Hi, my name is Andre Gumprecht. I am 38 years old and one of the Head Coaches at the Central Coast Sports College (Campus Central Coast). I am one of the luckiest people on earth as I have been able to make my passion a profession; a professional footballer and coach.
“What helped me become a professional footballer? And, why I am so passionate about the concept of the Central Coast Sports College?”
I have to go back 27 years. One morning at a junior training session with my youth club FC Carl Zeiss Jena (East Germany), we saw a bus drive past on the highway at the end of the training field. It was full of factory workers going to work.
The coach (Ronald Prause) said to the whole team, “ You have the choice, if you want to line up on the bus stop every morning and be carried in a cramped bus to work in a factory you just turn up and go through the motions or you come every morning in a nice car where people will be asking for your autograph every day while you are doing what you love.
Without exception the entire team wanted to know what we needed to do.
His answer: You need to put effort in DAILY!
I will never forget that, as it became the mantra for my life.
Unfortunately it is not as easy as it sounds. There are a number of things that have to happen to get you there.
Malcom Gladwell in his book Outliers says:
“The first step to excellence often lays in hidden advantages and extraordinary opportunities as well as cultural legacies.”
After reading his book I am able to describe and explain why I became the youngest German footballer (1993) scoring a professional contract in the Series A (Italy) and made 10 appearances in the top league in Italian football by the age of 18; challenging players like Dennis Bergkamp (Inter Milan), Paul Gascoigne (Lazio Roma), Ruben Sosa (inter Milan), Giuseppe Bergomi (Inter Milan), Paolo Maldini (AC Milan), Jürgen Kohler, Andreas Moeller (Juventus Turin), Thomas Heassler (AS Roma) etc.
I am privileged to share the story with you.
The Miracle in Sport History
At the Olympic Games Montreal in 1976 a nation took 40 gold medals, six more than the United States.
A country the size of South Australia with a population of only 16 million, has leap frogged into international dominance in sport for almost two decades.
How is this possible?
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