Jake Steinfeld - Take A Shot!: A Remarkable Story of Perseverance, Friendship, and a Really Crazy Adventure

Jake Steinfeld is a world-renowned fitness expert and motivator who founded Major League Lacrosse in 1998. The founder and chairman of Body by Jake Global LLC, he pioneered the personal-fitness-training industry and created Americas first fitness-lifestyle television network, FitTV. He served as chair of the Governors Council on Physical Fitness and Sports for California, and is presently chair of the National Foundation for Governors Fitness Councils.

Jake is also the New York Times and Wall Street Journal best-selling author of Ive Seen a Lot of Famous People Naked, and Theyve Got Nothing On You!: Business Secrets from the Ultimate Street-Smart Entrepreneur; as well as Powerliving by Jake: Eleven Lessons to Change Your Life; Dont Quit!: Motivation and Exercise to Bring Out the Winner in YouOne Day at a Time; and Get Strong!: Body by Jakes Guide to Building Confidence, Muscles, and a Great Future for Teenage Guys. Jake lives with his wife, Tracey, and their four children in Los Angeles, California.

Website: www.bodybyjake.com

Dave Morrow is an entrepreneur, businessman, and co-founder of Major League Lacrosse (MLL). The former star of the Princeton Tigers mens lacrosse team from 1990 to 1993, he was a three-time United States Intercollegiate Lacrosse Association (USILA) All-American, twice making the first team.

In an illustrious college career, Dave still holds the distinction of being the last defenseman to earn the NCAA lacrosse player of the year award, was a two-time NCAA defenseman of the year, and made the allIvy League first team three times. During his collegiate career, Princeton won the schools first NCAA tournament championship, won two Ivy League championships, and earned the schools first four NCAA tournament invitations. Following college, he represented Team USA in the 1994 and 1998 World Lacrosse Championships and was named to the 1998 All-World Team.

Daves equipment company, Warrior Sports, is a leading equipment provider to professional, collegiate, and interscholastic teams and players. It provides a variety of equipment and has propagated the interest in titanium material for use in lacrosse and ice-hockey equipment. By cofounding the MLL, he has expanded professional lacrosse from box lacrosse to field lacrosse. Dave lives with his wife, Christine, and four children in Michigan.

Website: www.warrior.com

I would like to thank, first and foremost, my partners in this amazing adventure, Dave Morrow and Tim Robertsonyou always had my back, and youre like brothers to me.

Thank you also to our publisher, Reid Tracy; our editor, Shannon Littrell; and the whole gang at Hay House, for making this experience so enjoyable.

Thanks, of course, to my literary agents Jan Miller and Shannon Marven at Dupree Miller, who do what they do better than anyone else in the world.

Id also like to acknowledge Dave Gross, who in my eyes is the most talented commissioner in professional sports. Were lucky to have him. And to my partner with the pen, Alex Tresniowski, thanks for helping me tell this story. Thanks to the guys in the booth and on the sideline, Quint Kessenich, Joe Beninati, Mike Crispino, and my good buddy Brian Kilmeade.

Thanks to Craig Morganti (C), my right-hand man; to my attorney and great friend Bob Lieberman, who has been there since the beginning; and to the brilliant producerand my palFrank Marshall. Oh, and Dave Morrow has a couple to add as well: Bill Tierney, Billy and Jennifer Frist, and Brooke Coburn.

A very heartfelt thank-you to everyone who not only played a part in this story but also helped me recount it in this book, starting with Frank Vuono and Angel Martinez, two of the best and brightest guys Ive ever met. Thanks also to Dave Klewan, Gabby Roe, Jaye Cavallo, Heidi Krupp, Jo-Ann Geffen, Rick Allen, Matt Dwyer, Ray Schulmayer, Chris Hutchins, Ken Paul, Ted Garber, Steve Uline, Kathy Casso, Bill Bishop, Bob Carpenter, Casey Powell, Mark Millon, Marty Feldman Eyes, and Bow-Tie Bob.

And a special thanks to everyone at Major League Lacrosse, both pastJohn Algie, Jason Chandler, Porter Hayes, Mark Kastrud, Mike Lieberman, Shaun May, Susan Petrovic, Eric Rhew, and Rachel Spatesand presentChris Day, Ryan Guerinot, Aly Morrissey, Kerry Pucillo, Amy Saulen, Ryan Sweeney, and Cassie Watson. You guys have all worked so tirelessly to not only grow our great league, but also the great game of lacrosse.

ALSO BY JAKE STEINFELD

BODY BY JAKE: The Dont Quit Exercise Program

DONT QUIT!: Motivation and Exercise to Bring Out
the Winner in YouOne Day at a Time

GET STRONG!: Body by Jakes Guide to Building Confidence,
Muscles, and a Great Future for Teenage Guys

POWERLIVING BY JAKE: 11 Lessons to Change Your Life

IVE SEEN A LOT OF FAMOUS PEOPLE NAKED,
AND THEYVE GOT NOTHING ON YOU!:
Business Secrets from the Ultimate Street-Smart Entrepreneur

It is May 1998, and I am running like a maniac around the grounds of a luxury hotel in Detroit, Michigan.

Im in the middle of a three-mile sprint that my workout partner has referred to as a little jog, and Im digging down deep just to keep up with this guy, who runs strongly and effortlessly and is in phenomenal shape. Now listen, Im in pretty good shape myself. But the thing is, Im not a big fan of running. In the sixth grade, I did manage to finish the 50-yard dashin three days. So Im not exactly Usain Bolt.

But here I am, sprinting around the hotel, trying to keep up with this gazelle Im running with. This guy is barely breathing hard, so I hide my fatigue and keep going, too. Theres no way Im ever gonna let him see me struggle, even though Im sweating like a farm animal. Just a day earlier, I had put him through my rigorous workout, and he did surprisingly well. Ive seen a lot of people raise the white flag half-way through my routine, but not this guy. So I was going to keep up with him, even if it knocked me out. And around mile two, it looked like it might.

Come on, Jake, were almost finished, the guy says to me.

No sweat, I say to J-Manthe nickname Ive given to John F. Kennedy, Jr.

How did I end up in a fitness throwdown with the renowned son of a President? Me, someone who started life as a fat kid with zero confidence and a bad stutter?

Let me back up the story just a bit.

As a kid growing up in middle-class Baldwin, New York, I had some pretty serious confidence issues. In addition to being chubby, I stuttered so badly that I didnt like making phone calls, even to order pizza (and I loved pizza, which shows you how bad my stutter was). I might have stayed that way if my dad, a street-smart Navy veteran, hadnt come home one summer day with a set of weights and a weight bench. He put them in the backyard and said, Lets go do some bench presses.

And since I was too busy eating a Twinkie or stuffing some other kind of junk food down my throat, I said, No thanks, Dad.

So the bench and the weights stayed in the yard, unused, all summer. Then in the fall my father told me to bring them into the basement laundry room. It so happens my bedroom was in the basement, too. It was a pretty cool room, with a Jimi Hendrix poster on one wall and an Alice Cooper poster on another, and a desk where I did everything I could to avoid studying.

Well, one night I was dragging myself through some social-studies homework, and I leaned back in my chair and started daydreaming, as I often did, when I happened to notice a barbell sticking out of the laundry room.