Hello!
Welcome to the Careers4Kids podcast where kids learn careers.
This is Maxwell Valencia.
And this is Henry Morrison.
And today we have Erwin Valencia, a wellness expert and a high-performance coach for the
New York Knicks.
Hello, Mr. Valencia.
Thank you for spending your time to be on Careers for Kids.
We have a great interview.
Now let's get started.
Let's go!
Tell us what you currently do right now.
Well, currently I'm on sabbatical after almost 20 years in the world of professional sports.
My last post was the wellness lead and the director of training and conditioning for
the New York Knicks.
Prior to that, I was also the Major League Rehab Director of the Pittsburgh Pirates Major
League Baseball team.
And so I am now spending some time for myself, taking care of myself, but continue to have
conversations with just a few clients that I have coached in the past that have continued
to ask for my services more, particularly as a high-performance coach and not necessarily
as a sports medicine expert.
I like that.
So sabbatical is like taking a break.
Sabbatical?
Go ahead.
Go ahead, Henry.
Thanks.
Tell me more about your career and how you got to this position.
Well, my career has spanned a number of years of studying and figuring out specifically
what I wanted to do.
And that started for me as a young boy at the age of 18 and knowing that my gift was
the gift of nurturing and caring for people.
And as an athlete, simultaneously, I was trying to figure out a way that I can work in basically
the world of sports, but also be surrounded by the best athletes in the world.
And so my life was going in that direction in every possible way.
So I did everything possible through school and through internships and through other
experiences and connections that allowed me to find myself in sports, which I was in for
almost 20 years.
That's cool.
I mean, it sounds like you had a lot of like, you knew what you wanted to do from like an
early point and you kind of led with that.
I was 18 when I knew that this was the direction I was going to go.
I woke up in the middle of the night with a dream that I was in the middle of a basketball
court with thousands of people around me with cameras flashing and sounds blazing and the
rumbling of the floor because of the court and the basketballs.
And I knew that one day I was going to be in that situation.
I did not expect for that situation to be at the world's most famous arena, which was
Madison Square Garden.
That's amazing.
Your dream actually came true.
There's only a little people who what they want to be when they're young.
It actually happens in the end.
It's really hard.
But I guess it happens to you.
You're lucky.
Yeah, I mean, it can happen as long as you just go through with it.
Yup.
That's a message to everyone listening.
And what part of your job do you enjoy the most and dislike the most?
I think what I love about my job is being able to be with these amazing professional
athletes and be able to like push them to the next level.
A lot of them are very blessed and very raw to be able to have talents and skills that
not many people have.
I mean, there are only about 300 NBA players that are in the NBA and then to then fine
tune that and help those that want to be part of the elite, one percent of basketball players.
And I think for me, that's the most exciting part is giving an opportunity for some of
these future superstars to grow and become who they want to be and to witness that next
alongside them.
And the toughest part of my challenge is definitely the travel and the amount of time you spend
being with these guys.
And it doesn't get any easier each year, it gets harder with the pressure that you feel
to win championships every year.
And so you lose a lot of sleep, you don't get to spend a lot of time with family.
And so that really has become, I think has become the biggest challenge working in professional
sports.
Can I speak with that?
Yeah, I mean, it's awesome to work in professional sports, but you know, there's a lot of like
pros and cons.
I mean, there's a lot of pros and cons of every job.
But this one, the main one seems to be like traveling a lot and not seeing a lot of family.
But yeah, so I mean, I know you said you had this idea of like, you were like nurturing
when you were 18, but was this the dream job you imagined yourself doing when you were
a kid?
Like, you know, our age?
Yeah, when I was 18, I knew this was the job that I wanted to do.
I wanted to be the first Filipino that was raised and educated in the Philippines to
be on an NBA court on a daily basis.
I was very clear with that vision that woke me up in the middle of the night.
And I was very clear with what I felt, saw, heard, that I knew one day I was going to
get there.
That's really cool.
Like, that's what I want to do.
I want to have a vision.
I want to do it.
And I want to pursue it.
And I want it to come true like you.
Yeah, I mean, that's a message to everybody listening to this, if you are, that as long
as you, I know you guys probably hear this a lot, but you know, if you really try to
pursue your dreams, you can't.
Yes, you can for sure.
So you're the only Filipino who's on a professional basketball court?
The only Filipino that was raised and educated in the Philippines, that grew up in the Philippines,
that was on an NBA court on a daily basis.
I mean, there are a number of Filipino Americans that were born in the United States that were
hafirs, if you ask their fathers, were American.
Yeah, Eric Spolsa's father was Greek.
You know, Jalen Green, Jordan Clarkson, their fathers were American and their mothers were
Filipino, but they didn't grow up in the Philippines.
That makes sense.
That's pretty cool.
And who were your main idols when you were really young?
One of my main idols, really, when I was younger, it was a coach named Phil Jackson.
Phil Jackson was the legendary coach that won, you know, has 13 championship rings,
11 of which he was a head coach first with the Chicago Bulls and then with the LA Lakers.
He won two other championships on his own as a New York Knick, as a player.
So he was always my idol because Phil was one of the first to really bring the thought
process of mindfulness, of meditation, of Zen Buddhism and the world of sport.
He led his players to yoga, they did meditations, they really focused on, you know, really the
mental part of playing sport.
And Michael Jordan became who Michael Jordan was because he was able to command the present
moment on a regular basis.
And Kobe Bryant became the other amazing and one of the top basketball players in history
because of his Mamba mentality, all from which stemmed from Phil Jackson's teachings.
