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Speaker 1: What's more important than the amount of time that a

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Speaker 1: child spends in and enrichment programming. The most important factor

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Speaker 1: is not the time spent, is who they've spent the

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Speaker 1: time with. The coach or that mentor or that leader

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Speaker 1: can make the difference in changing their trajectory more so

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Speaker 1: than any other factor. So we wanted to make sure

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Speaker 1: that we created a curriculum that really centered the coaches

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Speaker 1: as well.

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Speaker 2: Working with the youth is definitely.

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Speaker 1: A part of that curriculum, but helping our coaches deal

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Speaker 1: with the baggage that they bring to the table is too.

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Speaker 3: He everybody, Welcome to ano episode of butteron Nomics. I'm

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Speaker 3: your host, Brandan Butler, found the CEO of Butter at Yell,

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Speaker 3: and today we got some special guests in the building. Man,

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Speaker 3: they've been running around here, they've been out here on

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Speaker 3: the road doing stuff, out here in these streets doing stuff.

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Speaker 3: And we're so honored to have mister and missus CJ

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Speaker 3: and Kelly Stewart.

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Speaker 4: How y'all doing today?

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Speaker 2: Awesome? I'm doing well. Happy to be here one great.

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Speaker 4: Likewise, happy to have y'all here. Happy to have y'all

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Speaker 4: here now.

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Speaker 3: A lot of times, you know, people say, you know,

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Speaker 3: tell us about yourself and who's that, And we were

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Speaker 3: actually just talking about some AI stuff offline. I don't

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Speaker 3: shy not to scare them, letting them know the terminator

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Speaker 3: was gonna come get us.

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Speaker 5: We're gonna be all right.

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Speaker 3: But you know what I actually even do though, is

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Speaker 3: I ask chat chept to actually write bios about all

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Speaker 3: my guests. So yeah, yeah, you can't escape it. You

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Speaker 3: can't escape it, you know, kind of a starting point.

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Speaker 3: So I'm gonna read what chat cheebt said about you

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Speaker 3: all because it knows who y'all are. And then I

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Speaker 3: want y'all to tell me what's missing with facts and

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Speaker 3: all this kind of stuff.

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Speaker 4: Cool, cool deal, All right, let's see.

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Speaker 3: CJ and Kelly Stewart are co founder's lead a pioneering

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Speaker 3: youth development organization transforming lives through sports education and culturally

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Speaker 3: informed mentorship. Born and raised in Atlanta, CJ is a

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Speaker 3: former professional baseball player who turned his passion into purpose,

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Speaker 3: guiding young athletes toward leadership and life success. Kelly brings

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Speaker 3: a deep expertise in education, coaching and strategic programming, shaping

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Speaker 3: leads innovative approach to ensuring the organization's initiative, like their

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Speaker 3: groundbreaking Rookie League and Human Ambassador Project, which fostered meaningful

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Speaker 3: impact across communities. Together, c J and Kelly are reshaping

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Speaker 3: how we see you sports, emphasizing character development and community

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Speaker 3: empowerment to create lasting change, not only in Atlanta but nationwide.

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Speaker 2: I like, Chap, that's my new friend. That's pretty accurate.

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Speaker 2: It was a kind of point point. That was the only point.

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Speaker 4: You have to run that to me, I want to

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Speaker 4: show you off line.

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Speaker 2: That's what's up.

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Speaker 4: Well, No welcome so much of the podcast. Man, how's

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Speaker 4: everything going?

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Speaker 2: Everything as well.

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Speaker 1: We are in the middle of summer programming, which is

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Speaker 1: very eventful. So we got our girls playing tennis. They

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Speaker 1: just wrapped up a tennis camp at Agnes Scott College.

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Speaker 1: Shout out to Agnes Scott for rolling out the red

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Speaker 1: carpet to our lady ambassadors. And so we kicked off

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Speaker 1: our Ambassador Summer tournament yesterday out at Lake Point.

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Speaker 2: So we in the thick of it.

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Speaker 3: Okay, okay, Now, look y'all built really something something really

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Speaker 3: impactful and special here with Lee, Like, before we get

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Speaker 3: into it, what smarkey idea behind that?

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Speaker 5: So and even as you were reading the bio. You know,

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Speaker 5: it really laid out the what, but you know it

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Speaker 5: didn't lay out the why. And so the why. It

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Speaker 5: was around two thousand and seven, and so Kelly and

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Speaker 5: I were about nine years entire for profit business Diamond Directors,

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Speaker 5: And so the mission for Diamond Directors is to provide

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Speaker 5: the blueprint of success for diamondsport athletes. So I'm working

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Speaker 5: with boys in baseball and girls in softball. And by

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Speaker 5: that time, I think we had probably had about fifteen

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Speaker 5: guys that we had worked with over the nine years

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Speaker 5: that have made that major league debut. Around this time

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Speaker 5: as well, too, we're training a very young Jason Hayward,

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Speaker 5: Dextra Fowler, Andrew McCutcheon, and one of our clients, Staying Conway,

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Speaker 5: a white man who was an executive with Majestic Realty.

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Speaker 5: I was training his middle school age white son, Davis,

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Speaker 5: and Stan said three things to me that changed the

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Speaker 5: trajectory of my life, that really convicted me and connected

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Speaker 5: me to my calling, which is lead. He said, Number one,

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Speaker 5: you are a really good coach, but your rates are

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Speaker 5: just too low. So I was competing with my competitors

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Speaker 5: based on costs, because that's all I knew to do.

