Meet Kyle Menges, an Economics and Finance double major from Ohio who played junior hockey with the New York Islanders for three years before attending UMass. HC UMass sat down with Kyle to pick his brain about dedication, perseverance, and pursuing your passions.
HC: What persuaded you to play hockey after high school instead of going directly to college?
KM: I’ve been playing hockey since the age of five and it was always a dream of mine to play college hockey. I also thought that I could use hockey as leverage to go to a school that I otherwise would not have been able to get into, be it a Division 3 NESCAC (New England Small College Athletic Conference) school or a Division 1 college. Playing junior hockey exposes you to college scouts and professional recruiters, so I decided to pursue that passion first before attending UMass.
HC: Do you think your gap-year experiences have given you an advantage over the typical college freshman?
KM: I wouldn’t necessarily say an advantage. I’m definitely more mature than most freshmen. More importantly though, I think it gave me time to discover what I wanted to pursue. I had the luxury of not having to follow an academic curriculum, so I could research my interests. It was actually during that time that I realized I wanted to major in Economics and Finance. When I started playing junior hockey, I started playing the stock market game, where you get 100,000 dollars of fake money and invest it in stocks. It really piqued my interest, so I started doing independent research and read books on the subject, and I found that I was really interested in it and that it was something I’m good at.
HC: What would you consider the biggest pro and the biggest con of pursing a professional hockey career?
I think a con is that regardless of whether you go to college at some point or not, it’s still difficult to get the same experience that a normal college student would, in terms of academics or extracurricular activities. If I was playing hockey in college, I wouldn’t be able to do the clubs that are important to my career success, like the Minuteman Equity Fund. You just don’t have as much time to pursue academic interests. As for pros, if it’s what you love, then by all means you should pursue it. I also think playing pro-hockey is something that would set you apart in the future from other job candidates.
HC: What was your biggest fear about not attending college directly after graduation?
KM: I think my biggest fear was of being judged by other people for not going to college right away. Most people don’t understand the entire junior hockey process, so I was worried that no one would take me seriously. I was also worried about fitting in with everyone when I came to college as well, because I’m so much older than the typical freshman, but my mom always said that taking a few years off isn’t really a big deal, you’re just putting off a job, or getting married and having kids, for a little longer.
HC: Have you been able to apply any of your real world experience to college so far?
KM: All the time. In junior hockey, finding a team to play for is so much like applying for a job. I learned how to network and put myself out there. I had to take the initiative to email and call coaches, talk to them about tryouts, and get my name out in the open. It’s very similar to the business world. Junior hockey is also pretty cutthroat, because everyone’s competing for x amount of college scholarships; I learned the importance of being professional, coming to the rink every day prepared, and being the first guy in and the last guy out of practice. You have to put in the extra time and the extra hours at the gym to improve. And I learned that consistency is huge; hockey is like a business in that if you’re not producing consistently, they can just give someone else a shot or take your place, so performing consistently at a high level is key.
HC: What was the biggest struggle that you had to face with hockey?
KM: Physically, I had to have double hip surgeries which affected my ability to play and forced me to take a season off. After the surgeries, my hips couldn’t take the physical demands of a whole season, and I had to stop playing because I found that I wasn’t the same player I used to be. But my plan was always to attend college after junior hockey, so surgery wasn’t the main factor in my decision to leave the league. Ultimately, the major battle was more of an internal one. It’s tough going into junior hockey without knowing what the outcome will be; you don’t know if you’re going to get that college offer regardless of how hard you work for it. It was also challenging to see my high school friends go directly to college and receive job offers and internships while I still hadn’t started school yet.
HC: What’s the best piece of advice that you’ve ever received?
KM: Because of my coaches and family, I’ve had a lot of great advice given to me, but something that always stuck with me was written in a book called The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. The author, Stephen Covey, talks about the idea of loving unconditionally, which I think can apply to pretty much all aspects of life. It says a lot about you as a person if another person can see that you “love them” without expecting anything in return and no matter what they do to you or to others. Another quote that I really like is from a guy named Viktor Frankl, who was a prisoner in one of the Nazi concentration camps in WWII, “Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.” During his horrible experiences in the camps, he realized that how you choose to respond to things is crucial. People have the capability to take nearly anything from you, but whether or not you remain pessimistic or optimistic is up to you. So essentially, you have the freedom to decide how you react.
HC: Do you have any advice of your own about pursuing your goals?
KM: Firstly, make sure that you’re doing something because you’re passionate about it and not because you’re trying to fulfill someone else’s wishes or make someone else happy. I’ve found that when I try to achieve something because I was motivated by my parents or another external factor, it’s not as satisfying or fulfilling. Secondly, just run your own race. When you watch a horse run a race, they have blinders on their faces, they’re not paying attention to what any of the horses next to them are doing. In junior hockey, it’s challenging not to compare yourself to other players while they get drafted and you stay behind. It’s easy to look around and feel like everyone else is ahead of you and I think that applies to real life as well. Ultimately, just don’t worry about what everyone around you is doing, focus on yourself.
All photos courtesy of Kyle Menges