no matter how much he tries to appreciate it all in

RIO DE JANEIRO -- After each of the U.S. field hockey teams first four games here, all of which ended in a win and two of which resulted in upsets, striker Michelle Vittese fielded questions about what sparked her squads Olympic turnaround after finishing last overall at the 2012 London Games.I love the question, Vittese said Saturday, after scoring the lone goal for the Americans in their first loss of the tournament, 2-1 to Great Britain.Its the type of positions we put ourselves in, the uncomfortable places we go to in training, in the weight room, during conditioning and game training. We go to the ugliest places and figure out how to push through and get out of them. That shapes you as a person, makes you mentally fit and helps you get up for games like this. Were so resilient and gritty.That training will also help Vittese and her teammates pick themselves up after their first defeat and refocus for Mondays quarterfinal match against No. 9 Germany. If the Americans want to be defined by their 2016 grittiness rather than their 2012 meltdown, Monday is their moment to prove themselves.Were so process oriented, U.S. captain Lauren Crandall said. Weve been through so many scenarios in tournament play that nothing is a surprise. Theres no panic. Thats the mental preparation weve done to get out of whatever place weve gotten ourselves into.If it sounds like Crandall and Vittese are quoting the same philosopher, thats because they are. To a woman, the members of the U.S. team have bought in to a team philosophy and culture they began creating 3? years ago, after the hiring of their head coach Craig Parnham, a former assistant coach for Great Britain.When our new coaching staff came in, we recommitted to the program, defined our culture and values and started building a family, Crandall said. We pride ourselves on our hard work, persistence, perseverance and family.Three years ago, Parnham wrote a lofty goal on a board at the teams practice facility and asked the women if they were ready to buy in to the idea that they could become the best in the world. He didnt care that they hadnt won an Olympic medal since 1984. He wasnt interested in who they were before his arrival; he wanted to know how good they believed they could be now that he was there.The coaches can push it on you all they want, but unless the players buy in and want to do the work, you wont get there, Vittese said. The player buy-in is huge.It meant a complete overhaul of the way they were doing everything from lifting in the weight room to practicing technical drills on the field. It meant transforming themselves from a defensive-minded squad into the most physically fit attacking team in the world. Parnham told his players that with complete commitment, they could push the boundaries of womens field hockey, but they, not him, needed to lead the change.The players drive the culture here, Crandall said. Our coachs philosophy is [for Parnham] to be useless. He wants independent thinkers on his team.But of all the changes to their program, it is their geographical move that has received the most attention. For years, the womens team trained at the U.S. Olympic training center in Chula Vista, California, an idyllic, culturally diverse San Diego suburb located close to the beach but far from home for most of the women, the majority of whom are from Pennsylvania and New Jersey. So Parnham relocated the program from Chula Vista to the field hockey hub of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, where players could train year-round in a world-class indoor facility with fewer distractions than they had in Southern California.Theres no party or night life, so its a great place to train and focus on what we need to get done, U.S. goalie Jaclyn Briggs said. It takes the stress off of feeling like Im in my 20s and should be living it up or Im missing out on things.Lancaster is also located in the heart of Pennsylvania Dutch country, where commitment and hard work, community and family are at the center of Amish values. The move to Lancaster allowed the women to slow down, simplify their lives and evaluate what was important.The Amish are community oriented, Crandall said. Its a family-oriented culture, and we are a family. We are so supported there.Now in Rio, 5,000 miles away from home, the women say they can still feel that support, and they believe it will carry them to the gold-medal game.We know you could put your head down for 3? years and still be the first out of the Olympics, Crandall said. That knowledge is what makes us work so hard. Our goal is to stand on that podium. Our goal is to win it all. Discount Air Max . Once again Jordan Cieciwa (@FitCityJordan) and I (@LynchOnSports) go head to head in our picks. Last weekend at UFC Fight Night 32 my #TeamLynch got the best of #TeamJC by a score of 9-6. Let us know which side youre on for UFC 167 use the hashtag #TeamLynch or #TeamJC on Twitter. Air Max