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Speaker 5: So you know, if you took your rate down from

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Speaker 5: fifty dollars an hour to forty dollars, then I would

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Speaker 5: take mine down to thirty five. And so he was

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Speaker 5: just really helping me to understand that you can't be

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Speaker 5: the best and the cheapest at the same time. You

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Speaker 5: got to really choose. The second thing that he said was,

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Speaker 5: you know, as good as you are, it shouldn't be

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Speaker 5: so easy for people to get access to you. So

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Speaker 5: you're developing major leaguers, you got some of the cheapest rates,

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Speaker 5: and somebody can walk off the street and have access

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Speaker 5: to you. And then the third thing he said that

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Speaker 5: really changed the game for me, and I just told

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Speaker 5: Kelly we got to do something about it. He said,

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Speaker 5: there's a decline of blacks and baseball. You're not doing

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Speaker 5: anything about it, and essentially you're planting the seeds and

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Speaker 5: and it's not yours. So I've got this for a

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Speaker 5: profit business, developing major leaguers at a very cheap rate.

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Speaker 5: But I'm doing it in the suburbs. It's black players,

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Speaker 5: it's white players. And that's how Lead got started. And

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Speaker 5: Kelly had to put it together.

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Speaker 2: Yes, he did put that load on me. But it

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Speaker 2: was it was you know, I liking it too.

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Speaker 1: When I hear people say their husband got a call

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Speaker 1: to preach, and it's like, you don't get in the

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Speaker 1: way of that calling. When God is called, you know,

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Speaker 1: someone to preach, you don't stand in the way of that.

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Speaker 1: And what I saw in CJ, even though I didn't

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Speaker 1: understand at the time, how I was going to help,

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Speaker 1: you know, help him because my background was in you know,

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Speaker 1: it was in business. I graduated from Kennessas State with

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Speaker 1: the degree in business focusing on organizational development. So I

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Speaker 1: ain't really know anything about sports. I didn't grow up

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Speaker 1: playing sports. I grew up in Rotc on the competitive

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Speaker 1: rifle side, but not you know, Maine sports. So when

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Speaker 1: he told me that, I just saw this conviction in

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Speaker 1: his eyes, and I was like, you're not going to

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Speaker 1: talk this man out.

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Speaker 2: Of this, So figure out what your lane is in it.

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Speaker 1: And so what we did was put together a budget

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Speaker 1: that was about forty thousand dollars. And I guess, you know,

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Speaker 1: and you know, when you don't come from money, when

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Speaker 1: somebody tells you to put a budget together, like you

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Speaker 1: don't really know what is what does that mean? And

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Speaker 1: so I feel like when we came up with the

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Speaker 1: budget we came it was like forty grand to do

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Speaker 1: a summer program. I think stan knew we had, you know,

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Speaker 1: maybe shot it a little short, and he ended up

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Speaker 1: giving us sixty grand worth of seed money and we've

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Speaker 1: turned that into one point eight million dollars to this day.

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Speaker 4: Yep, No, that's amazing.

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Speaker 3: I think. I think one of the things I hear

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Speaker 3: a couple of things in here were like, yeah, just

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Speaker 3: information understanding kind of like what the market asked for

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Speaker 3: and understand how to price stuff is just one of

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Speaker 3: the key things that I'm kind of even hearing this part.

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Speaker 3: Like I had a mentor that used to tell me,

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Speaker 3: you know, if you race to the bottom, especially when

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Speaker 3: it comes to price, and it's not about necessarily that

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Speaker 3: you you know, if you race to the bottom, it's

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Speaker 3: not that you want to win, but it's even worse.

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Speaker 4: To come in second place.

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Speaker 3: Wow, you know what I'm saying, Because like to your point,

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Speaker 3: and I understand that, like I've done you know, web

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Speaker 3: and app development and kind of done service based businesses

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Speaker 3: where you do charge like an hourly rate and all

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Speaker 3: that stuff, and you kind of start realizing, like yeah,

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Speaker 3: like let me be a little bit cheaper, and all

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Speaker 3: of a sudden you start being like, wait a minute,

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Speaker 3: y'all charge it how much an hour?

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Speaker 2: Right?

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Speaker 3: I mean I've worked in the agency world, you know.

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Speaker 3: I remember hell, I was at Eccenture. They was building

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Speaker 3: me out for like seven hundred dollars an hour, and

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Speaker 3: you start asking yourself, well, how could I build myself?

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Speaker 2: I Am not.

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Speaker 3: Building myself out over here at fifty dollars an hour

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Speaker 3: seventy five? And you start clousing how they add that

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Speaker 3: value and stuff in and so it takes those moments

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Speaker 3: where you really kind of understand and I think, you know,

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Speaker 3: I've even had this conversation with other folks too. It's

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Speaker 3: just like clarity around like budgets and like what people

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Speaker 3: can actually do, especially doing these large brands. I think

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Speaker 3: that's something I see a lot of times when you know,

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Speaker 3: black business owners and minority business are trying to start something.

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Speaker 3: We go to these brands and we're asking for like

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Speaker 3: chump change. And I can always tell people and again

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Speaker 3: this is an anything in Shaw, This is just a

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Speaker 3: last in general, because I tell people all the time.

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Speaker 4: It's like what I had to realize was it's not.

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Speaker 5: Their money period, you know what I mean.

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Speaker 3: Like what people don't understand about like budgets, especially for

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Speaker 3: these large companies, is if they don't spend the money,

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Speaker 3: they lose it, and so they're looking for partners. And

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Speaker 3: a lot of times we come in because you know,

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Speaker 3: when I'm about to say, it's going to sound bad,

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Speaker 3: but just hear what I'm saying is we think about

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Speaker 3: everything through our pocket, through our lens, and through experience

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Speaker 3: to your point, right, Like again, like I would when

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Speaker 3: I when I used to again have clients, have a team,

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Speaker 3: and we would go to clients and a lot of

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Speaker 3: people on my team, you know, we're black people of color,

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Speaker 3: and they would come back with an estimate. I say, no, no, no,

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Speaker 3: you scared to ask for money because you're thinking about

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Speaker 3: this through your bank account lens respectfully. So when I say,

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Speaker 3: like this is a half million dollar project, you scared

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Speaker 3: to ask for half a million dollars because you don't

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Speaker 3: have half million dollars period, because you've never put down ten,

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Speaker 3: twenty thirty thousand dollars on the house before. So it's

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Speaker 3: just even a mindset shift in how we have to

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Speaker 3: talk to these companies, right, Like how did you all

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Speaker 3: get more comfortable with asking for the amounts that really

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Speaker 3: tied into what you were actually worth from a value standpoint.

