Matt Sohmer was a successful Long Island high school football player from Farmingdale. Until he tore his meniscus and then his ACL. Then, in college, a late hit ended any future football plans. Prior to these injuries, and during his rehabs, powerlifting had become a significant tool in Matt’s training. After football moved to the rearview mirror, lifting became his focus.

Concentrating on powerlifting full time improved his strength and he decided to compete in the United States of America Powerlifting RAW* Nationals for 2015 and 2016. Another leg injury forced him to skip the 2017 tournament and almost ended his career in that sport, too.

Matt traveled a long road to recovery. Doctors proclaimed that lifting, or any physical activity, was not in his future. Those diagnoses didn’t stop Matt when he endured the football injuries and he was determined that the medical advice would not stop him now. Research to strengthen his leg and minimize the effect of the injury were part of the rehab process.

Matt made a comeback. He competed in his third RAW nationals but was not a favorite to win the tournament. He thrived as an underdog and in the spotlight. Matt always has had the drive to do better than others expect of him. He used his injuries, rehabs, advice from doctors and the comments from others as motivation.

Happy ending! Matt became the national champion in the 264-weight class. He set personal highs in all three lifts – an 843-pound square, 355—pound bench and 810-pound deadlift. That’s a total of 2,008 pounds! This was the first time he passed the 2,000-pound mark and he was only seven pounds from the class world record for squats and 12 pounds from the deadlifts record.

With determination, Matt overcame setbacks with injuries, work and life. He went from a no-name to, as he stated at the time, “smoking everybody.”

Matt holds more than 40 U.S and world records and he is the youngest competitor to squat 800-plus pounds RAW without kneewraps. A little determination and motivation can go a long way on the road to success.

*“Raw” powerlifting is lifting with little to no additional equipment. In practice, “Raw” powerlifting means, in competition, athletes are only allowed to use approved lifting belts, singlet, wrist wraps and knee sleeves along with chalk.

Just about every young hockey player dreams about scoring that seventh game overtime goal to capture a championship cup or medal. As each player rises to the next tier of competition on travel, high school, college and junior teams, he or she spends countless hours on and off the ice to build strength and stamina, and to hone various skills that just might turn a dream into hockey reality.

The path to a hockey career, should he decide to pursue that route, might be different for Bentley Cyr. He learned to skate when he was five years old. He continues to play the game. But, he also referees ice and roller hockey. He spends a lot of time, sometimes all day, at the rinks in California.

While playing a game a few years back, Bentley noticed that one referee was only a handful of years older. This inspired him to investigate and then pursue that angle of the game. He worked his first game as an official when he was just six years old.

Bentley has received full support from hockey’s adults. With encouragement from mom and dad, Bentley has received countless opportunities to work many games, including three, four or more on any given day. Rink personnel, team administrators and coaches encouraged him to become a certified referee, and he earned that certification this past July. Bentley is nine now and he’s one of the youngest registered USA Hockey referees.

Bentley has received many compliments for his on-ice professionalism and his focus on calling games. Whether or not Bentley decides to pursue a professional career in hockey, his thoughts already are formulating plans for the creation of a training facility and camp for young officials. Until that day comes, he remains satisfied with just sharing some advice, specifically within his age group, as he inspires other youngsters to pursue officiating. Bentley tells everyone to follow his lead—continue to play hockey, refine skating skills and observe the work of officials at games and on television.

Bentley is a busy young man on both sides of the game. He enjoys spending an entire day at the rinks. The perk, he said, is eating a lot of pizza.

Last year’s lacrosse season at Long Island’s Harborfields High School was a good one. The team had talent, but senior Falyn Dwyer said she wanted the team to work harder in practice to polish its skills. She personally was committed to the same goal.

The drive paid off when the team made it into the playoffs and to the Suffolk County Division II semi-finals. The ladies showcased that success could be achieved through dedication and commitment.