Sale . The catch: It needs a lot of money, and it needs it fast. https://www.airmaxchina.us/ . Terms of the deal were not immediately available. The 26-year-old finished last season with Clevelands Triple-A affiliate in Columbus after signing with the Indians in August. Cheap Real Air Max . Hargreaves began his career in 2008 with the Winnipeg Blue Bombers and has played with the Edmonton Eskimos and last season with the Saskatchewan Roughriders. Air Max From China . -- Anaheim Ducks defenceman Luca Sbisa will be out at least six weeks with a torn tendon in his right hand. Adam Cole is a lot of things. Hes a two-time (and current) Ring of Honor world champion, a member of the wildly popular Bullet Club faction and a storyteller. But first and foremost, like so many of the fans who passionately cry out Bay Bay every time they hear his name, Cole is an endlessly passionate student of the craft and history of professional wrestling.Coles first conscious memories of the squared circle are probably a lot like yours, if you were a child of a certain age. At 9 years old, he caught a few precious moments of an episode of WCW Thunder before his dad turned off the TV and ushered him off to the dinner table.When I first discovered that professional wrestling existed, it was going through that transitional period where it was becoming more violent, more risqué, more TV-14, said Cole. So initially, I was not permitted at all to watch pro wrestling.In fact, it wasnt until a chance encounter that Cole stumbled upon an opportunity that would change his life.Fast-forward to a point in my life where I was taking karate lessons as a kid; I really enjoyed that, and I used to get there early and stay there late -- I just loved it, Cole said. I got there early one day, and my instructor was watching a taped Monday Night Raw from the night before.I was watching it while he was checking it out, and he asked, Oh, do you watch wrestling? and I said, Yeah, all the time, Cole continued. But Id never watched it before. I just wanted to fit in with him. Long story short, he lets me borrow WrestleMania 15, and I saw Stone Cold Steve Austin and The Rock for the first time. I remember just thinking, These guys are the coolest guys Ive ever seen in my life.When he watched that no-disqualification main event between The Rock and Austin, there was a moment when Cole was instantly hooked -- a moment that gave him goosebumps and changed his life. When the iconic glass crashing of Austins entrance hit, Cole knew exactly what he wanted to do with his life.By the time Cole was a high school senior, he began to look seriously at wrestling schools near his childhood home in Pennsylvania. It was (and still is) a hotbed for wrestling schools, and whichever one he chose to attend after graduating high school could have sent him in any number of directions in his career.I was considering a bunch of different options, said Cole. There was the Wild Samoan training center in Allentown, Pennsylvania. For a while, I was considering the Chikara Wrestle Factory in Philadelphia, too. It got to a point where, because I was such a big fan of wrestling, I started to follow more promotions -- and one of them was called Combat Zone Wrestling, in South Philadelphia.CZW cultivated a reputation over the years for having some of the most brutal and violent hard-core matches in the world of independent wrestling, including numerous bouts featuring Jon Moxley (now Dean Ambrose in the WWE) and Drake Younger (now WWE NXT referee Drake Wuertz), among many others.Still, that style of match wasnt everything that CZW was about, and a young, impressionable Cole took a chance to try to meet some of the wrestlers and operators of CZW after attending Best of the Best 7 -- an annual tournament that Cole was quite familiar with and fond of.I was out back, waiting to meet everybody, and one of the guys who walked out was DJ Hyde, who is the head trainer of the CZW wrestling academy. For whatever reason, I build up enough courage to tell him, By the way, when I graduate high school Im gonna train to be a pro wrestler someday, Cole said. And he stopped, and he turned and looked at me, and he asked, Why dont you wrestle now?Cole, surprised for a moment by the question, rattled off all of the reasons that a high schooler wouldnt be able to make it work without dropping out of college: He didnt have the money. His parents would obviously be apprehensive. And the two-hour drive each way would be challenging, to say the least.DJ Hyde extended an olive branch that would ultimately make a tremendous impact on the years that followed.He said, Listen, Ill work with you on money -- you pay me what you can, when you can, and you only have to come down one day a week, Cole recalled. The following week, I started training as a pro wrestler.I talked to the three [aspiring wrestlers] and told them they needed to do a tryout, said Hyde. The three of them all had a lot of potential -- Adam was not the guy he is now, but