So like, why did you pick this job?
Like what made you do like this job?
I mean, I know you had that vision and everything, but of course there are probably some other
factors.
Yeah, the reason why I picked this job was because it is every young Filipinos dream,
particularly in the Philippines, to work in basketball and to work in the NBA and to be
surrounded by basketball.
Basketball is the number one sport in the Philippines.
You have, you know, and almost as the saying goes, you know, the top, you know, the top
things to Filipinos are number one, God, second, Manny Pacquiao when Manny Pacquiao was really
up in his, at the top of his game, and then basketball.
But now that Manny Pacquiao has stopped boxing, you know, basketball has now caught the second
most important value or the need or want of Filipinos.
So being able to, you know, be able to be able to fulfill my own dream and then turn,
we'll be able to fulfill dreams of millions of Filipinos who want to be in basketball
and want to be in the NBA, which is where the top basketball players in the world are.
So I really felt like this was a calling for me.
And I knew that being in the situation and being able to help people while being in the
situation was something that was very important to me, not just for the present moment, but
also for the legacy that I hope to leave.
And what was the biggest highlight of your career?
Like throughout your entire career, what was the most biggest highlight?
One of the biggest highlights of my career, I'd have to say, was last November, in November
of 2022, it was Filipino Heritage Night at Madison Square Garden, and I was honored by
Madison Square Garden, the Knicks and the Filipino community.
There was about, you know, out of the 20,000 people that were at Madison Square Garden,
maybe about 3,000 of them were Filipino.
And you know, I was honored.
I was placed on the Jumbotron.
They made a little video for me, and then they focused the camera on me for a good one
minute, and then everyone stood up and cheered.
And for me, that was a dream come true.
I mean, that was really the highlight of my career, being able to be honored at your own
arena and that arena happened to be the world's most famous arena.
Oh yeah, I would really, really be happy if it happened to me.
Like a minute of just being honored by every single person in the stadium and people watching
it on TV is just surprising.
Yeah, that's gotta be awesome.
I don't play basketball.
I know Maxwell does, but you know, it's gotta be awesome.
Yeah.
Even with people who just don't play basketball.
Yeah, I mean, it's all part of like, just a bigger idea of like, well, we've said this
three times already, but like pursuing your dream.
Yep.
So like, what are the biggest challenges that you think can be solved by our generation
that you would want us to solve for you?
Well, I think there's so many things that you can kind of solve, but I think the biggest
thing that I feel in your generation is going to really take advantage of is the ability
to use technology for good.
And if there's a way for anyone in your generation to understand the value of technology, we're
to the point that you can use it to inspire, to make a change in people's lives and to
maybe raise funds in order to do good in this world.
And I think that's one of the things that is definitely necessary in your generation
because there has been a period of time that darkness where technology has been used for
evil and it still continue to be, but it is going to be up to your generation to make
those decisions in a better light, hopefully making a difference in the world rather than
destroying it.
Like, yeah, that's, that's a really good message.
Like, that's a really good message.
Like, yeah, there's a lot of technology nowadays.
You can't be sure.
Like, I mean, you'll pretty much never, you're never going to be sure of technology, but
like that's definitely a good message.
Then use it for good.
And like military technologies is a type of technology.
And also if someone like me wants to follow in your footsteps in your careers exactly,
what would you tell him or her?
I mean, I'm going to tell you what I told a Filipino news channel that interviewed me
when I first got the job at New York.
We had one of the major news channels came to my facility, my practice with them and
interviewed me and asked me what advice do I have for kids that want to follow my footsteps,
especially back home in the Philippines.
And I said three things.
One visualize it, two prepare for the path, three manifest it.
When you visualize it, it's about being clear with what you want, what you absolutely want,
what your dream is, absolute clarity and with no doubt of what that looks like and what
that feels like.
Prepare for the path.
Number two, it's doing everything and anything you can in order to get to that situation
or that all you have to do is make sure you prepare for yourself so that when a call arrives
that your skills are ready.
It's doing the internships, it's going to school, it's making the right connections
and then making sure that you yourself are ready for any type of challenges you can face.
So that three, when you manifest that job that dream that you've always had, you know
you're up for the task because sometimes most of us, you know, we dream of something but
then when the dream comes face to face with us, we're not prepared and we don't know what
to do, which then sets up our for failure.
So it's important to know that when you do dream, you make sure that you prepare yourself
first so that when the job shows up, you're ready.
I see that like many people are just not aware of their dreams and not really focusing on
what they want the most.
Some people do that, but they just don't prepare.
Yeah, I mean, I get how it would be hard to prepare, but even if you're like not prepared,
you still like, this is your dream.
You got to like, you, I mean, you don't have to stick with it, but it's like a really good
idea to just stick with it.
And even if you're not prepared, try to get prepared and go with it.
Yeah.
And yeah.
What is your main life advice for kids listening to this podcast?
I mean, you've heard it many times already since the beginning of our conversation here,
but it is to be clear with your dreams, understand what your why is, understand what your purpose
is.
I think all these questions that you have to ask yourself at a young age so that then
as you continue your journey through life, you'll be able to find yourself really doing
what not only you love, but also inspiring the people that do follow you.
Yup.
Wow.
Yeah.
That's all I can say.
Wow.
And thank you so much, Erwin, for allowing us to interview you.
I'm sure more kids will be inspired by this interview.
Whoever is listening, thanks for a great season one and for listening to the Careers for Kids
podcast.
We'll see you in the next episode and in the next season.
Bye.
Thank you.