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Speaker 1: So to your point of clarity on budget, that's the

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Speaker 1: first thing we had to get clear on what is

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Speaker 1: our true value because to your point of racing to

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Speaker 1: the bottom, it's like, the more clients I get, if

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Speaker 1: I have to luwer my price to get them, that's

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Speaker 1: the win for me. Right, It's like, no, that's not

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Speaker 1: the wind. So we had mentors along the way that

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Speaker 1: helped us understand, you know, this is what your value is,

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Speaker 1: and if you work at your optimum value, you get

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Speaker 1: more time back, right, I.

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Speaker 2: Mean like and it's like it makes sense. But when

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Speaker 2: you're in business.

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Speaker 1: First of all, we didn't have a blueprint for business

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Speaker 1: from anybody in our family, you know, no mentor internally

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Speaker 1: in our own family. So you know, by the grace

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Speaker 1: of God, we got connected with folks in the community

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Speaker 1: who saw something in us and like, let me set

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Speaker 1: these people on the right path. So I feel like

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Speaker 1: the moment that we understood our value, that's when we

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Speaker 1: became more confident in how we presented our services because

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Speaker 1: we understand our value. In understanding what we do, yeah,

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Speaker 1: because some people can't even articulate what they do. And

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Speaker 1: that's that's very prevalent in coaching. And that's something that

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Speaker 1: CJ has been working on for years is creating a

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Speaker 1: coaching certification. So you just don't become a coach because

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Speaker 1: you got a bucket of balls in a baseball cap,

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Speaker 1: in a bat You have to be able to articulate

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Speaker 1: what you do, because then you can't articulate your value.

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Speaker 5: And I also think that you know, I operated from

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Speaker 5: the paradigm. If it's God's will, then it's God's bill,

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Speaker 5: and so then you know, starting there, one of the

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Speaker 5: things that I have to just be very clear on

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Speaker 5: is that I haven't been called to do this job

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Speaker 5: over here. I've been called a coach, and so I'm

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Speaker 5: not gonna take this job and do three jobs just

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Speaker 5: to make ends meet when I'm called to do this. So,

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Speaker 5: if I'm called to do this right here, and I

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Speaker 5: have an understanding of my value, it's probably got to

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Speaker 5: scare me first before I then share it with somebody else. Yeah,

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Speaker 5: And so then I share it with somebody else and

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Speaker 5: it scares me and it doesn't scare them, then I

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Speaker 5: can start to build my value from there, and so

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Speaker 5: understanding value is important because my value minus my emotions

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Speaker 5: equals my cost. I like that one so well.

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Speaker 1: And that's why you got to have that diversity of

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Speaker 1: thought around the table of your mentors and the people

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Speaker 1: who you sit around. And I mean we as African Americans,

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Speaker 1: we really got to check our circles because now, I

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Speaker 1: mean I sit around a lot of people that when

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Speaker 1: I throw out numbers like fifteen million dollars, they don't blink. Right,

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Speaker 1: you understand what I'm saying. But if we don't make

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Speaker 1: sure we have that diversity of thought in our leaders,

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Speaker 1: in our teams, we will continue to shrink and be small.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, there's a thing called the law compensation you heard right,

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Speaker 3: and talks about like you're paid based on three things.

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Speaker 3: It's like one what you do, Two is how well

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Speaker 3: you do do it, in three is how hard you

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Speaker 3: are to be replaced at doing it. Like, So to

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Speaker 3: your point of like you know your your skills, monitor

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Speaker 3: what you say, skills min's emotions equal your value.

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Speaker 5: Value minus emotive emotional equals costs.

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Speaker 3: Right, you know what I'm saying, Like, I really love

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Speaker 3: that idea, and I think that's to your point that's

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Speaker 3: something that we just have to get more comfortable and

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Speaker 3: get again get in circles. And I understand it, right,

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Speaker 3: I said, because I had to do the same thing

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Speaker 3: because I had never been around those kind of conversations.

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Speaker 3: I always kind of joke and say, you don't see,

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Speaker 3: you don't know a big house to he see a

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Speaker 3: big house, you know, and guess what, it's a bigger

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Speaker 3: house somewhere else, right, you.

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Speaker 2: Know what I'm saying.

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Speaker 3: Now tell me now, y'all launched this coaching certification program

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Speaker 3: like on Jackie Robinson day, right, Like what was the

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Speaker 3: significance around that?

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Speaker 5: So April fifteenth, nineteen forty seven is when Jackie Robinson

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Speaker 5: became the second black man to play Major League baseball

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Speaker 5: eighteen eighty four, Moses fleetwood Walker was the first black

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Speaker 5: man to play. And this a whole nother story with that.

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Speaker 5: But Jackie Robinson, who was born weren't in Georgia and

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Speaker 5: then moved to Los Angeles as a very young child

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Speaker 5: and continue to develop his skills on and off the field.

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Speaker 5: I mean, he in addition to being a really good

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Speaker 5: baseball player, he also played tennis and he also played football,

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Speaker 5: and I think he did all three at UCLA, and

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Speaker 5: so just that connection of Georgia and timing it up.

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Speaker 5: The awesomeness of it is because for a couple of

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Speaker 5: years we had been wanting to launch something on Jackie

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Speaker 5: Robinson Day and Kelly didn't pulled the trigger on it

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Speaker 5: because we weren't ready, and I was very frustrated because

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Speaker 5: I'm just like, I want to do something on Jackie

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Speaker 5: Robinson Day. And so finally being able to do this

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Speaker 5: was so awesome. You know, two things that's very important

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Speaker 5: behind us, and Kelly can give more to details. One,

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Speaker 5: when I met Kelly, we and that's a whole another

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Speaker 5: story on how we met, but met her at she

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Speaker 5: got her real estate license at nineteen. Oh. You know,

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Speaker 5: here is a young woman who has not yet graduated

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Speaker 5: from college, who got a real estate license and is

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Speaker 5: selling real estate. And so even when I think about

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Speaker 5: wealth and being connected to home ownership, you know, at

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Speaker 5: nineteen years old, she's moving people through this process to

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Speaker 5: become wealthy.