you could see something. He said, This is all I ever wanted to do.I use him as an example to the current students -- he wanted it more than anybody else -- anyone Ive ever seen, said Hyde. He was born to do this.Cole wouldve jumped at any opportunity to get into a wrestling ring as soon as humanly possible, and he simply couldnt deny an offer to train at CZW. In November 2007, Cole started down the long and winding path of an independent wrestling career. By the time he graduated high school, Coles career was already in motion.He quickly discovered that it wasnt all about learning to bump or mastering an in-ring technique. Coles persistence and willingness to reach out to those who could help him in some way in his career was as valuable a skill as any hed pick up in the ring.For independent wrestling, making connections is so important, said Cole. Part of that process is traveling all over the country and going wherever you can, even if youre not on the event. Its the idea of showing up and meeting people and watching matches -- just creating relationships with people.One relationship that allowed Cole to take another monumental step was with an Australian wrestler who was touring in the States and had started attending the Ring of Honor wrestling school.When offered an opportunity to train with some of the brightest up-and-coming wrestlers on the independent scene, he simply couldnt pass it up.So I went down there, and I started training, said Cole. The head trainer, Delirious, was there, and he will hate that I say this, but hes one of the smartest men in wrestling. I instantly knew that from the moment I met him. [Being there] really kind of took my understanding of pro wrestling to the next level.At that point in time, around 2008 or 2009, Delirious was still an active performer for Ring of Honor. As he picked up more and more things in the ring, Cole asked if he could start attending shows. He did everything he could -- he helped set up chairs and the ring, served as security and a guy just there to get beat up.Cole started on his long path to stardom in ROH in 2009, when he had his first dark match for the company. As hard as he worked to impress those in charge behind the curtain, Cole quickly found himself hitting a wall creatively.I did dark matches with Ring of Honor for a year and a half, said Cole. And I got the same response every single time I got to the back -- Good job, keep it up. That was cool the first two or three times, but then it was like, OK, what do I have to do differently to kind of stand out more?By tapping into what is now one of his most valuable tools in the ring, Cole utilized his personality to get noticed.I end up sending a promo in, and at the time the booker Adam Pearce saw that and said, OK, were gonna have you cut a promo in the ring as dark, said Cole. So instead of doing aa match, I was actually talking, which was cool.dddddddddddd Jim Cornette happened to be paying attention to the promo, and the rest was history. From there on out, they saw something in me that they had not been seeing while I was wrestling, and that kind of gave me the opportunity to shine, and to get a real chance with ROH.Cole would soon find himself under contract with ROH, and hed get paired up with another young upstart, Kyle OReilly. Books could be written about their partnership and eventual rivalry that carries on to this day, but in short, they teamed up under the moniker Future Shock and got to wrestle against some of the best in the world, including the Kings of Wrestling (Cesaro and Chris Hero), the Briscoes and former WWE tag team champions Shelton Benjamin and Charlie Haas, among many others.It was against Haas and Benjamin, collectively known as the Worlds Greatest Tag Team, that Cole received his first championship match in ROH. While he and OReilly failed to win the titles, the pair proved themselves worthy of the label of being future stars with the company. The pair soon split, but went right at it on opposite sides of another budding rivalry between the tag team formerly known as The American Wolves -- a conflict that ultimately shaped the careers of all four men.It was me and Eddie Edwards against Kyle OReilly and ROH world champion Davey Richards, said Cole. That moment for us was Ring of Honor telling our fans, OK, these guys are main event guys now. At that point in my career, it was the most pressure I had ever felt -- because the fans are either going to bite on this, or they werent, so you really, really have to deliver.Cole not only managed to hold his own in that match at ROHs 10th anniversary show, entitled Young Wolves Rising, but he got the biggest victory of his career to that point. He pinned Richards -- the reigning ROH champion at the time -- in the main event of a major show at the Hammerstein Ballroom, and it was the catalyst for even bigger things to come. After dispatching OReilly in a grudge match three months later in that very same venue, Cole won his first championship in ROH