Most free agents know how to prepare to compete. They train, study film, and show up to showcases in peak shape. Far fewer prepare for everything around the competition: the first conversation with a coach or scout, the follow-up afterward, the relationship with the person sitting next to them in the room.
That gap matters because opportunity doesn’t announce itself. It doesn’t arrive on a schedule or in the form an athlete expects, and it often shows up while a player is still chasing a roster spot. The only thing an athlete controls is being ready.
Parallel, Not Intersecting
BDOC calls its approach the dual track: on-field development (performance, preparation, evaluation, exposure) and off-field development (identity, relationships, financial awareness, professional skills, career direction), built at the same time.
Adrian Lunsford, a former professional defensive back and coach, is firm on one word: parallel. Two roads that intersect make you stop and look both ways. In his words, “intersection causes crash and burnout.” Parallel tracks let you move full speed on both.
Amanda Frazier puts it in physical terms. Picture walking a rail with one foot on each side. Your left leg can’t leap five steps ahead without your right leg falling short. Neither track gets to race ahead while the other is neglected.
Parallel doesn’t mean equal. Football preparation can fill most of a day, and the second track doesn’t have to match it hour for hour. It has to be consistent and intentional, and it can start small.
What Readiness Looks Like
Ask Adrian what separates a prepared player from one simply chasing another chance, and he says consistency. He likes the saying “how you do anything is how you do everything.” Even in a five-minute conversation, he says, you can learn a lot from how someone speaks and carries themselves, and whether they stay consistent from the first sentence to the last. Amanda adds follow-through: did they present themselves professionally, and did they follow up?
Then there’s fit. Football is a business, and ability alone doesn’t settle where someone lands. A player can have everything a team wants and still not match what one organization needs right now, while ten other teams might need exactly that player and never see him. That doesn’t make talent optional. It means talent meets timing, and timing is out of the athlete’s hands.
Adrian made a point of speaking to everyone in the building, including the custodian, because the people who are there before you arrive and after you leave see what an organization is really like.
The Professional Behind the Athlete
Amanda starts from a simple observation: an athlete trying to play professionally is already running a business, and the business is you. Managing that identity isn’t the same as promoting yourself. It’s your reputation: how you communicate, how you conduct yourself, whether you honor commitments, how you represent yourself online, and how you treat people. A social media profile is one expression of that reputation, not the whole of it. That’s Adrian’s consistency again.
Athletes put real hours into footwork, drills, and film. How much time goes into preparing for the conversations that open doors? If you train for an hour, what if fifteen minutes went to practicing a thirty-second introduction you could give an agent seated beside you on a plane?
These skills aren’t saved for retirement. Communication, follow-through, and relationships matter in conversations with coaches, scouts, and agents, at showcases, and in judging which opportunities genuinely fit. They can support professional opportunities, but they can’t guarantee a playing contract or any specific outcome. They can also make an athlete easier to remember and better prepared to evaluate what’s in front of them.
Both partners return to the same line: you don’t know who you’re sitting next to. That athlete across the room could become a coach, a scout, or a connection in a field you haven’t considered. But meeting someone is only the beginning. Following up and staying genuinely engaged is how a handshake becomes a relationship, and that upkeep is part of professional development.
Adrian offers a test: if there were no game, what would you invest in?
Where to Start
Start, and stay consistent. Give off-field development regular time, the way you would a drill.
Build a résumé, then use it. A résumé in a folder helps no one. Send it out.
Audit your online presence. Does what’s visible about you reflect who you want people to see?
Practice introducing yourself. Say out loud who you are and what you bring.
Keep your connections alive. Follow the people you meet through sports and stay engaged.
Pursue It, and Own It
Continuing to chase a playing opportunity is a legitimate decision, and building professional capabilities doesn’t undermine it. BDOC doesn’t tell athletes what they can’t do. It gives them the information to decide for themselves. As Adrian puts it, “informed decisions are the best decisions.”
One international athlete, after years of trying, committed fully to a showcase on the field and off it, preparing a résumé and working through professional-development resources on branding and relationships. He left without an offer. On his own initiative, he started a free youth football program in his community and later took a coaching role. That doesn’t erase the disappointment of a goal not reached, but it shows an athlete can pursue football seriously and still find new ways to build a career in the sport.
Athletes can’t control every roster decision. They can control their preparation, their relationships, and how they develop as professionals, so their future doesn’t hang on one roster decision.
Two tracks. One career.
Written by Amanda Frazier & Adrian Lunsford
BDOC Sports