Genesis → Commodity
The Map Is the Proof.
Every athlete already runs a sophisticated decision-making system under pressure. Wardley Mapping makes that system visible — and verifiable — to any organisation in the world.
Start Mapping Now ↗In Memory
A tribute to the men of The SeaBass, 1-Bravo, B. CO. 2/75 — and to every Ranger who follows.
56% of Division I athletes wish their coaches talked more about careers. The data hasn't moved in a decade.
The 2025 NCAA GOALS Study — 20,887 student-athletes across 493 schools — is unambiguous. Career preparation after college is the single topic men's Division I athletes most wish their coaches addressed. Yet the standard internship model collapses under the weight of a 34-hour athletic week: 15% of DI juniors and above want an internship but simply cannot do one because of their sport.
The problem is not motivation. The problem is not capability. The problem is that every existing tool for building professional credibility was designed for people who have time — and athletes do not.
Source: NCAA GOALS Study (2025)
I lived this problem before I tried to solve it.
I played football at West Point and Oregon State. I tried out for the San Francisco 49ers and got cut. I became a Ranger with The SeaBass, 1-Bravo, B. CO. 2/75 — the 2nd Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment — served in Afghanistan, and was part of Operation Red Wings, the 46-hour recovery mission for Navy SEAL Marcus Luttrell. When I took off my uniform for the last time in 2014, I had to figure out who I was outside of a team.
That transition is what brought me back to athletics — not as a player, but as someone who understood the gap between what athletes build on the field and what they can show off it. As Managing Director of the OSU Athletics Leadership Institute, I organised Oregon State's first Startup Weekend for student-athletes in May 2013. I gave the athletes a problem to solve: how do you build work credibility on a 34-hour athletic schedule? One team took that idea and ran with it. They called it the Student Athlete Exchange — SAX. It won first place.
SAX was a good answer to a real problem. But it still required a business to take a chance on an athlete they couldn't evaluate. Wardley Mapping solves the part SAX couldn't: it makes the athlete's strategic thinking visible before the first conversation.
West Point Prep — #47
Oregon State Beavers — #47
The SeaBass, 1-Bravo B. CO. 2/75 — Afghanistan
“I am just a Salty Old Soldier trying to leave it better than I got it.”
Akili King (center) with The SeaBass, 1-Bravo, B. CO. 2/75 — 2nd Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment — during Operation Red Wings, the recovery mission for U.S. Navy SEAL Marcus Luttrell. Photo courtesy of Akili King / RecruitMilitary.
West Point → Oregon State
Played football at both. Learned to operate in high-stakes environments with incomplete information.
San Francisco 49ers → Cut
After 18 years of football, the identity that defined everything was suddenly irrelevant. That moment is the problem this platform addresses.
The SeaBass — 1-Bravo, B. CO. 2/75 → Operation Red Wings
2nd Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment. 46 hours in Afghanistan on the recovery mission for Navy SEAL Marcus Luttrell. Military intelligence officer until 2014.
OSU Athletics Leadership Institute
Organised the first athletics-department Startup Weekend (2013). Gave athletes a problem to solve. They built SAX. The idea for this platform grew from what SAX couldn't do.
Soldiers to Sidelines
National ambassador program director. Helping veterans find purpose through character-based coaching. The mission continues.
Three bodies of work gave me the perspective to navigate this space.
I have met Snowden and Wardley in person. They are the truth.
Thomas Sowell’s Knowledge and Decisions (1980) established the foundation. Sowell’s central argument is that knowledge is dispersed, contextual, and time-sensitive — and that the people closest to a situation hold knowledge that cannot be fully transmitted to those further away. No central authority can aggregate it. No résumé can carry it. The athlete on the field in the fourth quarter holds knowledge that no recruiter, no coach, and no employer can access from a distance. The question is how to make it legible without destroying it.
Dave Snowden’s Anthro-complexity gave me the language. Human systems involve Intelligence, Intentionality, and Identity — the 3Is. Athletes navigate all three under pressure, every day. The Cynefin framework is the science of common sense: it gives theoretical grounding to what experienced practitioners already know.
Simon Wardley’s mapping method gave me the tool. You cannot navigate a landscape you cannot see. When an athlete maps an organisation, they are building situational awareness before acting — and the map is the proof that they can think strategically.
Thomas Sowell
Economist, author, and Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution. Knowledge and Decisions (1980) argues that knowledge is dispersed and contextual — those closest to a situation hold knowledge that cannot be fully transmitted upward. The implications for how we evaluate athletes are direct and unresolved.
Knowledge and Decisions ↗Dave Snowden
Founder of Cognitive Edge and the Cynefin Centre. Creator of the Cynefin sense-making framework and the theory of Anthro-complexity — the study of human systems as distinct from computational or biological complexity.
Anthro-complexity ↗Simon Wardley
Researcher, author, and creator of Wardley Mapping. His body of work — published open-source under Creative Commons — spans Finance, Healthcare, Defence, Education, Government, and beyond.
A résumé is a belief, not a view.
