How I Got Here with Corey Koskie

Wes Walz was born in Calgary, Alberta, Canada and this is where he started his tedious road to the NHL.  Walz's path exemplifies his commitment to play hockey at the highest level.  Whether it was the long bus rides in the snowy tundra of Canada or playing overseas in Switzerland. His journey had many ups and downs but at times it looked like there were more downs.  Wes plowed forward and got a second chance. He made the most of it playing for the Minnesota Wild.  

This is how he got here.

If you knew nothing about Jason Zucker except that he was a professional athlete, born in Newport Beach, CA, and grew in Las Vegas, Nevada, what sport would you think he played?   Maybe he is on the PGA tour? He kind of looks like a baseball player maybe he plays in the MLB? Or maybe he is the Las Vegas version of Spud Webb!  Based on where he is from the last sport you would think of is Ice Hockey.  But it is Ice Hockey.  He is a left-winger for the Minnesota Wild in the NHL.  Zucker was drafted in the second round(59th overall) of the 2010 NHL Draft by Wild.

This is how he got here.

At 7 years old Gavin Kaysen saw what the power of food could do. He saw this making cookies with his grandma. Food can make people smile. This started his love for cooking. Playing youth sports helped him for years after he was done. The lesson learned permeates through his business and life. He learned about culture from his Little League coach Pete Carroll(Seattle Seahawks Head Coach) and how professional athletes handle wins and losses. Like in sports, all it takes is one person to see something in you. That person was a restaurant owner who found Gavin in a Subway making sandwiches as a teenager.  This love for food transpired into multiple critically acclaimed restaurants and provided meals for the Minnesota Wild.

Originally run 12/16/18

Marcus Foligno was a well-travel youth athlete.  Not on his own accord but following his NHL star father.  Where his dad played, the family lived. Where his dad coached the family lived.  A budding baseball star's final childhood move went from Hershey, PA to the nickel mining town of Sudbury, Ontario where baseball was no longer a reality and hockey became everything.    This is his story

WE BELIEVE THAT EVERY ACT OF KINDNESS—NO MATTER HOW BIG OR SMALL—GOES A LONG WAY.” Eric Brust - Co-founder- CEO Johnny pop

Armed with a blender, assorted kitchen utensils and Erik’s vision of a “better-for-you” frozen fruit bar, Andrew Sather, Connor Wray, Kilian Wald, and Erik Brust made their way to the basement kitchen of their dorm at St. Olaf College, in Northfield, Minnesota.

The guys spent many hours cutting and peeling fruits, blending and measuring ingredients, and freezing small batches in ice trays prepped with popsicle sticks. 

Connor Wray tells his story of How He Got Here

Hockey tryouts are on us in Minnesota.  Blake talks about how he had to process his 8-year old son getting cut from the top team and how this notion of being cut affected him, he was cut from a team as a youth hockey player.   This episode talks is a conversation between former professional athletes being cut and how they deal with their kids getting cut from the team.

Are you willing to do what it takes to get what you want?  The no-brainer answer is YES, ABSOLUTELY! But then why don't you have what you want? Is it because the over time we choose the easy road vs the hard road?  There is no easy road to the top in professional sports for an athlete or for a front office position. Getting to the top is hard. Long hours, low pay,  and time away from your family are all part of the grind. Working in the front office can be a thankless job. Matt Majka knows all about the grind. He has worked for the Minnesota Wild for 22 years. Before working for the Wild Matt worked for RollerBlade, a company that was owned by Bob Naegele Jr.  When Bob Naegele Jr. got the Wild he convinced Matt to come over and lead the marketing team.  Matt is know the President of the Minnesota Wild.   This is how Matt got here.

Corey Koskie played for the Minnesota Twins, Toronto Blue Jays, and the Milwaukee Brewers.  He retired in 2009 while in spring training with the Chicago Cubs.  His story has been told many times but Corey tells the detail behind his attempted comeback to the MLB.  Corey faced more adversity in 6 weeks than he faced his whole major league career.

