Ask Yale College alum and current Google employee, Dylan Drake about the itinerary of his epic daily athletic workouts. If you’re taking notes, bring extra paper. The former Bulldog football defensive standout has found in his 20-something life a thirst for competition that exceeds his drive even as a highly motivated collegiate athlete.

According to Dylan, there are three buckets of former Yale athletes. The first are those who view graduation as a terminal point to their youth sports career; a time to transition to work life and grown-up hobbies. The second group continues in extracurricular sports leagues because athletics and team participation is a necessary part of their lives. Then, there is the third bucket – the hardcore. 

For the hardcore, the sport itself is subordinate to the desire for competition and the comfort in commitment to continuous physical and mental training. That innate passion led Dylan Drake and numerous other recent Yale athlete grads to the doorstep of The D10.

Originally known as The Wall Street Decathlon, The D10 was formed in 2009 by former college athletes working for Wall Street firms searching for serious amateur sports competition. Dave Maloney, a former Auburn track star, was chief among these young professionals seeking to battle on the field once more. 

Maloney established The D10 New York, a combination NFL Combine and gym rat test of ten track and field feats to determine the ultimate athlete on Wall Street. Because each of the early D10 members were heavily committed to charitable causes, they permanently enshrined that a portion of scoring in the competition would come from from fundraising for pediatric cancer research at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York. (In no small measure, The D10 has raised $12.4 million for cancer research to date.)

In this integral charitable feature, Dylan Drake found a next level of motivation. Dylan himself struggled through a childhood illness that left him highly empathetic to the struggle of ailing children. When The D10 expanded its annual Tour to the San Francisco Bay Area and local cancer charities, Dylan discovered perfect competitive symbioses: sweat and purpose. 


(Dylan's former Yale teammate, Will McHale, is the literal bench press benchmark setter annually in The D10.)

Unlike team sports at Yale, Dylan discovered individual training for The D10 to require a new level of motivation, tapping into his “psychopath” mentality. Running, lifting, stretching, running, lifting, stretching, and as Dylan notes, the all-important “no alcohol, no unhealthy food, and eight hours of sleep”. Files this under changes from his college days. 

If you’re of reasonable prescience, you know already that Dylan Drake won the inaugural San Francisco Bay Area D10. Not only did Dylan shine in athletic feat across numerous elements of The D10, he raised $5,000 for the Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital. Yale Grad does good (or well, if you be an English major.)

While Dylan is proud of his D10 victory, and his charitable efforts, he’ll be quick to inform you he’s decidedly measuring himself against his former Yale Football peers competing in The D10 in other cities: Jake Stoller, Tom McCarthy, Jordan Haynes, Will McHale, Tony Morales (donate to Tony Morales' 2019 fundraising efforts), Kurt Stottlemyer, John Runk, and Beau Palin.

Since The D10 is a fixed series of tests regardless of venue, competitors across the nation are able to measure their scores against one another. 

 

It would be no secret to his former Yale teammates that Dylan is closely tracking his football buddies, and seeking to exceed their scores. Dylan admits it’s a “friendly, but definite” rivalry among fellow Yale alums. “No gambling, just pride,” assures Dylan. And to know these Eli footballers is to know pride is the ultimate bet.

While The D10 is remarkably popular among former Yale men’s athletes, Bulldog female alums such as gymnast, Lauren Tatsuno, have more than made their mark. In 2108, Lauren came in second place overall in The D10 San Francisco. Lauren took first place in pull-ups, the 40-yard dash, vertical jump, and the 20-yard shuttle run in her competition. As impressively, she raised over $3,000 for cancer research due to her strong results. 

You can’t call it a Yale takeover of The D10, because trust that there are horrible foes from Princeton, Brown, and even that "Overrated Boston Area School" littering the field of competition. Add to that serious collegiate athlete grads from around the country, including numerous student-athletes who went on to professional sports careers, and you have the makings of annual, mighty post-college showdown. For these forever athletes, these events are taken very seriously. 

Dylan credits his successful “preparation is everything” mentality to principles gleaned from both sports and academics at Yale. Though he admits his epiphany in this regard didn’t kick in fully until his Junior Year. In this third year, Dylan took to heart the difference between “trying your hardest” and “measuring your results”.  It’s a fine line his coaches helped him cross with rational understanding, rather than reckless abandon.

Measuring results would become Dylan's personal fitness and performance mantra. As he notes, “team losses were hard at Yale, but they were in the realm of sportsmanship, teamwork, and group performance, versus individual athletic events where it is you versus yourself – a score, a time.” Under this microscope, Dylan finds the pressure he requires to do one more rep, one more lap, and one more beast mode time when the whistle blows.


((Dylan cites his hard practice work on the track as a major source of his stellar D10 scores.)

As if intense athletic competition and work at Google wasn’t enough, Dylan makes time to direct his love of football and the joy in mentoring into a volunteer coaching position at the local Archbishop Mitty High School. In Dylan’s voice you can hear the passion he has for his work with the teen players at Mitty Football. 

If you know anything about the West Catholic Athletic League on the Bay Area Peninsula you know it is an incredibly competitive, high-caliber conference that routinely sends players to major college sports and NFL stardom (Tom Brady comes to mind). Perfect for Coach Drake, as you might suspect, the league’s most passionate volunteer coach.

Dylan not so casually mentions he could see himself being a full-time football coach in the future. Don’t tell Google, as Dylan is excelling in his career with the Alphabet Company (as if you can keep secrets from Google). It is clear that his drive and boundless energy for excellence will make him a success in whatever endeavor he chooses, including future D10 Events where he expects to dominate his fellow Yale football teammates.

Oh, and if you’re making that list of Dylan’s epic workout routine, keep the pen out, because it’s not until the very end of a very long list, in causal passing, that he mentions he bikes to and from work daily. 

See Yale Football grad Anthony Morales' performance goals and help him reach his fundraising target for Memorial Sloan Kettering.