Falyn led by example. As a four-year varsity midfielder, she always delivered maximum effort on the field. Her coach referred to her as a fierce competitor who is self-motivated. Falyn contributed during key opportunities on both offense and defense. Opposing players often were baffled, because they could not prevent Falyn from getting the ball.

Falyn’s tenacity went beyond the lacrosse field. She also was a midfielder on the soccer team and a shooting guard and two-way player on the basketball team. Falyn played all three sports throughout her high school career, earning many accolades and several awards for her success. Her coaches agreed that Falyn was one of the most coachable high school athletes.

Record setting achievements and commitment for Falyn, however, were not solely reserved for the field or court. She achieved a 108 grade point average for her studies and ranked near the top of her class of 300 students. She also was active in a number of non-sports activities and clubs during her high school days.

Falyn received All-Conference and All-County Academic honors for both soccer and basketball, and she was named All-County for lacrosse. She now attends Fordham University. Her interests include sports but also environmental studies, teaching and law. I suspect that many more accolades and awards are in her future.

She finished ninth twice in the national ironman triathlon. Then, Olivia Curran surpassed her previous successes in a sport that is pursued by few 17-year-olds. She finished sixth out of 50 competitors in the 16-19-year-old girls division at the World Triathlon Grand Final in the Netherlands.

Olivia’s father got her involved in the sport. He, too, has completed multiple ironman triathlons, including the most famous World Championship in Hawaii. In the Netherlands, Olivia’s sprint race included a 750-meter swim, 20-kilometer cycling race and a 5K run.

For her school, Olivia runs cross-country and outdoor track. She also swims for the school during the winter and competes with a swimming club during the summer. During July and August, Olivia has trained seven days a week and has incorporated track workouts into the program. She completes one long (seven to eight miles) run a week and bikes from 45 minutes to two hours each day.

Olivia is a strong runner and a very good open-water swimmer. She admits that her cycling is the weakest part of her game.

Her finish slot in the Netherlands, which was Olivia’s first international competition, was recognized by USA Triathlon, the sport’s governing body in the U.S. The organization ranked Olivia as the country’s top 16-17-year female athlete.

In her future, Olivia sees tackling the Olympic distances—1.5K swim, 40K bike and 10K run. That is about five years away. She also would like to follow her dad and participate in the ultimate triathlon ironman that incorporates the 2.4-mile swim, 112-mile bike and 26.22-mile run. First, though, Olivia remains focused on graduating from high school.

A huge season—their senior season—was planned by Jenna Rogers and Jackie McDonnell. Both young ladies play field hockey for a Rockland County high school, and they were tapped as the new leaders following the graduation of 10 seniors.

Then, everything changed. Jackie, a goalie, hurt her knee last season but resumed play. She re-injured her knee, tearing the ACL and PCL along with a meniscus. Jenna also suffered a knee injury. She thought it was a bone bruise, but she soon learned that she tore her ACL and meniscus.

Injuries that are this serious depress the best professional athletes as they go through months of rehabilitation. Imagine how these two young ladies felt so early in their athletics careers. Jenna and Jackie had been in the field hockey program since seventh grade and they now knew that their respective senior seasons would determine if they could play in college.

Their coach realized that the players were carrying heavy burdens on their shoulders. The players felt that they had let him down along with their teammates. The coach’s solution was to have them attend practices while they continued physical therapy. Perhaps they could find a way to help the team.

Then, the coach came up with another idea. He asked the players to attend the practices of the middle school team whose first-year coach actually is a lacrosse coach. Now, unless there is a varsity game, Jenna and Jackie spend about 30 minutes supporting the high school varsity and junior varsity practices and then they support the middle school team practice.

The coaches and the players see the seniors as assistant coaches. The players also consider them as big sisters. With the coaches’ support, Jenna and Jackie have turned a season of lemons into one of lemonade. They are helping the teams but they also are helping themselves as they recover from their injuries.

Jenna and Jackie are adapting to the unfortunate athletic setbacks that have placed them on the sidelines. That’s a good lesson for their future field hockey careers. It also is a good life lesson.