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Speaker 1: And I was a dog with it too, but I

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Speaker 1: had a ten cent nine and I ain't know what

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Speaker 1: to do with the money.

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Speaker 4: The whole enough podcast.

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Speaker 5: So I wanted to create something where a nineteen year

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Speaker 5: old version of me who was very, very lost. I

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Speaker 5: flunked out of college twice. Fortunately I was able to

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Speaker 5: play professional baseball and meet a lot of people and

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Speaker 5: see a lot of different things. But if I was

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Speaker 5: coming out of high school, even at eighteen years old,

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Speaker 5: I probably would have taken this type of opportunity to

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Speaker 5: be a professional coach over being a professional player. Really

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Speaker 5: loved coaching, So that was one thing. The second thing

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Speaker 5: is is having people work for us is hard, even

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Speaker 5: our children. Being our children is hard because of very

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Speaker 5: high standards, clear expectations, and swift accountability. And so we

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Speaker 5: have a probationary period for ninety days or coaches that

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Speaker 5: are coming in and working with us, and essentially what

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Speaker 5: we end up doing is paying them to learn how

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Speaker 5: to work for us for ninety days, and maybe they

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Speaker 5: stay or maybe they go. But I was thinking to myself,

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Speaker 5: what if we can get people to spend ninety days

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Speaker 5: learning how to work for us, and they pay us

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Speaker 5: to learn how to do it. So now if we

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Speaker 5: hire them, then they can come in and actually start working.

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Speaker 5: But if we don't choose them, they can go somewhere

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Speaker 5: else and work. Presumably that black boy growing up in

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Speaker 5: the city of Atlanta, living with a working class family

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Speaker 5: and poverty that eighteen year old kid can graduate from

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Speaker 5: high school. So that was the why behind starting it.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, and pedagogy for pros is grounded in sports based

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Speaker 1: youth development. SBID is a fairly new discipline and you've development,

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Speaker 1: but it basically says that there's more to get out

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Speaker 1: of sport than just trophies and wins.

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Speaker 2: Now, I mean, make no mistakes about it.

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Speaker 5: We want to win absolutely.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm not saying that winning is not important. So

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Speaker 1: winning is very important. And what's also important is that

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Speaker 1: you understand how to handle yourself when it comes down

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Speaker 1: to the business of sports too, because if you get

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Speaker 1: an opportunity to play sports at its highest levels and

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Speaker 1: now you have nil deals that even trickle down to

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Speaker 1: high school, you need to be able to handle your

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Speaker 1: business at the table of business. And so what kind

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Speaker 1: of twenty first century skills do you have? You know

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Speaker 1: off the field, and sports is just a great breeding

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Speaker 1: ground to build those skills because it brings in the competition,

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Speaker 1: it brings in the stress, it brings in the pressure

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Speaker 1: having to perform, you know, under pressure and understress. But

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Speaker 1: it also deals with the fact that as coaches, we

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Speaker 1: come to the table with our own set of what

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Speaker 1: the industry calls adverse childhood experiences. And I don't think

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Speaker 1: we talk about this enough because we are quick to

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Speaker 1: label a coach bitter without asking the question why, like

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Speaker 1: what happened to this coach to make this coach feel

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Speaker 1: this way? And coaches are too important to the ecosystem

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Speaker 1: of sports for us to just discard them so readily.

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Speaker 1: So there's a research that shows that what's more important

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Speaker 1: than the amount of time that a child spends in

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Speaker 1: in enrichment programming. What the most important factor is, not

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Speaker 1: the time spent, is who they've spent the time with.

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Speaker 1: The coach or that mentor or that leader can make

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Speaker 1: the difference in changing their trajectory more so than any

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Speaker 1: other factor. So we wanted to make sure that we

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Speaker 1: created a curriculum that really centered the coaches as well.

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Speaker 2: Working with the youth is.

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Speaker 1: Definitely a part of that curriculum, but helping our coaches

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Speaker 1: deal with the baggage that they bring to the table

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Speaker 1: is to.

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Speaker 4: Coaches really.

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Speaker 3: I was actually listening to the thing the other day

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Speaker 3: with the whole situations happened at Columbia High School, with

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Speaker 3: the coach that got you know, and again like it's

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Speaker 3: crazy because you know, and again I'm trying to be

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Speaker 3: nice and talking about it, but like it's crazy because

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Speaker 3: like he got let go after all these amazing things

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Speaker 3: that he's done. He's put his own money up to

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Speaker 3: help get these kids. I mean, that's what real coaching is,

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Speaker 3: especially at that level, right, A lot of high school

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Speaker 3: coaches really invest their own time, their on money. And

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Speaker 3: apparently one of the kids that snuck out or didn't

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Speaker 3: come back after curfew, which again we all know that,

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Speaker 3: like you don't break curfew, you don't sneak out. But

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Speaker 3: he was in Freeport, Bahamas, and you know, trying to

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Speaker 3: like do some stuff and like when the coach basically

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Speaker 3: like had him, like I had his shoes, like I

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Speaker 3: should whoop you. And then parents that don't even have

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Speaker 3: kids that are playing there go back and complain. Now

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Speaker 3: this coach has lost his job. But it's like that

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Speaker 3: gap that gets created now all because of a moment

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Speaker 3: where now again think about it, that child would have

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Speaker 3: got snuck out of something bad would have happened. So

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Speaker 3: he was trying to hold the child accountable. It wasn't

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Speaker 3: like he was like whooping them or do anything crazy.

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Speaker 3: But he was coaching them up in things outside of

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Speaker 3: just the sport. Like coaches are so important, right, to

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Speaker 3: see your point, We need these especially in our communities.

