There’s a man standing on the guttercap.

He’s pointing at the second arrow. Not saying much. Just pointing, over and over, until my eyes finally learned to live there instead of chasing the pins forty feet away.

That was Dave Ladd. My first bantam coach. Before I knew anything about angles or release or the mental game, he taught me one quiet thing: look here. Trust this. Throw it there.

I was a kid. I had no idea he was handing me a foundation.

Most of us don’t remember the moment someone decided to believe in us. We were too busy being twelve. Too busy bowling. Too busy not knowing yet who we were going to become.

But the belief was there. Working underneath everything. Long before we caught up to it.

Then there was Joe Johnson. My prep coach. The one who made sure this game never stopped being fun.

Because here’s what the believers understood that I didn’t yet. You can’t pour your whole life into something you’ve started to resent. Joy is fuel. Joe protected mine.

And I had a goal at twelve years old that should have made grown adults laugh.

I wanted to be one of the best in the world.

Not the best in my house. Not the best in my city. The world.

I told Dick Tucker that. My childhood coach. Mr. T. The one who ran late-night practices and never once sugarcoated a single thing he said to me.

He didn’t laugh.

He didn’t pat me on the head and call it cute.

He looked at the goal, looked at me, and got to work helping me reach it.

That’s the thing about a real believer. They don’t just nod along. They roll up their sleeves. Mr. T showed me what kind of bowler I wanted to become long before I could see her myself: accountable, hardworking, honest. He held the mirror steady until I could stand to look in it.

Three coaches. Three completely different men. One thread running through all of them.

They saw me before I could see myself.

I think about that a lot now, standing where I get to stand.

Because belief is borrowed before it’s ever owned. Someone has to hand it to you first. Someone has to say I see it in you enough times that you finally start to repeat it back to yourself.

I didn’t manufacture my confidence out of thin air. It was given to me. By a man on a guttercap. By a coach who guarded the fun. By a man at a late-night practice who refused to let me lie to myself.

Never forget where you came from. Never forget who carried the belief while your arms were still too small to hold it.

So now I get to stand on the other side of it.

When I work with a young athlete, I bring all three of them into the room with me.

I teach them to lock onto the one thing they can control, like Dave and his second arrow.

I keep it fun, like Joe.

And I hold them accountable and honest, like Mr. T.

I take a little piece of every coach I ever had, and I pass it on. That’s how a legacy actually works. It doesn’t end with you. It moves through you.

But maybe you’re reading this and you never had a Dave. Or a Joe. Or a Mr. T.

Maybe no one ever stood on the guttercap for you.

Here’s what I need you to hear.

You still get to decide.

You get to decide your path. You get to decide how good you want to be. Nobody else holds that pen. Not a coach who never showed up. Not a believer who never came.

Just you.

And no, it won’t fall into your lap. You don’t get there by wishing. You get there by working. You fall down. You get back up. You throw the next shot. And somewhere in all that getting back up, you become your own first believer.

That’s not a consolation prize. That might be the most powerful thing of all.

Because the believers get you to the door.

But you’re the one who walks through it.

Who saw it in you before you did? Go tell them today. And if no one did, become the person who sees it in someone else.

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