The Standard

What happens when the sport you've dedicated your life to ends, but the physical toll stays with you? In this episode of The Standard Podcast , hosts Thomas Roe and Erin Sarles sit down with Mike Hollis, former NFL Pro Bowl kicker and 1997 NFL scoring leader , to discuss the realities of life after professional football, the long-term impact of injuries, and why taking care of your body shoul...

What if the numbers you've been using to measure athletic performance aren't telling you the full story? In this episode of The Standard Podcast , hosts Thomas Roe and Erin Sarles sit down with Mike Weinstein, Founder and CEO of Zybek Sports , the company behind the precision timing technology used at the NFL Scouting Combine for more than a decade. Mike shares how his engineering backgr...

Most people who want a career in sports pick one lane and chase it. Robert Wright built his career by mastering several — and doing it all at once. Today on The Standard Podcast™, Thomas Roe and Erin Sarles, Founder and CEO of Blueprint to Bluechip™, sit down with Robert Wright — Ph. D. candidate in Sport Administration at the University of New Mexico, Assistant Professor of Sport Management at La...

bad coach or a bad contract — but the pressure to become someone you're not? Today on The Standard Podcast™, Thomas Roe and Erin Sarles, Founder and CEO of Blueprint to Bluechip™, sit down with Kaz Langness — Mental Development and Leadership Consultant, athlete representative, speed and agility coach, and keynote speaker whose entire mission is built on two words: BE YOU. Kaz partners with a...

Most athletes run to win. Je'von Hutchison runs so someone else can. Je'von Hutchison is a Team USA Paralympic guide runner, performance coach, speaker, and Hampton University MBA graduate whose 12-year elite athletic career is one of the most distinctive stories in American track and field. He competed at the Penn Relays and the 2019 World Relays in Japan. He is a bronze medalist at USA...

The first question most athletes ask when their sport ends is: will I have a job? Dr. Jill Muhe says that's the wrong question. The right question is: where will I thrive next? Dr. Jill Muhe holds a PhD and an MBA and has spent her career at the intersection of athlete identity, career systems, and what she calls the translation problem: the challenge most athletes face when they try to move...

Most performance coaches train the body. Nathan Biddulph trains the brain — and he has the results to prove the difference. Nathan Biddulph is the Owner and Head Coach of Neuro Skills Coach, LLC, a performance coaching practice built around proprietary daily neuroscience-based drills that rewire how athletes and executives think, decide, and perform under pressure. His clients include high-profile...

Most NIL conversations are about the deal. Michael Baruch is focused on the athlete behind it. Michael Baruch has spent his career at the intersection of athlete partnerships, brand marketing, and NIL strategy — building from the ground up, not from a boardroom. He co-founded Sohoodie and led strategic growth through NFL licensing and athlete collaborations, including partnerships with AJ Green an...

Marc Nolan calls himself the Villain of the NCAA. After 50 years of coaching athletes at every level, helping over 4,500 athletes and their families secure more than $290 million in athletic scholarships, and watching the landscape of college sports transform in ways that consistently disadvantage the families who can least afford to be confused — he earned that title. Marc Nolan is a proud Army v...

Most comeback stories end at the comeback. Erik Lynch's story is still being written. Erik Lynch is a Team USA Nordic Combined skier and elite endurance athlete who has competed professionally around the world at the highest levels of international competition. His resume reads like a document of discipline under pressure: multiple Junior National titles, multiple Junior World team appearance...

Most conversations about NIL start with the opportunity. Aaron Ray starts with the liability. Aaron Ray is the Founder of Two Percent Consulting — a NIL consulting, legal strategy, and athlete protection practice built at the intersection of law, tax, and sports. A former Division I athlete who earned his J.D. and an LL.M. in Taxation, Aaron spent six years in Big 4 and mid-tier public accounting...

Brian Sackinsky has spent over 40 years at the center of one of the most important conversations in youth sports. Not just how to win. How to develop. As a key figure at US Sports Camps — one of the most recognized names in youth sports camp programming in the country — Brian has been part of building and delivering athletic experiences for hundreds of thousands of young athletes across multiple s...

