I Found My Inspiration Through Sports

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A Guest Post By Juergen Eberhardt

I am Juergen Eberhardt, a 35-year-old German native. I met Ryan, and later Sheila, in Michigan during a series of training sessions given by the company that both Ryan and I worked for. Ryan and I quickly became friends through the common bond of hockey – specifically Detroit Red Wings hockey.

This leads me into my story, a story of finding my inspiration to a fulfilling life through doing the thing that brings me happiness – playing sports.

First, I will give a little background about myself. I was born in the south of Germany. Through the beginning years of my life I lived in a beautiful small village near the mountains in the Swabian highlands. My family didn’t travel to other towns, so this small village was essentially my whole world and like many children looking for something fun to do, I spent a great deal of my time playing sports, particularly soccer, tennis, volleyball, and handball. I also either rode my bike or walked to school every day and had six hours per week of gym class during school.

I was constantly active, it was a huge part of who I was when I was a child.

My World Began To Change

As I got older and was able to drive a car, things began to change. The world outside of my small village was within easy reach. After high school, I completed an apprenticeship and began working full time. It was then that something happened to me that, looking back I can see it was one of the most influential events in my life. One of the guys at work took me to my first hockey game.

From my first interaction, I loved this game. I knew I needed to play and I signed up for a local league. It was a fantastic time in my life, and even though I learned to play a little late in life (most guys start playing when they are little), I followed my passion and started a career as a player in the local team.

Within two years I was the top scorer at the international tournament in (the former) Czechoslovakia. At that time I was 75kg at 183cm tall (165 lbs at 6’-0”). I had no fat at all. I felt so happy when I was playing hockey. I went from a small world, to a bigger world, to being on TOP of the world!

Shift In Focus

As often is the case, things once again changed and I had to leave my town, and hockey, to move to another, bigger, city for work. At first, I drove home every weekend to visit my friends and sport colleagues, supporting my team by playing and cheering from the stands when I wasn’t playing.

But then it became more challenging for me to drive home all the time. Instead of playing sports, I spent my weekend visiting bars and discos in my new city, meeting people and drinking beer. (Yes, I know what you are thinking, it’s what Germans do! I assure you though, not all Germans are drinkers.)

Another part of my new life was that I had to learn a lot of for my job. There were always meetings and training sessions for me to attend to improve my skill set. So my focus and ambition shifted from being the best at sports, to being the best I could be in my career. My energy was now 100% on my job and on performing better than my colleagues.

I was successful in my efforts, but I didn’t feel satisfied with working 10-12 hour days, every day. I knew it was time to begin a new chapter. So, I made the decision to study applied sciences at a University.

A New Chapter At University

I chose a University that was famous for their engineering curriculum – so again, I moved, this time to a town with a lot of industry but not a lot of possibilities for playing sports. At this point, my hockey career was dead in the water, and my equipment was getting dusty in the basement at my parent’s house.

Even though I was beginning this new chapter in life, I still felt really sad. Something was missing but I didn’t know what. I spent a lot of my spare time doing activities at school – playing computer games and going to parties to keep myself occupied, but nothing seemed to fill the void that I felt.

One day I got a call from the coach of my old soccer team. They had a lot of injured players and he asked me to come fill in.  I’m a helpful guy, so I figured, why not.  I drove home to play in the game that weekend.

A Wake Up Call… I Didn’t Answer

I can say this now, looking back… It should have be one of the worst experiences of my life. As I walked into the locker room where the team was prepping for the game, it suddenly became completely silent. Then one of my old teammates said, “Hey Juergen, what happened to you? You look like a barrel!”

He was right. I was in terrible shape. Twenty minutes into the game, I wasn’t able to run anymore. I felt like a stone. After the game I went to a scale and was shocked. I weighed 93kg (205 lbs), which for me, was a lot.

After this experience, I set a goal to finish school, find a job and then get into better shape. But that goal was much tougher to reach than I thought it would be. Once I finished my exams and got a new job, there was much more stress than before and I wasn’t able to find my way to balance. The result was working more and more, 10-14 hour days this time and sometimes Saturday included, with no time figured in for exercise.

A Step, Then A Leap, in the Right Direction

When I turned 30 I made a commitment to make time to start playing golf. Right from the start I loved it and have been playing ever since, with a lot of success. But, for those of you that play golf, you know it is not really a sport for losing weight. Nonetheless, it was a step in the right direction at least.

Fast forward a few years, and that baby step turned into a giant leap. It was then that I met Ryan. As I mentioned, he is a big Red Wings fan and as Ryan and I started talking more and more about hockey, my old passion started to come alive. When I was in Detroit for one of the training sessions, we went to a Red Wings game and suddenly the fire was lit full force once again! There was no question, it was time for me to get back on the ice.

There was one problem though. My old equipment was for a guy that weighed 75kg (165 lbs) not over 90kg (200 lbs). It was time to get serious. I had to lose some weight in order to play hockey again. I started to eat healthier and the weight began to come off. I noticed a difference in how I felt right away. I even felt better in my job and was much more relaxed.

After I reached my weight loss goal and fit back into my equipment, I had a realization.

I had discovered a way to be more energetic in all aspects of my life.

This energy came from doing something I really love to do, something I am passionate about! I felt so inspired by this that I set my next goal – running a marathon, which I ran 3 months later, coming in at 3:42 hours.

This rebirth of my love for sports has awakened a new excitement for life within me. I keep challenging myself physically now, setting a new goal each time I reach the previous one. Since the summer of 2009 I have run three half-marathons, 1 marathon and I am now training for another half-marathon and an Olympic marathon (my 2^nd full marathon) this October in Munich.

My life now feels balanced in every way (I am living well… 360 degrees ), job, family and of course, sports. For me, those three things are what I need to feel complete. These feelings may come from totally different things for you. But for me, I now see that sports are a huge part of who I am, and even bigger part of who I can be.

Without things like hockey and running in my life, I would not feel fulfilled. I want thank Ryan for helping to give me the impulse to come back to hockey, and everything that followed allowing me to get back to who I truly am.

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