College & Social Life: The Importance Of Networking

College & Social Life: The Importance Of Networking
M.D. Wright
8.30.09

I had it all laid out before me. I was a freshman at Long Island University out in Brooklyn. I had made quite a few new friends from all the boroughs, some from Jersey, a couple from Westchester and a few from Long Island. I had made in-rows with a couple of my professors and finally learned how to navigate the maze of BS at LIU's administrative office. What's more, after a tough first semester, I got a job at Kinney Shoes, which was to open the first four Champ's Shoes stores in New York City (this was 1998). I was excited and had assisted with set-up at the store at 23rd & 8th and the Dyckman St. store. I had my eyes set on breaking in with one of the sports teams, particularly the Knicks, who, at the time were STILL RELEVANT. I had the energy to put up with a lot more nonsense back then than I do now, so I would've persisted until I got my foot in the door; then worked up. Who knows where I would be now, 11+ years later?

Fast forward a bit, I am forced to withdraw from LIU against my will -- because everyone who knows me KNOWS I neither wanted to leave school NOR New York. Little did I know that the decision that was made FOR me was going to still be affecting me to this day, and possibly for the rest of my life.

There was a huge mess with the paperwork pertaining to withdrawal and then the school then royally screwed up my financial aid package. This guaranteed I would not be going to school anywhere ANYTIME soon. I went from having no debt to owing $11,000 to LIU. What made matters worse was the fact that I had been in the hospital about 18 months prior after nearly losing my life due to a cyst near my brain and blood poisoning. Duke Hospital had sent the bill to the address where my parents lived when I was brought home from the hospital after birth. Talk about a colossal mess. Given that my residency was in New York State at the time, the balance owed to LIU, and not having anything but a high school diploma (with no refined skills to speak of, obviously), I was not going to be getting anything decent with regards to jobs. I was sunk.

To make matters worse, I was not around people my age. Thankfully, God did bless me with a job. Albeit at $8 an hour. Definitely can't rent an apartment, buy a car (which is definitely necessary in North Carolina) and MUCH LESS repay those student loans and a hospital bill which was over a year and a half past due. Add to the fact that I hate Greensboro and never wanted to leave New York, I was tight for a good year and a half. I managed to save enough money within a year to buy a car. I was elated, because not only had I bought a car, but my skin had cleared up from the near-fatal case of psoriasis/blood poisoning that I had endured my entire four years of high school and the two subsequent years following.

Two months later, the car was totally smashed, did 15 grand. Some girl in one of those old '87 big body Thunderbirds tries to accelerate from 0 to beat me across the street as I'm doing 55 mph. DEAR GOD. I spent the entire summer of 1999 driving a putty piece of crap Toyota Corolla instead of my Honda Accord. I couldn't catch a break. At the job, I was 20 years old, surrounded by people 32, 34, 35 years old. No young women my age (except this one whore, who I will come back to later) and overall, no one who I could hang with after work. Given that I was not in school to socialize with people my age, how WAS I going to get to know more people. What did I have in common with these people who had spouses/significant others, children, second jobs and who could go to bars and lounges, when I had none of those things and was underage? I had every intention to come back to New York and resume my life, because save for the first 7 years that I lived there, Greensboro was not home to me and never has been. I just lived there because my parents did. I have no connection there and I hated being there. Home is where your heart is, and by now it is clear that Greensboro wasn't where my heart was ha.

Still, I tried to make the most of it. This is when I began getting in trouble, though. I had been very materialistic after being put onto armaniexchange, Iceberg, Coogi, etc. when hanging with some of my friends from school in Brooklyn. I was always hanging out in Morningside, up on the Hill and on the strip on 2-5 where my aunt worked at the State Office Bldg. I had always been fashionable and a trendsetter, but after spending so much time in Harlem World I really OD'ed with the name brands. So my means of expression and let's face it, having FUN, was to go shopping every week. I literally bought a new pair of kicks every week. Whether they were Air 1's, Jordans in a different colorway, Air Maxes, Timbos, dress shoes, what have you, I shopped every week. I owned every bottle of designer cologne, and bought all the name brands that I mentioned, plus those overpriced $150 Ralph Lauren sweaters. I did this for two years. Ran up $12,000 in credit card debt and repaid it all by 2002. I was miserable, because it took me 5 years to even make a respectable wage at that job. I had no privacy. I couldn't really travel, acquire real estate, go to school or anything, because what money I could've used to do that, I spent shopping, since I couldn't do ANYTHING ELSE in Greensboro. I hated hanging around some of those people at the church, because I never really felt at home there, either. I much preferred my other church in New Jersey, which I've been attending off and on for 13 years now.