by defeating Roderick Strong for the television championship in June 2012.By the end of the year, hed get the first world title win of his career by defeating Kevin Steen (Kevin Owens) for the Pro Wrestling Guerilla world heavyweight championship.It was scary man, said Cole. I was 22 or 23 at that time, being put in a position where youre Ring of Honor television champion and the PWG world champion. This is no knock on the ROH television championship at all, but this was the first time any company had ever said, OK, youre our No. 1 guy, and were expecting these shows to do well with you on top.Hed ultimately go on to become a cult hero and the longest reigning PWG world champion in the companys history, but those concurrent title reigns -- despite being career-defining achievements -- offered little time for Cole to appreciate what hed been able to do at such a young age.The thing that I regret the most, I think, looking back at that period of my life, was I didnt really get to enjoy it too much, Cole said. I was so concerned and focused on doing better and improving. But at the same time, thats part of what success is -- getting better is about never settling, and realizing that you do have to always push forward and improve. Sometimes you cant sit back and smell the roses.Its a tough balance to strike for a guy whos been as motivated as Cole. He has little issue taking care of business in the gym, with his diet and in studying tapes, but he occasionally falls victim to losing the big picture simply because he keeps his head down and keeps pushing toward greatness.The fear of failure with me is very real, said Cole. I think the idea of me being 50 years old and thinking, Where could my career have been if I just worked a little bit harder is a really tough pill to swallow -- and it scares me to death.Over the entirety of his career, Cole has been able to push down those fears and keep them at bay by working as hard as possible. The results speak for themselves, with Cole earning the highest honor of his career in September 2013 by winning the ROH world championship.Sometimes fate simply intervenes, though. The process was taken out of his hands entirely in late 2014, when a serious shoulder injury put him on the shelf for the longest stretch of his career.Its very, very hard to walk away from something that means a lot to you, [especially] not having that escape that wrestling has always been for me. When I was forced to miss four months of action because of shoulder, tricep and elbow surgery, it was tough -- and, of course, when it rains it pours. My grandmother passed away while I was out injured, and while I normally would have just focused on wrestling, I just sat at home and really had to deal with that.After losing his grandmother, his No. 1 supporter and one of the most important people in his life, Cole sat back and reset his life and career. As he neared his return in May 2015, Cole was able to draw some positives from his time away from wrestling.While the year following Coles return was a net positive, with a number of big matches, things werent quite clicking as well as they were before his injury. That all changed in May 2016, when Cole made a surprise appearance in the midst of a Jay Lethal-Colt Cabana ROH world championship match and revealed himself as the newest member of the Bullet Club.That was soon followed by a second world championship reign, and almost everything Cole has done as part of the Bullet Club has been a revelation in his career. Hes having some of the best matches of his career, including a recent five-star match in PWG, hes getting to live out his dreams of wrestling in New Japan Pro Wrestling and the future looks bright.Still, no matter how much he tries to appreciate it all in the moment, his desire to squeeze every last drop out of his career can be overwhelming.When I win something like the Ring of Honor championship for a second time, Im excited for a minute, but Im already thinking, How can I win for a third time? Whats my next goal? said Cole. Whats the next mountain I have to climb? I dont ever want to become content.Cole is always striving for the next step in his career. Hes incredibly happy with his current position -- which has him on top in ROH, able to work in NJPW, PWG and top Mexican promotion CMLL -- but even if its two, three or five years down the line, it would be foolish to discount his desire to one day perform in or even main event a WrestleMania.For the boy who grew up and fell in love with wrestling because of The Rock and Austin, and takes pride in having worked all the way up the ranks of professional wrestling, it might be the only way hell ever truly be able to take a breath and stop to smell the roses.Its all part of the journey, said Cole. In my dream pro-wrestling career, I would get to go and wrestle on all the corners of the planet -- get to wrestle for the smallest promotions all the way up to the biggest promotions. I love all the peaks and valleys. ' ' '