At many colleges, the words “one and done” is the magic term in the athletic deparment. The phrase means that an athlete will play one year and then embrace the fame and possibly the fortune of a professional career.

For Colton Wigsten, the “one and done” phrase was bad news. As a freshman player at Ithaca College, and arriving as a highly touted recruit with high school scoring records, his first game became his last. A defender hit his knee the moment he planted his foot. The knee buckled, wrecking the ACL, MCL and meniscus.

After eight months of physical therapy, Colton left Ithaca before his junior year. He worked in the real world while remaining in shape. He earned credentials as an LPN and relocated to Georgia to obtain valuable experience before enrolling in the nursing program at Tompkins-Cortland Community College in upstate New York. He’s also on the school’s soccer team.

Colton is 26 now. The next oldest on the team is 21. He realizes that he is not the same player, but he now plays a smarter game. He recognizes situations quickly and clearly sees the game unfold before him. He says that he now is capable of controlling the pace to set up plays.

After his injury, Colton was depressed. Soccer was his life. The injury destroyed his collegiate experience. Finally processing that there was more to life than soccer, he has matured, will play to the best of his ability and will be thankful for the opportunities on and off the soccer field.

You can learn a lot from a high school coach. The coach will tell you about a player’s work ethic, dedication and outlook on life.

Lou Petrucci has coached baseball at Long Island’s Ward Melville High School in East Setauket for 10 years. He’s been around baseball for more than 25 years. Besides coaching, he has been an umpire and a sports writer.

When a corporate buyout released Lou from Newsday, he returned to college and earned a master’s in education from Hofstra University. He became a sixth-grade teacher and then he was offered the coaching position.

Lou knows a lot about a former player for Ward Melville — New York Mets pitcher Steven Matz. Here are just a few of Lou’s insights about the young man:

When he tore a pitching arm ligament that resulted in surgery, Steven was very young and he faced some difficult decisions. According to Lou, he worked through the disappointment and became more determined to pitch in the big leagues. Future success, said Lou, now is all up to him.

Steven also has a commitment to community. According to his former coach, Steven always gives back to his community and his team. Every winter and fall, Steven works with the current kids on his old high school team. He also has traveled to Honduras to help distribute supplies and to interact with children. At the year-end holidays, he visits the Stony Brook Children’s Hospital just to talk with the kids and sign autographs.

Lou indicated that Steven’s ability to give of himself to others at this young age while he still is reaching for his professional success can be attributed to many personal traits and the support of family. Mostly, though, the coach believes he is reciprocating for all the times he was on the receiving end of other people’s generosity — high school teammates who turned into his role models, former major leaguers who provided countless pitching lessons and an entire town that adorned street signs and lampposts with blue and orange ribbons when he pitched during the World Series. Steven has taken to heart the generosity of others. Now, he wants to do the same for others.

Lou said that the many people in Steven’s camp always have had his back. His high school coach attributes this to one thing – Steven is a fabulous person.

A strong arm and a good upbringing will take you far in major league baseball and in life.

Taylor Washington has a poem that was given to him when he was four years old. It was written by his pre-school teachers. A few lines in the poem were devoted to each student.

Taylor, who now is 22, proudly claims he can play every sport. The lines from his personal part of the poem read: “Agile, strong and, boy, can he throw. He’ll play in the majors and earn some big dough.”

It is not known if the teachers actually believed in his future sports success, or if they were just including the boy’s interests at the time. While the lines indicate a career in baseball, Taylor has made it big in soccer.

After he was selected by the Philadelphia Union in the second round of the Major League Soccer draft in January, Taylor has become focused on earning a roster spot. Since those pre-school days, he was a kid who had everything line up for him. He was boy who everyone cheered on to success.

Taylor was a star high school player. More than 80 Division I colleges recruited him and he attended Boston University. But, there is more to the story.

