why this is being written — personally

I grew up in the rural North Carolina mountains playing soccer most of my life. Our town’s slogan was “2 hours from anywhere.” To fill you in if you’re not from a small town in the south - The hierarchy of sports begins with football head and shoulders above everything else. Baseball, basketball, track, golf, and wrestling descend in varying orders on a totally separate plane from football. Then far off somewhere in a muddy cow field you have soccer.

Anyway, when I was 13 one of my best friends, Zach, and I received letters asking us to play in a soccer tournament in Sweden. It was one of those things that a lot of kids probably received. But it was still a trip to Europe and the chance for some exposure to coaches and recruiters for club teams we never had where we lived.

I’ll never forget stepping on the field to practice before the tournament. There Zach and I were in Sweden with the rest of the team assembled from different states on the east coast ready to impress the world! I’ll also never forget what happened when the gravity of it all hit me and I self-destructed. My nerves got the better of me being around so much talent and I decided that it would better not to try and to fail rather than to give it everything I had and fail. I have regretted that decision the rest of my life and took more than a decade to truly get over it.

The point of writing that is to illustrate why I am doing this blog in the first place. While there is still a huge chance of failure, I refuse to be that 13 year old boy on the soccer field wasting his dreams away again because something is difficult and not guaranteed. If I fail this time it won't be for lack of effort and it won't keep me up at night wondering what could have happened if I had only tried. As painful as it could be to publicly fail, we want this endeavor to begin with the same level of authenticity we plan to fuse into our sourcing, operations, hiring, and final products. So we invite you to follow along as we attempt to build Bridge City Coffee and feel free to spread the word!