CoachUp, Stephen Curry, and the Journey of Andrew Joyce
Last month, CoachUp trekked to Oakland, California for our newest video shoot with our brand ambassador, Stephen Curry. For us, it’s always one of the most thrilling occasions of the year and the collective buzz around the office is infectious — it is Stephen Curry, after all, the reigning two-time MVP and obliterator of all three-point records. Filming and working right alongside Stephen is always special; our video with him from 2015 in which he reads off criticisms from his pre-draft scouting report proved just that when it went viral, garnering over 1.2 million views since it was posted last September.
For this year’s production with Stephen Curry, we decided to take one of our coaches along for the ride.
Meet Andrew Joyce, a lacrosse, basketball, and football coach that hails from Springfield Township, New Jersey. After being informed that he’d won the platform-wide coach contest and would be flown to Oakland to be part of CoachUp’s next commercial with Stephen, Andrew was taken aback, only wondering one thing: “What’s the catch?”
Before he knew it, he was on a plane headed for warm, beautiful California, with the promise that he’d meet and work alongside Stephen. Surprisingly enough, this wouldn’t be the first time Andrew had seen Stephen Curry playing basketball up close as he took his eight year-old son, Stephanos, to see the Golden State Warriors play the Cleveland Cavaliers in Ohio last January:
“When I went to the game, I was in awe of Stephen — he has this amazing presence and ability to connect with kids. Out of all the athletes, he’s the only one who’s so conscious of who he is, always trying to bless those around him.”
On location at Jamtown USA, Andrew watched the bustle unfold around him as the crew and Stephen worked through each shot. Eventually, Andrew got his chance to interact directly with Stephen on the court.
“He’s so professional but he gets it, he understands, you know?” Joyce said. “He threw a shot underhand to intentionally miss to the right so that I’d get the rebound — that’s the kind of guy he is, that’s how he connects with people.”
Andrew, who coaches three sports on CoachUp, knows a bit about winning himself. In his college days, he won two National Championships with Syracuse lacrosse, so now Andrew strives to pass his knowledge forward to the next generation of athletes, no matter where they’re at in their training.
“I’m an intense studier of people — so I went into the video shoot asking myself: ‘how can I implement this in my own training?’ Who could use this drill to improve? How can I bless people like Stephen does?”
As the second-highest ranked lacrosse coach in the country, Andrew understands what it takes to become a great athlete: knowledge, commitment, and the importance of training with a coach. In fact, working with Stephen for just a few hours confirmed those beliefs:
“I was a voracious learner of the game, but I didn’t have good coaching.
I’ve always used my experiences in basketball to teach lacrosse too, or taking golf or boxing and applying it to other sports like tennis — it’s all connected, you just have to figure out how the pieces fit.” Andrew says. “I see these kids today learning those same lessons I wished I had gotten as an athlete and it’s crazy to think I might be making that difference in somebody else’s life.”
As for the opportunity Andrew had to shoot around with Stephen? Well, even in a shootaround, Andrew didn’t want to show his hand — he wanted to go one-on-one with the MVP.
“Stephen is like, ‘shoot it, big fella,’ but that’s not my game, I definitely didn’t want to chuck an air ball with my adrenaline going.”
To Andrew, this is just one more step in his growing legacy. From National Championships to the impact he’s made with athletes each day on CoachUp, Andrew came a long way leading up to meeting Stephen last month in Oakland.
“For me, at this point, I view it as ‘oh, little old me from little old Syracuse,’ so for me to be where I am today is wild, I’ve seen and experienced so much — now I just want to give it all back.”