While successful on the field, this happy kid who always raised his hand to answer questions in class and who spent a lot of time hitting the books also always struggled with written tests. Yet, he sometimes won academic awards despite teacher evaluations to the contrary. One teacher even wrote that he was a kid without an “academic bone in his body.”

After his freshman year at BU, some extensive testing revealed a learning issue. Taylor has dyslexia. Quickly, he took his work ethic from the soccer field and applied it to his lessons. He left Boston to attend George Mason University, a school that had recruited him and also had many more academic programs to help students overcome learning issues.

On the field, Taylor earned Atlantic-10, ECAC and NCSAA All-Midwest honors. With all his academic and sports work, Taylor still found time to help people he did not know, working with kids and organizing projects such as cleaning a school that serves disadvantaged children.

His coaches since high school say that he is an overachiever in every aspect of life. One coach even stated that Taylor is “one of the best human beings I’ve ever worked with.”

So, what does the future hold for Taylor? Well, about a month ago, the Philadelphia Union announced that Taylor was added to the roster at the position of left back. The team announcement included this statement from the Union’s sporting director: “It was evident from day one that Taylor entered preseason camp with a focused mentality and committed work ethic in hopes of making our roster. He’s earned his place on the team and he exemplifies the type of professionalism we want at our club. He has a bright future and the ability to immediately contribute at such an important position.”

-Jim

Last month, we lost Sue Petersen Lubow at the young age of 61.

Sue was the first woman head coach and the first woman athletic director at a United States military service academy. When she joined the Merchant Marine Academy right here on Long Island, she was appointed the head coach of the men’s and women’s swimming and diving teams. Her teams produced two NCAA Division III national championships.

As athletic director for 25 years, Sue expanded the number of competitive sports at the academy. During 2014, when she was inducted into the academy’s athletic hall of fame, Sue said that she had not become an athletic director to break barriers.

“I chose my profession because I wanted to make a difference,” she stated that day, “not because I wanted to be a trailblazer, but in reflection—whether I like it or not—I guess I was.”

Sue grew up on Long Island. She was an All-American and swim team captain at Springfield College in Massachusetts. She earned her master’s degree in health education at Hofstra University.

Sue was a difference maker. She also was a trailblazer. Her successor as the academy’s athletic director is the only woman currently in that position at a service academy.

In paying tribute to Sue, each of us must continue to strive to make a difference in our work, in our communities and with our families. Each of us possesses that opportunity to blaze a unique trail.

Jim

Few boys who dream of playing professional baseball actually end up competing in the country’s big ball yards. Millions of other boys must follow another path so they can touch all the bases.

Tim Mead’s passion for baseball landed him an internship more than 30 years ago with the Los Angeles Angels. Today, he is the team’s vice president of communications. He is the team’s spokesman and he oversees media relations, publicity and broadcast operations. Mead and his staff also provide beat writers and media with game notes and media guides, handle media requests and arrange interviews with players and team executives.

Mead realized early on that he did not have the talent to make a living at hitting a ball with a bat. So, during college, he looked for other opportunities to stay in the game that he loved. He focused on sports writing. He soon realized, though, that he could not write about failings and shortcomings of people who worked hard in an area where he did not achieve success. So, Mead slid into public relations.

The job is all about promoting and protecting the Angels brand. While some tasks are easy for Mead, he faces many challenges similar to a hitter figuring the best way to hit a knuckleball.

One example has involved social media, specifically Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. This medium does not allow PR people to control the flow of information. With the growth of instantaneous postings, the Angels communications team decided to employ a defensive shift. It increased online monitoring. The strategy has allowed the staff to respond quickly to address fan issues while it continues to proactively promote, publicize and reach out to media and fans with the many positive stories that occur within the organization.

As for advice about achieving success in sports communications or any business profession, Mead provided the following guidelines: prove yourself every day, be true to your personal brand, stay away from discussing politics, work hard and be ready for the ball to be hit to you when you least expect it.

- Jim