I'd gotten myself in some serious trouble with debt, but managed to repay it all. Then, in a blink of an eye things changed. They began hiring younger people at the office. I was about 23 or 24, but by then, I had designs on leaving the job and, after spending all or part of every summer going back to NY and NJ (I had briefly lived with my aunt out in Newark in the late 90s), I was ready to go back. But then my wisdom tooth came in, and another tooth had to be removed on top of it. Because my then-car (a 1999 Mazda 626 with 130,000 miles and two blown transmissions -- working on a third at that time) was about to break down and I had spent most of 2001 and 2002 repaying credit card debt, I was wiped out savings-wise. I had to borrow money to pay the $1,100 for dental surgery dear god. I bought my first laptop that summer and, while speculating for real estate, had contemplated buying a house. I never seriously thought about buying because I was planning to return to New York that year. My dad was right in one regard: buying that house, even if I never really lived in it, would've yielded me about $40,000 in equity, because there were two phases built behind it. But I had a major concern and a huge decision to make: I had been accepted to Seton Hall for a second time that year (2003) and St. John's University out in Queens had recruited me to come and study with a full scholarship. At the time, St. John's didn't have dorms nor apartments, and I didn't have relatives in Queens at the time. Commuting from Harlem or Newark daily was not a good look. Or so I thought. (Little did I know the things I wasn't willing to do back then I HAVE to do now just to get to where I want to go sheesh). I passed on St. John's for petty reasons (I was against formal education at that point). I had been making close to $40K with bonuses and stock options every quarter. I was looking to invest in real estate and had other business endeavors in the works. "Who needs school?" I mused. All I did was delay my future by taking so long to return. Plus, I was only around people 10 years older than me, as I said.

This is where things began to crumble for real.

I had been messing with the office whore, who had been messing with half the guys at the office (this was an office of about 800, 700+ women, about 100 men, half of whom were gay, the other half who were married -- and some of them were DL gay -- the others were single and she was messing with most of THEM). Of course, being taken by her looks, I spent three years wasting my time on her. She was a year younger than me and we had been "hooked up" by her witchy friend who whined when she talked but had a deep guttural laugh like Fred Flintstone dear god. When they finally hired people close to my age, I was sick of that place. And it was the same old thing: the ones who didn't scare you by looking at them were hoes. I even had a couple of them who were married or on their way to being married throwing themselves at me. I was about to have a mid-life crisis at 25 ha.

My 626 blew its transmission for the last time. My dad had talked me into getting that car, because it was cheaper and I could learn how to work on cars. He was right on both counts. The car was DEFINITELY CHEAP (sarcasm) and I learned how to fix almost anything on a car. I wasn't totally upset. I drove that car into the ground in the four years I had it. 135,000 miles, three transmissions, several trips to NY and NJ, FL, DC, GA. It was time. But this time, (at the same time I was deciding about buying a house and going to St. John's) the transmission blew and I said "screw it", and said I was going to get the car I really wanted. At the time, the new Nissan Z car -- the 350 -- had just come out. I bought the 2nd one that had been sold at this particular dealer. They had to drive 100 miles to pick it up and custom detail it, with a free tank of gas for the inconvenience for me. I loved that car. I had it for 4 years and had about 90K on it. Did the same things: drove it to death in the same places, but it handled better and of course chicks saw that. I became even more suspicious and cynical. I began hating everything by the end of 2004.

Earlier in the summer of 2004, my friend Angelica gave me a prophetic word. It involved me going back to school. GOOD GRIEF. Hearing that now wouldn't be a big deal, since I'm still pursuing three more degrees, but at the time, I hated the idea. I prayed about it and I knew she wasn't drunk or something. It was God reminding me of what I had lost sight of because I had been forced to make a decision between choosing band and a tech prep program. I had also been told all my life growing up that I was going to be an engineer, even though I have abhorred math since middle school good heavens. I flunked math throughout high school. Only made things worse dealing with that skin/blood disorder. I really wish I had been allowed to LaGuardia (Performing Arts) or Julliard (and yes, my sister and I both have multiple talents in musical instruments). But, because I didn't get to play in the band, I became rusty in everything from drums, to guitar, keys, etc. Bad move.

Add to the fact that my sights had always been set up on front office/ownership work -- NOT playing professional sports (although I definitely could have played cornerback in the NFL or all three outfield positions/3B/SS or 2B in baseball -- had a cannon for an arm and could hit for days -- except a great uncle Charlie; but who really hits THOSE great anyway?). I had to ditch that because of my illness. I ran track and ran it well, because it was the least taxing physically dealing with all the 24/7 pain due to Erythrodermic Psoriasis, boils, cysts, open sores all over my body, bleeding all day, hair falling out in clumps and having no energy most of the day. I am amazed I didn't die. God had a plan for me.

