniors for subscribing NFL teams have a couple players they rate as first-rounders that wind up as undrafted free agents. I probably should have responded with all of this. But instead my response was this: “I appreciate your interest but I think we need to go in a different direction. Have a wonderful evening and best of luck in future endeavors.” For what it’s worth, when I close an email with “good luck in future endeavors,” it’s my literary equivalent of this.

Look, I know that on the universe’s list of most powerful people in the NFL, I don’t show up in the first, well, billion. And for what it’s worth, the young man immediately wrote me an email apologizing if he said anything offensive, and I’m sure he’s genuine. However, what I will say is that the football world is a small one, and if you’re aspiring to be part of it, make sure — make really sure — make really, really, REALLY sure — that you won’t be misinterpreted as smug, or all-knowing, or dismissive. It just doesn’t look good on anybody, and you never know what seemingly hapless opportunity might be your big break.

Be conscientious. Make sure that if you ever make one mistake, it’s not that you were not conscientious. Never, ever let someone even think you were too good for them. There are only so many times you’re going to get to go to bat in this game, so make sure every plate appearance, you’re at your best.