Hi. I'm Drew.
I started off throwing Wham-O 119 gram plastic back in the late 70s. On vacation, at state and national parks all across the country, my brother and I would make disc golf courses. It’s the kind of life you live when your dad gets sabbatical. Trees, benches, picnic tables, we would throw our way around the campground looking for fun and other kids. We always carried two extra discs.
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My first big disc sports opportunity came in the mid 80s, thanks to “California Dan”. We worked together as lifeguards at Osgood pool in New Britain, CT and he was the freestyle demo guy for the Wham-O Klutz Hacky Sack Frisbee Festival. A pretty big national touring event that was a starting point for what merch has become today. He noticed my hacky sack and disc skills and I soon had my first pro gig.
My journey
That summer I was still playing Legion baseball but I can remember the fateful day when I skipped one of my scheduled starts and opted for freestyling in front of crowds in Providence Rhode Island for 200 dollars a day. My college baseball career was a blip on the radar and I made the jump to Ultimate soon afterwards. I played Ultimate for decades, met my wife playing coed and even managed to parlay my time served to a roster spot on DoG and a national and world championship. By that time Ultimate had gone from its Rucker Park styled pick-up game roots and went all in on the practice sport, Olympic showcase route.
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​Along the way, I built a solid career in higher ed, workforce development and CTE. But my time in education was very similar to my career as an athlete. I always felt there needed to be an alternative. When I made the shift to Ultimate in the late 80s and early 90s, most of us were turning our back on traditional sports. We didn’t want asshole coaches. We wanted sports to be for the players, by the players. I wasn’t alone and Ultimate grew.
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When I started playing disc golf, I felt that OG energy I loved from the early days of Ultimate. My legs couldn’t move fast enough anymore to chase plastic so throwing without having to get open appealed to me right away. I liked that when I got home after a league round my kids would ask how much money I won and I’d throw 45 bucks in fives and tens on the table. They always got half.
As a professional educator, I spent much of my career pushing back on the system. My focus was rarely on the curriculum and grades but what it takes to bring what is offered to life. Personalized learning and the practice of experiential learning were always the focus. Sounding Line is my expression of what works, the outcomes people truly desire and the allies and like minded thinkers I met along the way.
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I learned that there is simply no way to transform the system because the true crisis is one of imagination and our spiritual relationship to the world. The true challenge, and missing link, is the measure of consciousness required for human beings to understand themselves in an entangled world. Mental fitness personified. Institutionalized education has reached a point where the alternative outperforms the norm not because of what you get but by where it takes you. We have entered a time and space where the capacity to handle life’s challenges with a positive mindset is the only true asset your game cannot do without. And it is my greatest professional aspiration to share the experience of changing how we think with athletes and proving my theory one moment of discernment and one smile of contentment at a time.
Behind the name
A ship's captain uses a sounding line to chart the unknown—casting the line out to navigate and reveal the depths of the water below.
Like its nautical namesake, Sounding Line Performance helps you map what lies beneath the surface and use that to confidently explore your career path, discover possibilities and make informed choices.
Get in touch.
Let me help you turn the hunger to compete into deep personal wisdom that always shows up.
soundinglinecareers.com