Guest Post By Renegade Inner Circle Member Kevin Cassidy
I was lost. For seven years of my life I was living in chaos, pollution of my body, and destruction of my mind. My life was in a downward spiral leading to my bottom. I started off with the world in my hands, and became willing to give it all away for another drink.
I have been involved in athletics my entire life. I grew up playing football, roller hockey, ice hockey, basketball, baseball, and soccer with my friends.
When I grew older my love for the game of basketball grew and it became the one sport I focused on. During my senior year in high school, a coach from a Division III basketball program came to watch one of my teammates play. And after the game, he came up to me and asked me if I was interested in playing basketball at the college the following year.
It was one of the only colleges interested in my game, and I ended up attending the following year (Fall of 2007) on academic scholarship. I should mention that working out and training became a routine-type of thing that I did to stay in shape for the next season.
Basketball at this school was not what I thought it was going to be. It was a bad experience, but one that I learned from no doubt. After my first season I decided I was going to give up basketball and transfer to a different school. Drinking and partying became my primary focus for the rest of the semester.
I drank day and night, but somehow managed to keep my grades up and get a couple workouts in during the week. However, after the semester, I moved back home and it was time to go back to work, and I was still in party mode. This was when my life started crashing down before I knew it.
Long story short, for the next couple years I struggled with failing out of classes, making a full week of work, getting into legal trouble, and fighting with my family and friends, all because of my obsession to consume alcohol. I started losing myself, my friends, my family, my enjoyment with training, and my passion for the game of basketball.
During all this my coach from high school lent a helping hand and offered me an assistant coaching job. I needed the support and I loved high school basketball so I jumped all over it. My duties as an assistant coach were to work with our players in the weight room and make sure they were in tip top shape at the beginning of each season.
At first, I had no clue what I was doing. I had the players do the few things I knew how. The first year was more of a learning experience for me. It was around this time, however, that I was introduced to the Renegade Lifestyle.
My brother showed me the Renegade Inner Circle and I was immediately hooked. I read tons of articles on training and nutrition and immersed myself in training information. I wanted to be a better coach so I took learning the information seriously.
I began living Renegade style and my enjoyment with training and coaching grew into a passion.
I was able to get sober on November 28, 2010. And, after two years of coaching I decided I wanted to go back to school to obtain my degree in exercise science.
I owe a lot of getting sober to support groups and the Renegade lifestyle. Being positive, eliminating negative people from your life, and not taking yourself and other things so seriously are some great non-training tips that I learned from Jay.
The past two years of my life have been a blast. I have been using The Renegade Diet and doing the Uncaged program religiously. I have seen great results from both.
I have gotten into such good shape that I walked on the basketball team this year at the Division II University that I am enrolled at. After quitting basketball in 2008 I never would’ve imagined that I would be playing again, especially at an even higher level of competition than I was before.
I have never felt better in my life. I have clear goals set ahead of me, which I think is important not only in life but especially important to identify in the weight-room.
In the past I spent so many years of my life slowly killing myself. Today, my focus is on living life to the fullest. And that’s what I think the Renegade Lifestyle is all about: living a healthy, fun, pure, simple, and positive life.
A few years ago I wasn’t living, I was just existing. The Renegade lifestyle showed me a way to live a great life.
Go Renegades! and Thanks for Everything,
Kevin Cassidy