Most financial conversations with athletes start with the money. John Bronkhorst starts with the asset that creates it. John Bronkhorst spent 30 years as an Athletic Administrator and Coach before becoming a Financial Professional with Capitol Wealth Strategies in Austin, Texas. That background — three decades on the sideline and in the athletic director's office — gives him something most fi...

Most people build their business from the outside in. Freddie Gladney has spent 12 years proving that the only way that works is the other direction. Freddie Gladney is the Founder and CEO of Gladney Family Enterprises — a leadership-driven business built on one conviction: lasting wealth is built from the inside out. A former NCAA Division I Track and Field athlete at UC Irvine, Freddie understan...

December 2022: first training session. August 2024: two silver medals at the Paris Paralympics. Less than two years. Ryan Medrano was born with cerebral palsy in Savannah, Georgia. He was 25 years old when he found out — on Season 43 of Survivor, of all places — that cerebral palsy was a recognized Paralympic sport classification and he could compete internationally as a para-athlete. He went home...

Most NIL conversations start with the opportunity. Dr. John DeWitt starts with the decision. Dr. John DeWitt is a former professional football player, Vanderbilt graduate, and founder of NIL Smart Hub™ — an education-first platform helping high school athletes and families make smarter NIL and recruiting decisions before they get locked into the wrong opportunities. He has seen, from the inside of...

The NIL check arrives. And then comes the question nobody prepared athletes for: Now what? Leslie Callison has spent her career building toward the answer. With 16 years teaching high school personal finance and 27 years in sports production, Leslie found herself at the exact intersection of experience, passion, and purpose when the NIL era opened. Through Unburdened, her financial coaching practi...

Most people treat social media like a lottery ticket. Chase Coleman treats it like a craft. The difference shows up in the results — and in what gets built. Chase Coleman is the founder of Social Playbook, a boutique content strategy firm that helps growth-stage brands turn social presence into pipeline. His path to founder ran through Stetson University's D1 football program, then through th...

The end of athletic competition is not the end of the story. Most athletes don't know that yet. Evan Coleman is working to change it. Evan Coleman is a marketer at LinkedIn, creator of the Playbook for Success newsletter, and host of Athlete After — a short-form interview series on LinkedIn and YouTube dedicated to helping athletes navigate life after sports. He is a former four-year basketba...

Most people manage money. Very few build legacy. Brad Mayer, CFP®, has spent over 20 years helping high net worth individuals, families, and business owners understand the difference — and build the latter. As Executive Director and Senior Private Client Advisor at Texas Capital Private Bank in Austin, Brad specializes in comprehensive wealth management that goes well beyond investment advice. He...

NIL changed everything for college athletes. Most of them are navigating it without a framework. Evan Alexander, MBA, is working to fix that. Evan is the Founder, CEO, and Lead Coach of Pivot Athletic Consulting — and a former Southern University athlete who spent 15 years in corporate leadership before dedicating his career to helping the next generation of athletes make better decisions under pr...

Most athletes compete to win. Abby Brenner chose to compete for something bigger. Abby Brenner is the Director of Development at the United States Air Force Academy Athletic Corporation — and a former NCAA Division I student-athlete who won a National Championship and three Big Ten titles at the University of Michigan, then added a Pac-12 Championship and a third-place NCAA finish at the Universit...

A 14-year-old boy arrives in Los Angeles from Odesa, Ukraine. No English. No money. A 45-minute bus ride each way to practice. Home by 9:30 PM. Every night. That boy became a four-time Olympic gold medalist. Lenny Krayzelburg is one of the most decorated backstroke swimmers in history — and one of the most powerful examples of what happens when character refuses to yield to circumstance. Born in t...

Some setbacks look like the end. Alex Molden's looked like three torn ligaments — ACL, MCL, and PCL — suffered during the Independence Bowl while playing for the University of Oregon. A knee injury that severe doesn't just threaten a season. It threatens everything. What Alex chose to do next is the story worth telling. Nine months of grueling rehabilitation. A comeback that started with...

Most people talk about resilience. Chris Vasami has had to live it — three times. Chris Vasami is a former Division I baseball player at Notre Dame and Elon University, a Colorado Rockies draftee who achieved his lifelong dream of playing professional baseball, a three-time thyroid cancer survivor, keynote speaker, and founder of Vasami Training — a coaching company he built from the ground up at...