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Speaker 3: We need these kind of role models, these figures in

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Speaker 3: our communities, and we can't just so readily discard them.

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Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, absolutely, And even in situations like that.

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Speaker 2: It's just in general.

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Speaker 1: So we do overnight trips and things like that, and

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Speaker 1: I take it very seriously for a parent to allow

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Speaker 1: their children to come with us anywhere, but especially overnight.

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Speaker 1: You know, you just can't trust anybody you know around

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Speaker 1: your children. So I always say, like my grandma used

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Speaker 1: to say, if I can't discipline them, they need to

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Speaker 1: be around me.

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Speaker 2: That'll cut all that out.

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Speaker 3: One of the things y'all talked about, too, is how

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Speaker 3: you like bring this coaching and this experience to kids

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Speaker 3: even in the elementary school level, Like why is it

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Speaker 3: important to even bring these opportunities to kids at these schools?

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Speaker 1: So I just wanted before CJ starts to answer this,

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Speaker 1: I just want to make sure that everybody listening knows

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Speaker 1: that the Rookie League is.

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Speaker 5: Just a program.

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Speaker 2: He loves the rookies we just started this two years ago.

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Speaker 5: But go ahead, yeah, I mean, you know, when I

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Speaker 5: think about the and as I go down this pass,

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Speaker 5: just remind me that I got to talk about the

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Speaker 5: Rookie League. Okay, But Africans were stolen from the continent

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Speaker 5: of Africa and brought to America sixteen nineteen. Before we

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Speaker 5: were stolen and brought here, we were playing a game

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Speaker 5: in Africa with a ball and a stick. So sixteen

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Speaker 5: nineteen and so now baseball is invented in eighteen forty five,

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Speaker 5: and so eighteen sixty five June nineteen, eighteen sixty five.

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Speaker 5: So between that time, in eighteen forty five and eighteen

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Speaker 5: sixty five, Africans are playing baseball. Talked about Moses Fleet

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Speaker 5: will Walker eighteen eighty four and so on. To be

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Speaker 5: black is to play baseball. We were doing it before

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Speaker 5: we even got here. I'm not saying you got to

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Speaker 5: play Major League baseball. I'm not saying you even got

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Speaker 5: to play a full season. But to be black is

437
00:20:59,680 --> 00:21:02,080
Speaker 5: to like at least be aware of it.

438
00:21:02,080 --> 00:21:03,640
Speaker 2: It's a staple in our community.

439
00:21:03,680 --> 00:21:05,399
Speaker 5: It's a staple in our community, and there's a lot

440
00:21:05,440 --> 00:21:06,960
Speaker 5: of other staples. But I'm not here to talk about

441
00:21:06,960 --> 00:21:10,679
Speaker 5: the other staples I do baseball. And so when I

442
00:21:10,720 --> 00:21:14,399
Speaker 5: think about myself as a child growing up in Bankhead

443
00:21:15,080 --> 00:21:17,800
Speaker 5: and falling in love with baseball in nineteen eighty four

444
00:21:17,920 --> 00:21:21,280
Speaker 5: at the age of eight years old, I was fortunate

445
00:21:21,359 --> 00:21:24,639
Speaker 5: enough that I had a grandmother and aunts that lived

446
00:21:24,760 --> 00:21:30,080
Speaker 5: in southwest Atlanta who knew some people. I don't even

447
00:21:30,119 --> 00:21:32,399
Speaker 5: know how I got connected, but they told me that

448
00:21:32,440 --> 00:21:36,320
Speaker 5: I should go play baseball at Cascade Youth Organization, which

449
00:21:36,359 --> 00:21:40,200
Speaker 5: was right down the street from Hank Aaron. All type

450
00:21:40,240 --> 00:21:42,600
Speaker 5: of people would be there then Counsel and John Lewis,

451
00:21:42,680 --> 00:21:46,320
Speaker 5: Corretascott King, all of these people, And so I had

452
00:21:46,320 --> 00:21:50,000
Speaker 5: to leave my neighborhood to go to another neighborhood, which

453
00:21:50,000 --> 00:21:53,960
Speaker 5: happened to have been middle class in black to play baseball.

454
00:21:54,000 --> 00:21:56,480
Speaker 5: And so right now, when I think about the Rookie League,

455
00:21:56,520 --> 00:21:59,520
Speaker 5: there's a lot of parents who are raising children working

456
00:21:59,560 --> 00:22:03,199
Speaker 5: class like my family, that can't afford to do all

457
00:22:03,200 --> 00:22:05,639
Speaker 5: of that moving, and they're also having to deal with

458
00:22:05,680 --> 00:22:08,200
Speaker 5: the stress of if my son is going to play baseball,

459
00:22:08,240 --> 00:22:11,200
Speaker 5: he can't even start out at a foundational level because

460
00:22:11,240 --> 00:22:12,720
Speaker 5: people are going to pick at him if he's not

461
00:22:12,840 --> 00:22:17,280
Speaker 5: playing travel ball. And so the Rookie League and having

462
00:22:17,359 --> 00:22:19,679
Speaker 5: it is so important because now by law, you have

463
00:22:19,720 --> 00:22:21,600
Speaker 5: to go to school, and so for you to be

464
00:22:21,640 --> 00:22:25,600
Speaker 5: able to have school based programming offered by Lead and

465
00:22:25,680 --> 00:22:28,159
Speaker 5: play in a league and then be able to be

466
00:22:28,200 --> 00:22:31,040
Speaker 5: in a pipeline where you can become a Lead Ambassador,

467
00:22:31,080 --> 00:22:34,920
Speaker 5: which is a national caliber team, It's what I wish

468
00:22:34,960 --> 00:22:35,600
Speaker 5: I would have had.

469
00:22:36,320 --> 00:22:38,560
Speaker 2: So and shout out to Atlanta Public Schools.