Every other form of experience claim is self-reported. "I demonstrated leadership." "I work well under pressure." These are assertions. They cannot be inspected. They require the reader to take the athlete's word for it.
Tudor Girba's Wardley Map of software development puts it precisely: current systems leave investigation "gut feel driven," system awareness "belief based," and analysis dependent on "manual views." The athlete's career is no different. The 2025 NCAA GOALS Study confirms it: 60% of athletes say their sport helped them develop the ability to establish a desired image or personal brand — yet that image remains invisible to employers until someone builds a tool to make it legible.
A Wardley Map is an inspectable artifact. Anyone can read it.
When an athlete maps an organisation's value chain, the map records what they understood, how they reasoned, and what they found that others missed. The reasoning is documented. The judgment calls are visible. The work cannot be faked.
What they understood
The components identified — user needs, dependencies, infrastructure — show whether the athlete grasped the actual structure of the business or just its surface. A shallow map looks different from a deep one.
How they reasoned
Placement on the evolution axis (Genesis → Commodity) is a documented judgment call. It shows whether the athlete understood why something is where it is. That reasoning can be questioned, challenged, and refined.
What they found
The most valuable maps surface dependencies the organisation hadn't made explicit. When an athlete's map reveals a core process stuck in Custom-Built when the market has moved to Commodity, that is a strategic insight with a dollar value.
Your sport gives you the inputs. Mapping makes them visible.
The Athlete Career Map — Your Baseline shows exactly where an athlete stands at the start of this process. Athletic Reputation is already a commodity. Professional Identity is the destination. The hardest part is turning what you do on the field into something visible off it.
This is not a metaphor. This is a live, interactive Wardley Map. Click through to explore it, fork it, and start building your own.
Explore the Live Map ↗
Athletes already run this system. They just haven't named it.
The OODA loop — Observe, Orient, Decide, Act — is the decision-making cycle that every athlete runs under competitive pressure. It is also the foundation of Wardley Mapping: observe the landscape, orient to evolutionary position, decide on movement, act.
The translation is not metaphorical. The same pattern recognition that reads a defensive formation in 0.3 seconds reads a competitive landscape. The same situational awareness that anticipates a counterattack anticipates a market shift. The 2025 NCAA GOALS Study confirms that 84% of athletes say their sport built their time management and 81% say it built their ability to cope in high-pressure environments. These are not soft skills. They are strategic capabilities waiting to be named.
On the field
Read the defence
In the boardroom
Observe the landscape
On the field
Identify the gap
In the boardroom
Orient to evolution
On the field
Call the play
In the boardroom
Decide on movement
On the field
Execute under pressure
In the boardroom
Act with conviction
Value flows in both directions from day one.
The Athlete
Verifiable Proof of Work
A real artifact, produced for a real organisation, on a schedule that doesn't break their athletic commitment. Not a simulation. Not a case study. A map of an actual organisation's strategic landscape.
The Organisation
Strategic Analysis They Can't Afford
Not a NIL deal. Not a sponsorship. A genuine deliverable — a Wardley Map of their value chain, their competitive position, their dependencies — from someone trained to read a situation under pressure.
The Programme
A Network That Compounds
Every map is a connection between an athlete and an organisation. Every completed map is a verifiable credential. Every organisation that receives a useful map becomes a potential employer, mentor, or advocate.
Four years of verifiable strategic work. More than the Ivy League pipeline.
McKinsey analysts spend their first two years learning to read organisations. These athletes are doing it for four years, starting earlier, with more reps, and producing artifacts that can be inspected by anyone.
By graduation, the athlete doesn't have a résumé — they have a portfolio of strategic work. The Professional Identity isn't claimed. It is demonstrated through the body of work.
Self Mapping
Map your own context. Make your Athletic Reputation, Skills Portfolio, Network, and Strategic Awareness visible and explicit for the first time.
Landscape Mapping
Map the domains you want to enter. Learn to read evolutionary stage, spot what's moving, identify where the leverage is.
Organisational Mapping
Map actual organisations — real companies, real value chains, real strategic problems. Produce your first verifiable deliverable.
Portfolio Completion
A body of work that any organisation can open, read, and evaluate directly. The case for hiring you is built into the maps themselves.
Built a map? Add it to the Ledger.
Every map submitted here becomes part of a growing body of verifiable work by student-athletes. Share your OnlineWardleyMaps link, tell us who you mapped, and add your name to the record.
This is your Proof of Work. It is dated, inspectable, and yours.
Mapping is a team sport.
No map is produced in isolation. The best maps are challenged, refined, and improved by others who have read the same landscape differently. The community is the curriculum.
If you want to go further — explore the wider Wardley Mapping community, find practitioners, and deepen your practice — the resources below are where to start.
The Invitation
Start mapping now.
Not when the season ends. Not after graduation. Now. A ninth-grader made their first map in a single conversation. The barrier is one decision, not a degree.
Open the Athlete Career Map ↗onlinewardleymaps.com — free, open, no account required
“I am just a Salty Old Soldier trying to leave it better than I got it.”