The Arena, Where Champions Train; coaching baseball, practicing law and making a difference with Coach Doug Goldberg
The Arena, which is a 20,000-square foot state of the art athletic training center where Doug is the current owner and head coach; Doug’s also owned and operated Goldberg Law Center for over 30 years. He specializes in the Estate and Business Planning Law practice. Doug’s played and coached baseball for more than 50 years, and is currently in his third year as a varsity baseball coach at Air Academy High School.
“I really want to do this…
- ” And I remember the day that I signed the contract to buy this property and we were just leaving to go on a spring trip with my Air Academy baseball team and thought, “Holy smokes, what have I done?” I got down to New Mexico and I thought, “Huh. This is going to be a real thing.” What had started as a little dream of having the baseball field inside where my kids could hit and take ground balls turned into a 20,000-square foot state of the art training facility.
Some things that your dad taught you, early influences.
- You’ve got to have a standard, you have to have some rules, some kind of the rules of engagement, you know, you have to have a bar that’s set, and you can’t waiver, you know, you’ve got to strive for excellence.
- My dad was never a guy that had to have 10 things in writing and 6 lawyers look at every document. He basically was a guy that would look you in the eye, shake your hand and say, “That’s the deal.” And when you made a deal with my dad you could put it in the bank. I mean, and so, you know, he was a great man of his word.
“Baseball will tell you when you’re done.”
- As a young man, I was done at age 21. You get that letter in the paper (from the Montreal Organization) in the mail that says, “We’re granting you your unconditional release.” You know, I gave that to my dad and said, “what does that mean?” He says, “Well, in the real world we just call it getting fired.” And so, it’s, you know, it’s different but, you know, the game is a game of adversity and…which is a tremendous teaching tool. But it’s also a game of passion and it’s a game that, you know, you’ve got to be smart to play baseball.
“We get a lot of athletes here.”
- We train kids that are eight, we train Olympic athletes, we train professional athletes and kind of everybody in between all sports. We have MMA fighters and we have Olympics Judo athletes and figure skaters and people from all walks of athletics and…but I’m really excited for the young people I see walk in and just to watch the light, you known, turn on and shine in their eyes as they go through their sport.
What do you think was the best piece of advice you ever received?
- It came from my dad said “Don’t ever let anybody control your life, you know. You control your life. Don’t let them control your calendar. If they tell you when you can get up, and when you can go on vacation and when you have to be there, they own you.”
As a leader, what’s the number one thing that you need to have?
- “And I just thought about it for maybe 10 seconds and the word that comes to me is courage. Boy, you’ve got to have courage to be a leader and you’ve got to have courage to be a business owner.”
Parting advice; “The bad times are going to come.”
- “You’ve just got to have the courage to see it through and know that, you know…I mean, my personal belief is I’m a Christian and, you know, God’s going to take care of you, God promised never to leave you or forsake you and so, lean on that, trust that, and that’s the best advice I could give.”
Listen in, hear more
You can find Doug at…
The Arena, 719-428-5466
The post The Arena, Where Champions Train; coaching baseball, practicing law and making a difference with Coach Doug Goldberg appeared first on My podcast website.