470
00:22:38,560 --> 00:22:42,200
Speaker 1: They have been our partner in empowerment for since two

471
00:22:42,280 --> 00:22:46,440
Speaker 1: thousand and nine twenty ten. Being able to bring these

472
00:22:46,480 --> 00:22:49,120
Speaker 1: programs to the school, like CJ said, just cuts down

473
00:22:49,160 --> 00:22:52,040
Speaker 1: a lot of barriers, you know, for our families who

474
00:22:52,160 --> 00:22:54,920
Speaker 1: are already just you know, doing the best they can

475
00:22:55,320 --> 00:22:59,120
Speaker 1: to make the necessities happen. You know, baseball and other

476
00:22:59,200 --> 00:23:01,760
Speaker 1: enrichment stuff is just extra that might not happen.

477
00:23:02,160 --> 00:23:05,040
Speaker 2: And for us growing up as kids, that was us.

478
00:23:05,200 --> 00:23:08,440
Speaker 1: You know, if my grandma had to work, we worked

479
00:23:08,600 --> 00:23:10,920
Speaker 1: all day and all night because she was a domestic worker.

480
00:23:10,960 --> 00:23:12,840
Speaker 1: And for the families that she worked for during the day,

481
00:23:12,880 --> 00:23:15,719
Speaker 1: they had businesses. We clean those businesses at night so

482
00:23:16,160 --> 00:23:19,080
Speaker 1: she couldn't be taking me back and forth to practice

483
00:23:19,200 --> 00:23:20,760
Speaker 1: or something. So the things that I had to get

484
00:23:20,800 --> 00:23:22,919
Speaker 1: involved with and had to be in school, had to

485
00:23:22,920 --> 00:23:23,720
Speaker 1: be school based.

486
00:23:23,920 --> 00:23:26,359
Speaker 2: Hence why I got involved in rotccus. It's a class

487
00:23:26,359 --> 00:23:26,879
Speaker 2: at school.

488
00:23:27,400 --> 00:23:30,200
Speaker 1: And so making sure that we cut down those barriers

489
00:23:30,200 --> 00:23:33,520
Speaker 1: that keep our families from accessing these enriching sports program

490
00:23:33,600 --> 00:23:35,960
Speaker 1: because with pay to play sports being what it is,

491
00:23:36,359 --> 00:23:39,399
Speaker 1: so sportspace youth development is on one side of the spectrum.

492
00:23:39,560 --> 00:23:41,760
Speaker 1: Pay to play sports is on the opposite end of

493
00:23:41,760 --> 00:23:44,320
Speaker 1: the spectrum. And so with pay to play being what

494
00:23:44,359 --> 00:23:47,640
Speaker 1: it is, it is pricing out you know, you who

495
00:23:47,720 --> 00:23:53,240
Speaker 1: come from marginalized situations, like from a social economic, racial standpoint,

496
00:23:53,560 --> 00:23:56,760
Speaker 1: and that's not fair and we're leveling the playing field

497
00:23:56,800 --> 00:23:57,399
Speaker 1: in that respect.

498
00:23:57,760 --> 00:24:00,000
Speaker 3: Yeah, absolutely, And you know, see general you kind of

499
00:24:00,119 --> 00:24:02,919
Speaker 3: mentioned even your experience in leadership Atlanta really kind of

500
00:24:02,920 --> 00:24:05,239
Speaker 3: helped you even more embrace that, especially if coming from

501
00:24:05,280 --> 00:24:07,879
Speaker 3: being an athlete and working and now you're around this

502
00:24:07,920 --> 00:24:10,080
Speaker 3: whole new group of people that are you know, moving

503
00:24:10,119 --> 00:24:11,679
Speaker 3: and kind of shaping the culture of Atlanta and all

504
00:24:11,680 --> 00:24:14,159
Speaker 3: that stuff, Like, what did that really teach you and

505
00:24:14,280 --> 00:24:16,359
Speaker 3: help help transform you about how you want to approach

506
00:24:16,400 --> 00:24:19,240
Speaker 3: you know, especially helping support black boys in these sports.

507
00:24:19,640 --> 00:24:21,719
Speaker 5: It was such a convicting moment, I'm even just like

508
00:24:21,800 --> 00:24:26,920
Speaker 5: just pausing, just even now, just really trying to talk

509
00:24:26,960 --> 00:24:28,719
Speaker 5: about it. So it was, it was good, but it

510
00:24:28,720 --> 00:24:31,560
Speaker 5: also continues to even have challenges. It was it was

511
00:24:31,640 --> 00:24:38,840
Speaker 5: good and that I went in not feeling comfortable being black.

512
00:24:39,359 --> 00:24:42,840
Speaker 5: So this is twenty fourteen. I graduated in twenty fifteen.

513
00:24:43,600 --> 00:24:50,600
Speaker 5: I left being openly black, like no more talking this way,

514
00:24:50,920 --> 00:24:52,560
Speaker 5: no more dressing this way.

515
00:24:53,359 --> 00:24:53,920
Speaker 3: No more.

516
00:24:55,160 --> 00:24:57,200
Speaker 5: Even one of the things that Kelly used to always

517
00:24:57,240 --> 00:24:59,080
Speaker 5: talk to me about, even when I would take photos,

518
00:24:59,560 --> 00:25:03,480
Speaker 5: I'm sick and you know, some especially if I'm taking

519
00:25:03,480 --> 00:25:05,879
Speaker 5: photos of somebody that's smaller than me, I would kind

520
00:25:05,920 --> 00:25:07,800
Speaker 5: of lean down and lean in, and one of the

521
00:25:07,800 --> 00:25:09,520
Speaker 5: things that she would tell me is, you know, you know,

522
00:25:10,000 --> 00:25:13,359
Speaker 5: stand up. And so now because I wear my for doors,

523
00:25:13,359 --> 00:25:15,359
Speaker 5: I got to lean over just a little bit, but

524
00:25:15,400 --> 00:25:16,919
Speaker 5: I would, but I ended up I would take a

525
00:25:16,920 --> 00:25:19,280
Speaker 5: lot of pictures even like like this right here, just

526
00:25:19,280 --> 00:25:21,480
Speaker 5: with my chin up literally. But I had to go

527
00:25:21,560 --> 00:25:24,760
Speaker 5: through that convicting experience to be able to do that,

528
00:25:24,800 --> 00:25:29,800
Speaker 5: and it was really really hard on me mentally. So

529
00:25:29,920 --> 00:25:31,879
Speaker 5: that was an amazing accomplishment. I got in on the

530
00:25:31,920 --> 00:25:35,680
Speaker 5: first time. Several people applied three and four times.