And so I was reminded of that plan with Angelica's prophetic word.

Of course I wanted to work in sports as an agent/financial and legal adviser. And so it began. I didn't waste time. I applied to UNC Greensboro the Monday after. And I got accepted.

After beginning a non-profit organization with my cousin that fall, I saw it fit to leave that job finally; after 7+ years. They weren't accomodating me with regards to my class schedule and obviously finishing what I had started in Brooklyn was my goal at this point. So I screw "take your job and shove it" and left in August 2005. The non-profit was in place and we were all ready to get our 501c3 and funding. We struggled throughout 2006 trying to do this and I began to lose everything I had. With no real networking system in place (because I had returned to college shortly before my 26th birthday, I was around people 7, 8 years younger than me now), I had nothing to fall back on. I was dwarfed socially, dating back to being forced to leave LIU back in '98. I couldn't relate to my roommates at UNCG much. My last roommate was a cool dude and we had been friends (still are to this day), but he was 21 and I was 29 -- and he was getting married, and I, BECAUSE I WAS NOT AROUND WOMEN MY AGE for the past 10 years, was a fish out of water. It is a very numbing feeling. Makes you not really care. Even though I have always been about commitment and marriage, I never had a shot. I never had a shot in high school because of my condition. And even after that, because I was always 10+ years younger (at the job) or 7-10 years older (at UNCG) than all the women I was around -- it was forced lone wolfdom. I wasn't even a loner. It was the antithesis of my personality. My family will tell you that. I was always outgoing. But going out and getting hammered, using coke and weed, waking up next to some oinker who you don't even remember speaking to isn't my idea of fun at age 29, 30 -- nor had it ever been, really. I had only gone to the Tunnel down in Chelsea 3 or 4 times and didn't enjoy it. And I never saw the big deal with weed or getting drunk 3 times a week. My parents had broken that generational curse, so I couldn't really enjoy it.

I had said the last three years I was at UNCG that I was heading back to NY for good and not looking back. I had tried to transfer to NYU in 2006 but could not due to the non-profit not gaining funding. My cousin and I became even more engulfed in our studies and couldn't devote any extra time to the organization. We both nearly lost it all. I, in fact, LITERALLY DID. My credit, credit score, all my savings, my car, everything -- except my sanity. I was rock bottom. At age 27. All because of what happened when I had been forced to leave LIU.

2007 came and went. No job. I managed to get half the money UNCG owed me and when I came out to Staten Island for the summer, I had been working to transfer yet again. No dice. I had too many credits at UNCG by this point. It was senseless to give back 15 credits to get into NYU at $55K per. I came right back in 2008 and spent half the summer trying to get into City College in Harlem. Walked hundreds of blocks between Hunter, City and Baruch to get it done. I was accepted, all accept CUNY's LONG-STANDING TRADITION of screwing peoples' financial aid. To compound things, I had yet ANOTHER chance to get back on my track of sports. I had landed an internship with CBS Sports to work the football pre/post game show with Greg Gumbel, Dan Marino, Shannon Sharpe and Boomer; but I couldn't take it because I couldn't sign up for classes at City college BECAUSE of my financial aid situation DEAR. GOD.

I had to go back to Greensboro and finish at UNCG. I had hurt my back in September 2007 and spent the rest of that year and 2008 incapacitated. I had surgery on my back in September 2008 and am just getting back to where I had been physically in 2004 here in August 2009. I feel as though I have come full circle. I had struggled 100 times more in Greensboro than I ever would've if I had been consistently been in NY instead of here and there over the years and all the moving back and forth. It hurt me socially, it hurt me business-wise/networking and it hurt me academically. I am where I would've been in 1999 right now. TEN YEARS LATER. The little bit of struggle, going with eating one meal a day the last couple of weeks at LIU could not compare to not knowing if I would eat at ALL for three straight years. I had a good job with Champ's Shoes, would've had excellent camaraderie with my co-workers (many of whom were LIU students and other students from other universities) and would've been able to network with some really influential people. I don't blame EVERYTHING on the decision that was made without my input and against my will -- as I did run up debt, but none of that would have happened if I had not been usurped. I spent a decade trying to undo something that I had nothing to do with in the first place.

I feel as though I'm playing catch-up in every facet that I have mentioned. Some people remark, "Mike, you don't look 30. You look 21, 22". Maybe that's just God giving me a mulligan and a chance to do what I never had a chance to do when I really was that age.

Who knows, but God?