How does somebody go from play youth sport growing up in California, to playing college tennis, to founding a company that could change the face of medicine.  Ping Yeh fought a tough battle with blood cancer and survived.  Yeh is cancer-free, but he still deals with side effects from a high-potency regimen of chemotherapy that had almost no positive effect because his body was resistant to the drugs.  He survived the treatment, but the question remained: Why was this a trial-and-error situation? Why did Ping have to go and take this drug that could have killed me?  These questions burned in Ping, so he co-founded Stemonix, which invented a way to create and test chemical reactions between drugs and human cells outside of the body.

The company launched in 2014 and worked for a year perfecting its idea and forming its team.  The privately held company has attracted more than $11 million in investments so far, including a  $6 million series A funding round.  In 2016 Stemonix was the grand prize winner in the Minnesota Cup, an entrepreneurship competition organized by the Carlson School of Management.  July of 2017, Stemonix received a Red Herring Top 100 North America award from tech-news company Red Herring.

This is his how he got here.

Good Listen for aspiring entrepreneur, business men and women, and seeing how sports helped a person through chemotherapy

The path to  Major League Baseball isn't always on the diamond.  There are other ways to work for a Major League Baseball team.  Both paths require hard work, tenacity, and resilience. Dustin Morse has climbed the ranks from an intern with the Chicago Cubs to the Senior Director of Communications at Minnesota Twins.  Some will say that he is "lucky" to be able to interact with the best baseball players in the world on the daily basis.  There maybe some luck involved but through hard work he put himself in a position to be lucky.  Listen to Dustin tell his story of his path to the big leagues, who his favorite manager to work with is, the toughest situation he had to deal with, and the players he connected with. 

Dr. Heather Bergeson is an accomplished Primary Care Sports & Pediatrics Physician.  She is also an athlete and youth sports mom.  She has seen the good of youth sports and she has seen the bad.  She has treated 1000's of kids for overuse injuries and has had to deal with out of control coaches as a mom.  She is doing all this with a long-term, progressively disabling autoimmune disease, Rheumatoid arthritis. This disease causes inflammation, swelling, and pain in and around the joints and other body organs.   In this episode Dr. Bergeson tell us how she got into medicine, the effect playing youth sports has had on her, dealing with her disease and how she had to dodge a scalpel thrown at her in the OR during her residency. 

With every sport there is a risk for injury. With contact sports the risk increases dramatically. It is every parents greatest fear that when their child gets hit they don't get up. 

Jack Jablonski’s life changed forever after he was hit during a high school hockey game. The resulting injury left him quadriplegic. In a flash, Jack rose to local and national recognition. The ensuing outpouring of support not only helped Jack begin the journey toward his personal goal to someday skate again, it also provided the inspiration for his family and friends to do more. Jack continues down his road to recovery, believing that every day holds the potential for something amazing to happen.

In this episode Jack talks about his journey and what he plans to do in the future.

Corey Koskie played for the Minnesota Twins, Toronto Blue Jays, Milwaukee Brewers and retired in 2009 while he was in Spring Training with the Chicago Cubs.   July 5th, 2006 would be a day that changed Corey Koskie's career path forever.  A little fly ball over his head landed him on the disabled list for 2 1/2 years.  Corey tells his story of what happened and the events that transpired over the two years that lead him back to giving it another shot.

Darrell Thompson became a Minnesotan because of an IBM minority recruited push in the 1970's.  His dad was recruited and the Thompson family moved to Rochester.  Making friends in a new city is hard enough but it can be even harder when nobody looks like you. Sports helped connect his parents to the community. Sports also helped Darrell Thompson connect to his community. Darrell was blessed with some incredible gifts and not  only  did he use them on the football field but off the field as well.  Listen as Darrell Thompson talks about his life on and off the field.  

This is his story.......