531
00:25:35,320 --> 00:25:41,399
Speaker 3: But I'm still I'm still applying, Okay, okay, and you know,

532
00:25:41,480 --> 00:25:43,880
Speaker 3: and so like you know, even the connection of it,

533
00:25:44,080 --> 00:25:49,160
Speaker 3: you know, being post civil rights era and bringing these

534
00:25:49,240 --> 00:25:49,840
Speaker 3: leaders together.

535
00:25:50,480 --> 00:25:53,879
Speaker 5: So my challenge even now though, is is now that

536
00:25:53,880 --> 00:25:56,120
Speaker 5: I've gone through that was with the best and brightest

537
00:25:56,160 --> 00:26:00,720
Speaker 5: of the city, I'm still in a place which has

538
00:26:00,760 --> 00:26:04,399
Speaker 5: an effect on my mental health in that I still

539
00:26:04,440 --> 00:26:10,600
Speaker 5: have to be cautious because like, I'm not the I'm

540
00:26:10,640 --> 00:26:13,159
Speaker 5: not the speaker that's going to get paid tens of

541
00:26:13,200 --> 00:26:16,879
Speaker 5: thousands of dollars because I'm going to be able to

542
00:26:16,880 --> 00:26:20,000
Speaker 5: say the things that needs to be heard. But I

543
00:26:20,040 --> 00:26:23,399
Speaker 5: do have experiences and rich experiences where I'm able to

544
00:26:23,480 --> 00:26:26,040
Speaker 5: convict people. And so if I don't have somebody who

545
00:26:26,040 --> 00:26:30,400
Speaker 5: can now connect them to my conviction, like Kelly, then

546
00:26:31,000 --> 00:26:35,439
Speaker 5: I can be misunderstood. So I struggle with telling myself

547
00:26:35,440 --> 00:26:38,000
Speaker 5: sometimes like don't talk at all, but then I have

548
00:26:38,080 --> 00:26:39,840
Speaker 5: people say talk, So yeah.

549
00:26:39,760 --> 00:26:41,919
Speaker 2: Well, I think the blessing and a curse, well, the

550
00:26:41,960 --> 00:26:46,200
Speaker 2: blessing and the burden of being involved in leadership cohorts

551
00:26:46,400 --> 00:26:49,879
Speaker 2: like Leadership Atlanta, and we're also alums of Leadership Georgia

552
00:26:50,240 --> 00:26:52,840
Speaker 2: is that you find yourself in spaces where you can

553
00:26:52,880 --> 00:27:00,800
Speaker 2: have conversations in a raw, very transparent way amongst some

554
00:27:01,119 --> 00:27:05,919
Speaker 2: of the most influential, you know, leaders that are in

555
00:27:05,960 --> 00:27:10,320
Speaker 2: our state, and you have that free flow of thought

556
00:27:10,400 --> 00:27:13,240
Speaker 2: and you can say things that if you say it

557
00:27:13,280 --> 00:27:16,439
Speaker 2: in other spaces, could be taken out of context and

558
00:27:16,480 --> 00:27:19,000
Speaker 2: make you look like you're a reckless person. But it's like,

559
00:27:19,359 --> 00:27:22,920
Speaker 2: I just sat with other peers who I had this

560
00:27:22,960 --> 00:27:25,680
Speaker 2: conversation with freely, and so I think what we've had

561
00:27:25,680 --> 00:27:29,520
Speaker 2: to do is just really be cognizant of where we

562
00:27:29,640 --> 00:27:32,560
Speaker 2: are when we are talking and saying certain things, because

563
00:27:32,640 --> 00:27:34,720
Speaker 2: we got to be like, this ain't no leadership Atlanta Roam,

564
00:27:35,080 --> 00:27:36,600
Speaker 2: because if we say this, it's going to be like

565
00:27:36,600 --> 00:27:38,560
Speaker 2: throwing out a hand grenade and people are gonna be like,

566
00:27:38,720 --> 00:27:41,240
Speaker 2: you know, CJ and Kelly trying to resurrect the Black Panthers,

567
00:27:41,240 --> 00:27:41,760
Speaker 2: And it's like.

568
00:27:41,680 --> 00:27:43,399
Speaker 1: That's not what we said, you know what I'm saying.

569
00:27:43,480 --> 00:27:46,200
Speaker 1: So I think that's what we have experienced.

570
00:27:46,280 --> 00:27:49,680
Speaker 5: And so what I'm daily asking myself is and I'm

571
00:27:49,760 --> 00:27:52,520
Speaker 5: not coming on here making a statement of what I'm

572
00:27:52,520 --> 00:27:54,199
Speaker 5: going to do, but I do wrestle with like, so

573
00:27:54,240 --> 00:27:55,439
Speaker 5: what do I need to do. Do I need to

574
00:27:55,480 --> 00:27:58,480
Speaker 5: run for office? How much money do I need to make?

575
00:27:58,520 --> 00:28:01,200
Speaker 5: Where I can be me right? And I don't think

576
00:28:01,200 --> 00:28:04,359
Speaker 5: I'm a reckless person. So if I'm out here and

577
00:28:04,480 --> 00:28:08,640
Speaker 5: I'm saying something, I want to live and be free

578
00:28:09,560 --> 00:28:12,280
Speaker 5: just like other other people. We have leaders in our

579
00:28:12,320 --> 00:28:15,199
Speaker 5: country right now that just I envy them for just

580
00:28:15,240 --> 00:28:16,320
Speaker 5: being able to be free.

