When Marquette head soccer coach, Sean Hughes, saw Alec Wons, a kid from Kansas City, run from his hotel to their soccer camp in a cut off t-shirt in the middle of February, he knew this player was going to be special.

“He always held himself to a really high standard, especially when you look at his work ethic and commitment,” Hughes said.

After graduating with a degree in exercise physiology last year, he worked as a strength and conditioning coach in the NFL. Recently, he’s decided to embark on a new adventure: Writing a book.

The book is titled “Conquer Yourself,” and it’s about overcoming struggles and personal doubt to “become your best you.”

Wons said he wants his book to appeal to a wide variety of people from different walks of life. He said he hopes that his book can help people fighting their own personal battles.

“I never liked writing in school, but there’s something really therapeutic about it and I feel like I have a story to tell that a lot of younger people can resonate with,” Wons said.

When Wons was a year and a half into his soccer career at Marquette, he got arthritis in his foot, which left him unable to kick a ball. He had to retire from the sport, and because of that, he had to face reality and re-evaluate his life. For the rest of his college career, he worked as a student coach.

“When you take a step back and look at things, you realize it’s okay if you take your foot off the gas for a little bit,” Wons said.

Hughes said that the special thing about Wons was his maturity and his ability to switch from an athlete to a great student coach and still be close with the team. He said the team still uses him as a “blueprint” to teach the team important lessons.

After graduating from Marquette, Wons said he liked his job as an NFL strength and conditioning coach. He enjoyed the fitness and wellness lifestyle that went along with it, but through this experience, he learned he was interested in entrepreneurial ventures and wanted to become a creator.

“Once Alec puts his mind to something, he’s going to do it,” Hughes said.

Hughes said there haven’t been many people who’ve had the kind of impact on Marquette’s soccer program the way Wons did.

Dennis Dressman, the editor of Won’s book, said he encouraged Wons to shy away from making the reader think that his book is exclusively for athletes. Dressman said that the message Wons has can appeal to all people who are navigating their lives and dealing with obstacles and doubts.

“You read a sports book, and it’s almost the same these days as reading a leadership or business book. There’s times where we all face adversity and everyone has to have the same characteristics to overcome it,” Hughes said.

Wons said he wants the readers to know that anyone can benefit from this book even if they aren’t an athlete because everyone experiences their own personal struggles.

“He seems to take himself pretty seriously and strives to do well in whatever he undertakes. He’s serious about his book and willing to do what it takes to succeed,” Dressman said.

Through Wons’ book, he said he hopes to help people change their mindsets.

“I feel like a lot of younger people, and even older people as well, think of failure as this big scary thing, but really you’re learning while you’re failing. If you make a mistake, you just got one step closer to where you want to go. A lot of people take the initial failure as a step back and stopping,” Wons said.

Wons said his book teaches that the biggest factor in achieving your goals is self-growth, and comparing yourself to other people isn’t the way to make major life changes.

“If you’re the best version of yourself each day, you’ll blow away your competition,” Wons said.

Something Won’s said he has noticed is that a lot of people don’t feel like they have their lives figured out. He wants his readers to know that not everyone has the same route in life.

“Have a couple end goals in mind and shoot for the stars, but at the same time realize your path might change a little bit, doesn’t mean you can’t achieve the end result you want, but you might have to go through some dips and valleys to get there,” Wons said.

Wons said he wants his readers to know that selfishness isn’t bad when it’s done out of a place of personal growth. It’s a good thing to improve your mental health and make plans for how you want your life to look.

“You don’t have to necessarily rush and make changes today or tomorrow, you can make your changes in a couple weeks, months or even years. The book is more about changing your mindset to make the approach to achieving your goals more sustainable,” Wons said.

What pushed him through writing the book, Wons said, was focusing on the people he was trying to get his message to reach.

“One of my passions in life is helping other people and if this book can resonate with one other person, and maybe help them with whatever they’re going through, then that’s a win for me,” Wons said.

“Conquer Yourself” will be published in mid-May and available for purchase exclusively on Amazon.

This story was written by Sophia Tiedge. She can be reached at [email protected]