Tim Tebow can't play football. Sure he could kill you or I in the sport, but when it comes to playing in the Pros, nope.
It's not like the guy didn't win a National Championship. It's not like he didn't win the Heisman Trophy - the two highest achievements in College football - he did. But he still can't play in the pros.
I felt like that in my songwriting career.
I wrote with Grammy winners. Dove award winners. A bunch of guys with #1 songs and on and on. I had a lot of opportunities in music. What I didn't do, was 'turn pro'.
Sure, I was published - and by the largest publisher - but I never got a cut. All my albums failed. Every band I was in failed. Every band I started failed.
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I watch these professional quarterbacks on teams now and I wonder who they are and why they are there.
Tebow couldn't make it but this no name someone did - and is a starter? It makes no sense.
But the people who know better know more than I do and they know something I don't - those no names are better on any given Sunday than Tebow would be. Despite his credentials.
When I was active in NashvilleHype! and discovering unknown artist it was the same way. I had "ears" for talent. I knew it when I heard it and I never doubted I was right.
Most of the time I was.
Picking talent is a lot like being a coach. I can't tell you the number of hours I spent talking with artist and encouraging them to not give up and keep at it. Etc.
I still do that. And that's good advice.
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What do you do when you're a Tim Tebow and yet, you can't go pro? How do you find open doors and opportunity then?
Help others go pro.
Those who can't do, teach. Coach.
I've heard that my whole life - and in many regards, it's true.
I could get signed but I couldn't succeed. I couldn't make the team.
I'd get a shot here and a shot there and all those shots built the resume but they didn't make me a professional. I couldn't stay in the game.
The only way I could - help others get and stay in the game. I needed to coach.
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Helping others was my way of prolonging my career in music. I was done. Over. Finito. I wasn't going to do anything.
But I knew enough people, and they knew me well enough to know that should I start discovering talent, I could help them. And so, I did.
And it was very fulfilling.
A lot of the artists I championed were signed.
Nine.
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I was even able, years later, to bring several down to Florida, have someone else pay them to be in front of thousands of people, and get their names all over local radio here.
And if I couldn't bring them down, I still played them to a good audience on my radio show. I wasn't a 'jock', I was a talk show host. But it was my show and I could do whatever I wanted. And every week, I wanted to play one of my artists. So I did.
That's pretty nice.
Short story I've never told:
When I first got the job at the Redneck Yacht Club in Punta Gorda Florida I had a meeting with Clear Channel radio. I thought it was going to be me and the sales guy.
I walked into the room, introduced myself, and he said everyone isn't here yet, we'll get started in a minute.
Few minutes of small talk later, the entire staff started piling in the conference room. The president. The digital lady. The radio personalities. The tech guys. I mean, the whole building.
They didn't know me from Adam so I started telling them about myself. In the course of that I mentioned a number of artists that I had worked with and championed in Nashville - two in particular I told them they needed to be playing on the radio, all the time - and if they didn't now, they would.
A few years pass and Rachel Farley is the headline act of the big 4th of July party in the city. Tens of thousands of people came to see the fireworks, but the radio station hired her and everyone got to see what I saw years before.
The following year the headliner was Jaida Dreyer. You guessed it. I told them one the very first day I ever met them of these two artists. A couple years later and they were headlining the biggest shows the city has.
They didn't ask for that opportunity. I was able to open the door for them and create the opportunity to be heard on the biggest stage in town.
Pretty cool.
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When you're a Tebow and you can't make the pros, coach someone with talent and help them, as much as possible, get into the pros.
They may not make it either. I've had artists signed who then turned their back on me and stop taking my advice, only to be dropped themselves and come back asking me what they do now - my advice;
"Time to start helping others."
That's the best way to stay in the game and that's really the only way you're going to feel good about all you went through to get where you didn't want to be.
There's still opportunities - just not the one's you might have seen in the beginning.
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