There are moments in life when you stop and look around and think, “How in the world did I get here?”

A week from now I turn 60.

That number feels strange to even type. When I was younger, 60 seemed old. Not “getting older.” Old. The age of retirement parties, early dinners, and conversations about blood pressure medication. Now? It just feels like…now. Another mile marker on a road that somehow went by both incredibly fast and painfully slow at the same time.

My wife surprised me with a trip out to Colorado to see our children and their partners. Sitting here looking at the mountains, realizing that the little kids who once ran through our house are now building lives of their own, I understand something I probably should have realized years ago: I am incredibly lucky.

Not “successful.” Not “important.” Lucky.

I have my health—mostly. Thanks to a pretty solid workout regimen, I am still in pretty good shape. A little more worn down than I was at 25, obviously. A few more scars and surgeries than the average person too. But every scar has a story attached to it. I once read a quote that said, “Scars are just tattoos with better stories.” That feels about right.

And there are a lot of stories.

After college and a brief time teaching school, I knew pretty quickly that my life was not going to follow the traditional path. I wanted to coach gymnastics. Not casually. Not as a side job. I wanted it to be my life.

One thing led to another, and Stephanie and I opened a gym, Atlantic Gymnastics Training Center, in Portsmouth NH. Then another location in Dover, NH. Somewhere along the way, this crazy dream became a business, a community, and honestly, part of our identity. Today we employ around 50 people and have roughly 1,500 students a week come through our doors. Sometimes I walk into one of the gyms and still cannot believe it exists.

What is funny is that I do not actually coach in my own gym anymore.

When my youngest son was in middle school, I made a conscious decision to step back from daily coaching and spend more time at home. I concentrated on the business side of things because I knew those years with my kids were limited. I do not regret that decision for one second.

Then, when he went away to college, life opened another door.

I had time again. So I started consulting. Coaching overseas. Working in different gyms, with different systems, different philosophies, different cultures. I would like to believe I was already a good coach, but traveling made me a far better one. The beautiful thing about teaching is that if you are paying attention, you are also learning.

Switzerland. Italy. Central America. Canada. Different programs. Different methods. Different ways of communicating. Different ways of thinking about athletes and performance and fear and pressure and success.

And somewhere along the way, I grew.

Not just as a coach, but as a person.

I had the opportunity to work with Olympic athletes and world champions. Experiences that a kid from New York who simply loved gymnastics could never have imagined. And now, somehow, I spend a great deal of my life coaching in Italy—to the point where Stephanie and I bought a home there.

There is something about the lifestyle in Italy that fits me. The pace. The emphasis on relationships. The understanding that life is supposed to be lived, not simply survived.

At almost 60, I still feel like I am learning who I am.

These days, much of my time is spent working with coaches. Helping them grow. Helping them communicate better. Helping them understand that coaching is really teaching. It is education. It is leadership. It is human connection.

Maybe that is the strange gift of getting older.

When you are young, you spend so much time trying to prove yourself. When you get older, you begin to understand that what really matters is what you leave behind in other people. The athletes you helped believe in themselves. The coaches you helped become better educators. The people whose lives became just a little bit better because you crossed paths with them.
Lately, much of my energy outside the gym has been going into writing. I am pouring my heart into a book called Coaches as Educators. In many ways, it is the culmination of everything I have learned over decades in gymnastics—not just about training athletes, but about teaching human beings.

I genuinely believe coaching is education. A coach is not simply someone who teaches a skill or prepares an athlete for competition. A coach helps shape confidence, resilience, communication, discipline, and self-worth. We are often with young athletes during some of the most important and vulnerable years of their lives. That responsibility should mean something.

The book is my attempt to move the needle, even slightly, within the coaching community. To challenge coaches to think deeper about how we teach, how we communicate, and how we lead. I want younger coaches to understand that the technical side of gymnastics matters greatly, but the human side matters even more. Athletes may forget scores and medals over time, but they rarely forget how a coach made them feel.

And maybe the funniest thing about being almost 60 is that instead of slowing down, my mind keeps racing toward the next project.

When Coaches as Educators is finished, I already have plans for a second book: From Practice to the Podium. That one will be far more technical—a practical training manual built from decades of coaching, observing, learning, failing, adjusting, and growing. A book designed to help coaches and athletes better understand the long journey from developmental training to elite performance.

I still feel like I have something to contribute. Maybe that feeling never goes away if you truly love what you do.

If that is my legacy, I am more than okay with it.