 As a child in the 1950s, Frank White loved to watch his dad, Louis “Pud” White Jr., play baseball with the Twin City Colored Giants. That made an impression on him.  The 50's was also a time of segregation in the South but Jim Crow were not in the north.  At least they weren't suppose to be but there was still a culture of racism that exist. Frank White tells us stories of growing up in St. Paul during this time.  This is his story.

Through his acrobatic catches, booming bat, and contagious smile Torii Hunter captured the hearts of fans everywhere he played; Minnesota, LA, and Detroit. He was a guy that loved playing the game of baseball and his game showed it. Torii was a great teammate that came to play everyday and gave his full effort. To get to the Major Leagues was a battle. The east side of Pine Bluff, Arkansas was not an easy place grow up. Money was tight and he would go days without eating, rats eating at his wrist while he slept, gang pressure, and the pressure of trying figure out a way to help his mom pay the bills. He had to deal with a lot of adversity and battled through it. This is his story......

On October 15, 2008, Jeff Dubay was arrested in Maplewood,MN for felony possession of a controlled substance. On October 24, 2008 KFAN terminated Dubay.  Jeff Dubay was spinning out of control.   Jeff Dubay had the sports geek dream roles.  He was a clubhouse guy for the Twins when they won the 1987 and 1991 World Series.  He then moved on to a very successful radio career and had the top sports radio show in the Twin Cities, The PA & Dubay Show.  What would push a guy on the top of his career down a dark path.  There is a saying "We are one phone call away from our knees".  Jeff Dubay got his world rocked. He spiraled, and on one fateful night he made a decision that sent him down a darker path for 10 years until he found MN Teen Challenge. (Jeff graduated last Friday from their year long in-residence program).  This is his story.......

Tony Dungy is an Uncommon Man, Uncommon Coach, on a Uncommon path.  The son of educators his coaching journey started in the living room of his home under the guidance of his mother and father. How is it possible to win the respect of his players and lead them to the Super Bowl without yelling, and screaming?  Can you be successful without compromising faith and family?  The answer is yes.  Tony Dungy did all of this.  Tony tells his story of the adversity he faced in his journey.  Nothing every comes easy.

Corey Koskie is a former Minnesota Twins, Toronto Blue Jays, Milwaukee Brewers and Chicago Cub.  He is also the founder of Linklete.com. January's topic is fear on Linklete.com.  Being fearless doesn’t mean eliminating fear. Being fearless means knowing how to leverage fear. And to do that, you need to know a few things about what you are dealing with.  Just like everyone walking the face of the earth Corey Koskie has dealt with some tough situations.  In this episode Corey talks about dealing with adversity that lead to significant fear early in his career. 

In 2018 Dani Cameranesi was part of U.S Olympic History.  The USA Women's Olympic Hockey Team won a gold medal for the 2nd time in history.  The 1st time was 20 years ago.  To become an Olympic champion requires resilience and grit.  Dani had to learn that through her youth, high school career, and college career.  Playing hockey with the boys at a young age to starting all over at a new high school to dealing with injuries that could have side tracked her dreams.   She had to face it all. Listens as Dani talks about her path to Olympic gold and the support she had along the way.  

 According to University of Minnesota yearbooks, approximately 30 women tried out for the first-ever Gopher Women’s hockey team in 1918. Fast forward 60 years, there is very little organized girls hockey. Girls just didn’t play hockey. They figure skated and if they wanted to play something like hockey they chased a ring around the ice and played ringette in Canada. Ringette never took off in the US and in 1994 the Minnesota High School League voted to endorse ice hockey over ringette as an official high school sport for girls. In Canada if girls want to play a winter ice sport they played ringette with other girls. In the USA girls who wanted to play a team ice sport had to play with the boys. Winny Brodt wanted to play a team ice sport so she played hockey with the boys.  Being the first meant it is going to be a tough road, especially in hockey.   Remember, back in the 80's there was checking in pee wee hockey.  If you're a girl playing with the boys, you have to be prepared for contact.  Winny had to survive in a very physical game.  She not only survived, she thrived.