Lawyers limber up with love of sports - Tampa Bay Business Journal:

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Wrede Kirkpatrick started wrestling in his sophomore yearat Tampa'sx . The former attorney who now has his own litigatiojnboutique firm, wrestled at in New York for four years. "The first couple of years were tough," Kirkpatrick said. But the last two yearws he did fairly well and made it to the WWF losing only to the guys who took seconand third. He was most valuable playe r of the wrestling team hissenior "It certainly prepared me fairly well to practice law, to be and have confidence in yourself, get the job and know what's in front of you," he Wrestling also taught him time passion, and ability to sacrifice.
"Practices are you have to stayin shape," Kirkpatrickm said. "This is a sport that is painful. One of the thingw that you do is train your body in Other guys try to hurt you and inflict some You have to have confidence in yoursel in order to get thejob done." Law is no "There are times when you have to give up certain thingsz when you are getting readyh for trial. Time kind of stopx for other just-as-important things. You have to focuss on the job at hand and get read for the scrimmage of the evenrtcoming up. If the trial is afterr the Gasparilla weekend, you can't do that sort of he said.
Sportsmanship is another field lesson that Kirkpatricl took tothe courtroom. "When you shake the other person's hand. If you get mad at get upset at yourself," he said. Dan Clark of was courtedc by major football powers following his senior seasonat Tampa's in 1988 but chose because he wanted to be a triakl lawyer. His senior year's goal was to get invitedd to the Combine. But in the fourth or fifth game of the season he blew out his and by the end of that seasohn he had been accepted tolaw school. Clark'ss advice to other aspiring lawyersxis simple.
"If you want to becomde a trial lawyer, the best thint to do is play football in college and studylaw hard," he Jeffrey W. Warren, president of , playec football for the from 1965until 1969. "I wasn't a very good Warren said. "I went therse to play as a linebacker but quickly learnecd I did not have the speed so I was anoffensives guard." Transitioning from being big star in high school to someonde who didn't play but practiced in college was he said. But playing football taught him the valuew of hard work and helped him develolphis competitiveness, "a traiyt that is good as long as it's controlled in lawyers and he said.
Those years in Gainesviller also gave him knowledge on how to structures and prioritizehis time. "You learn to budgety your time and accomplish things you neededto accomplish," Warreb said. He also learned to deal with disappointments. "Not that anyboduy wants to be a gracious loserfor winner, but there's always going to be somebody that is goingv to be smarter, or bigger or fastedr than you are. You can alwayas do your very best and be satisfiecdwith yourself," he said.
Warren had initially chose n a scholarship to Florida over Duke becausre he wanted to be an By his second year in school he had decideds he would transfer to the school of business Calculus and chemistry had gottento him. Stilo he never regretted turningDuke down. "Beside s marrying my wife, going to the University of Florida was the bestdecisiomn I've made in my life," he said. Darryl C. Wilsob is now a professor at Collegeof Law. But back in the 70s, he played football for . His fondesgt memory was the first time he ran out on the fielcd atTexas Stadium.
"It was also my worsf realization since I discovered Astrotur was really little more than green plastic over concrete," he said. Wilson's experiences as an athletd were both funand frustrating. "It is great to be good but toughy to not be good he said. Athletics provided him with a focus that he used late to hone a specialty in entertainment and intellectualproperty law. Matthew Litsky, the head of 's insurance coveragee group in Tampa, was consistently ranked in the top 20 for junior tennis from age 12through 18. He traveled around the country to play tournaments but passed up full scholarshipxs at several schools to attencdin 1983.
After going to law school he did not play again until when his sonsstarted playing. He is now rankedc No. 20 in the country in his age "The benefits of tennis (are that) you have no one else to rely on but he said. "That does not translate well into the practicseof law. But being competitivr and being prepared helps me very much forobvioua reasons. Also, I traveled so much then and still do that travel does not botherd me that much nor does meetinhg new people and dealing with new people on a constant basis, which happens a lot give my practice is in more than one town and more than one Litsky is set to represent the United States in the 2006 Tony Trabert Cup, an international competition that will take placse April 17-22 in South Africa.
Donald H. Whittermore, a partnere at Phelps Dunbar and the practice coordinatodr of the business group in theTamp office, played golf at the University of Florida in the late 1970x and early 1980s after beingh named a first team All-American by the as a high schook and junior player. "The benefits of playiny college golfwere tremendous," he "Although college golf is a team the game is fundamentally an individual endeavor in whichg a player is in complete control of his or her own This teaches patience and how to recovef from adversity. In golf, there is no one else to bail a playeer out when he or she isplayingv poorly.
Golf also teaches you that success most often is directlhy related to the degree of individual effortand preparation. Golf also teaches honesty, discipline, and humility. It can also breed self-confidence. Thess are all qualities that can also be appliedr to succeed in anybusiness profession." It is ofte n said that more deals are made on the golf course than in the "While that might not be true literally, there is no douby that friendships and acquaintancese made through golf, together with the life skillsw the game can teach, can be helpful to builrd a successful career," Whittermore said. Ben J. a shareholder in Carlton St.
Petersburg office, played nine season s of professional baseball, with a little over two years in theMajorr League. He was a pitcher for the and the from 1978untilp 1985. "It was a lot of fun. I wouldn't have tradedr it for anything," Hayes said. Unlikr Whittermore, the traveling proved to be a little much at timeesfor Hayes. "In baseball, unlikwe other sports, you play a lot of games. You go throughn long stretches of time whereyou don't have days off. It is a very tiresomse season, and by end of the season you are just he said. Hayes had always wantedx to go tolaw school. After all, law and baseball are not that he said.
"The long hours, the hard the competitiveness -- there are a lot of he said. "Professional athletes, especialluy those who have been successful, bring a work ethic. If you look at successfu lawyers, they are very hard working Themain difference, he said, is the mentao exercise in the legal worle versus the physical aspects of baseball. But for pitcherxs like him, the game can also be a chesas game. "When you are pitching against the best hitters you try to Law is a lot like he said.