My body moves in agile motions as I focus on the cut of my hands through the air, the pitch of my feet in my sneakers, and the measured breaths coming out of my lungs.
As a strength and conditioning coach, I don’t just workout. I maximize my exercise. I perform each rep, each stride to the best precision I can. Work smarter, not harder; that’s what I tell my athletes. As a trainer for one of the best baseball organizations in the United States, the Packton Pistons, I want my guys getting bulked, toned, and agile while also not straining or injuring themselves. It’s a tough line to toe, and I’m constantly trying to balance my own strategies so that I mold their bodies into the best baseball machines they can be.
Slowing as I near the beach exit to my street, I pause Demi Lovato where she was belting in my headphones about not being sorry to listen to the waves lap on the sand. Fort Myers might not be everyone’s slice of paradise, but it is mine.
I love living downtown, with all of the sounds and colors of the locals and tourists mixing together. I love the heat, the eternal summers, and the crystalline blue waters. I love that I live on the edge of the ocean but am just a short drive away from work, where I basically spend more time than I do in my apartment.
And today? Today is a big day. One that might determine my trajectory for the next several years.
This is the year I’ll prove myself. I’ve been the assistant strength coach for the Packton Pistons at their spring training grounds for, oh let’s see, four years now. Year round, I work with the minor league and farm team players who come to the Florida program on their way to the majors. Then there are the two months in the spring where the big guns come in. The major league players, the guys you see on ESPN every other day during the season. The World Series ring-holders.
Even with two of my bosses leaving, one last season and the other my very first season, I’ve never been put up for the head coach position. There is no big surprise why it hasn’t gone to me. I’m a woman, plain and simple. Yes, they can hire me on as an assistant for a little diversity and good press, yes there have been multiple stories in local newspapers about the female strength and conditioning coach, but I never had a real shot at the top job.
That is, until Colleen Callahan came into the picture.
With her promotion to general manager two seasons ago, she’s been doing a complete overhaul of the staff, both in Pennsylvania at the major league facility and here in Florida. When my boss gave his notice just six months ago, she came down herself to offer me the job. Inside, I’d been a schoolgirl skipping around her room, but I accepted professionally before running into my office and doing a celebratory fist pump dance.
Today is the first day of my new job, at least where the professionals are concerned.
Players report for spring training today, which means I won’t be working out the junior or farm team players, but the big guys. I’m going to be in the weight room with some of the best baseball players in the nation, and I’m going to be running the show.
Taking one last look at my beloved ocean, I exit the beach. It’s only seven a.m.; I’m an early riser who likes to get her four miles in while the sun comes up. The local businesses are unlocking their doors; the guy who runs the bodega just outside my building is stocking his daily papers and the homemade muffins his wife makes.
“Morning, Johnny.” I wave on my way up the stairs to my apartment.
“Ay, Frankie! First day of training, right? Your boys won’t beat my Tampa this season, guarantee it.”
“We’ll see.” I chuckle.
When you work for an organization, you have to be a fan of that team no matter if you live several states away.
I can still hear the crash of the waves as I unlock my door and smell the salt of the sea from inside my four walls. Well, my apartment is technically more than four walls, but not by much. Living in downtown Fort Myers, I forgo some of the nicer new builds decked out with gyms and top-of-the-line pools. My building is older; it has history and its fair share of problems and lousy neighbors. But the location, and the beachfront view, can’t be beat. I love being in the heart of things, and I don’t need a fancy place. The soul of downtown, the coziness of my old apartment, it fits me.
Grabbing a quick shower, I pick out my usual uniform of a team logo T-shirt and black workout pants. One perk of working for a sports team is that I’ve never had to don stiff professional clothes in my life.
And then I’m out the door to work. Not that I think of it much as work. I love what I do; I love the long hours and the smell and sounds of the weight room. I love looking at each body I train like a puzzle I have to unlock to get it to its full potential.
As I walk into the Packton Pistons southern facilities, which I know like the back of my hand, I gulp down some of my super sweet, super-sized iced vanilla coffee. The more sugary, the bigger, the better, that’s always my motto on coffee.
“Big day today, Chief.”
Jorge, who has been a fixture at the front entrance to the Pistons Florida facility probably before I was even born, greets me with a tip of his ball cap.
I tip mine back, the Pistons logo emblazoned on it. Another perk of working for a ball club? You get an entire wardrobe for free. My scarlet red hair, natural, falls out from underneath the hat but doesn’t reach the tips of my shoulders. I keep it short, a long bob, so that I can be both professional and feminine at the same time.
“That it is, Jorge. You betting on me?” Our inside joke is always about his gambling past.
He’s been a recovered gambling addict for almost thirty years, something we have in common. Not that I’ve been recovered for thirty years, and it wasn’t for gambling, but we both have been plagued by addiction in some form or another. That might seem crass to people who don’t know Jorge, or me, for us to joke about it, but it’s the way we’ve bonded.
“Only ever betting on you to kick ass, mija.” He gives me a thumbs-up and scans my badge.
Then I’m headed back for the training room. The halls of these state-of-the-art facilities are painted a swirl of red and white, the Pistons signature colors. TVs with sports news programs can be found every several feet, and I bypass the hallways leading to the cafeteria, executive offices, and rehabilitation wing. My feet carry me past the tunnels leading out to the bullpen, the spring training field, and the batting cages.
Finally, I’m almost at my small office, which is right off of the massive mirrored room that contains every possible piece of gym equipment you could imagine. This is my domain, and starting today, I get to run it however I please.
This is my day, my time.
Nothing is going to throw me off.
Then I round the corner and run smack dab into a solid piece of something.
2
Sinclair
Florida, man.
Freaking Florida.
Too hot. So hot my skin is sticking to itself in places it should never stick together.
Too bright. I’m a Pennsylvania kid and like it that way. While a lot of people enjoy eternal summer, I love my seasons. And this sunny, humid weather is already messing with me.
Too everything. There is a reason Florida is ripped on so much. While I’ve had some kick-ass times in Miami and enjoy a week or two down here for spring training most years, it would never be my choice of a home base.