581
00:28:16,800 --> 00:28:17,359
Speaker 2: And I think what.

582
00:28:17,240 --> 00:28:19,520
Speaker 1: People need to understand about us is is before we

583
00:28:19,560 --> 00:28:21,760
Speaker 1: fight for youth in the community, we're fighting for our

584
00:28:21,800 --> 00:28:24,440
Speaker 1: two African American daughters first, you know what I'm saying.

585
00:28:24,720 --> 00:28:27,560
Speaker 1: And so there's a level of pride that we have

586
00:28:27,720 --> 00:28:30,639
Speaker 1: in that where we can't shrink and where we can't

587
00:28:30,680 --> 00:28:35,400
Speaker 1: show up. We can't afford to not show up authentically

588
00:28:35,440 --> 00:28:38,400
Speaker 1: because they got to look at us every day and

589
00:28:38,480 --> 00:28:40,360
Speaker 1: we're telling them to go out and do these things.

590
00:28:40,360 --> 00:28:42,200
Speaker 1: But if they don't see mom and dad doing it,

591
00:28:42,360 --> 00:28:44,320
Speaker 1: then we're a fraud, you know what I'm saying. So

592
00:28:44,800 --> 00:28:48,200
Speaker 1: I can't go out here and not speak clearly and

593
00:28:48,280 --> 00:28:51,920
Speaker 1: plainly about the racism that still exists in our world,

594
00:28:52,000 --> 00:28:55,200
Speaker 1: that still exists in sports when I know my daughters

595
00:28:55,200 --> 00:28:58,080
Speaker 1: have experienced it to a certain level, like I can't

596
00:28:58,080 --> 00:29:00,760
Speaker 1: go out there and act like everything is okay when

597
00:29:00,760 --> 00:29:04,480
Speaker 1: it's not okay. I mean, even you know, in a

598
00:29:04,560 --> 00:29:06,840
Speaker 1: situation last night we were playing. Listen, we had a

599
00:29:06,840 --> 00:29:10,080
Speaker 1: tough game last night. But all I'm saying is, you know,

600
00:29:10,400 --> 00:29:13,880
Speaker 1: officiating was a little sketchy. That's all I'm saying. But

601
00:29:14,400 --> 00:29:16,160
Speaker 1: what we have to do is have to let our

602
00:29:16,200 --> 00:29:18,680
Speaker 1: boys know that. Listen, if you don't get them calls

603
00:29:18,680 --> 00:29:21,840
Speaker 1: on the corners, make it better, you understand what I'm saying,

604
00:29:21,840 --> 00:29:24,560
Speaker 1: And just making sure that they are aware of the

605
00:29:24,560 --> 00:29:27,480
Speaker 1: opposition that they have. It's already you got a scout

606
00:29:27,480 --> 00:29:30,720
Speaker 1: your opponent. That's sports, that's basic. But when you're an

607
00:29:30,720 --> 00:29:33,320
Speaker 1: African American, it's other threats that you have to go

608
00:29:33,400 --> 00:29:34,920
Speaker 1: up to the plate with, or you have to go

609
00:29:35,000 --> 00:29:38,280
Speaker 1: up to the service line with with tennis terms that

610
00:29:38,360 --> 00:29:40,760
Speaker 1: other athletes don't have to go up there with. And

611
00:29:40,800 --> 00:29:43,320
Speaker 1: we just want to make sure from a cultural standpoint

612
00:29:43,360 --> 00:29:45,440
Speaker 1: that our youth are aware of those things.

613
00:29:45,760 --> 00:29:48,080
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, you know, I played and the sport

614
00:29:48,080 --> 00:29:50,680
Speaker 3: I played growing up was baseball. Yeah I didn't, you know,

615
00:29:50,840 --> 00:29:52,600
Speaker 3: go all the way I tore up my shoulders and

616
00:29:52,640 --> 00:29:55,040
Speaker 3: all that stuff, But I played with Brandon Phillips back

617
00:29:55,080 --> 00:29:56,800
Speaker 3: at Riga High School and all that stuff back in

618
00:29:56,840 --> 00:29:58,840
Speaker 3: the day. And you know, even as I kind of

619
00:29:58,840 --> 00:30:01,200
Speaker 3: think about it, like what what's always been interesting is

620
00:30:01,640 --> 00:30:03,520
Speaker 3: what it taught me was and I try to teach

621
00:30:03,560 --> 00:30:05,479
Speaker 3: this to my two kids. I have a thirteen year

622
00:30:05,520 --> 00:30:07,360
Speaker 3: old daughter and an eight year old son, right and

623
00:30:07,400 --> 00:30:09,120
Speaker 3: I actually coached my son's t ball team.

624
00:30:09,560 --> 00:30:10,320
Speaker 4: It's the same thing.

625
00:30:10,320 --> 00:30:11,000
Speaker 2: Ain't that fun?

626
00:30:11,040 --> 00:30:11,440
Speaker 4: It's fun.

627
00:30:11,520 --> 00:30:13,520
Speaker 3: Let me tell you, it's fun. Kids be out there, man,

628
00:30:15,120 --> 00:30:16,560
Speaker 3: I need to get y'all out there to come out.

629
00:30:16,840 --> 00:30:17,840
Speaker 2: That is the most fun.

630
00:30:17,880 --> 00:30:20,440
Speaker 3: But like, it's the same thing I always kind of

631
00:30:20,480 --> 00:30:22,680
Speaker 3: think about, just like I tell my kids, there's gonna

632
00:30:22,680 --> 00:30:23,600
Speaker 3: be moments when you get tired.

633
00:30:24,200 --> 00:30:26,880
Speaker 4: You know, you a little beat up, you know you're hurting,

634
00:30:26,920 --> 00:30:27,160
Speaker 4: you're not.

635
00:30:27,160 --> 00:30:28,600
Speaker 3: Feeling your best, but you still got to go up

636
00:30:28,600 --> 00:30:29,800
Speaker 3: there and suck it up, and you got to get

637
00:30:29,800 --> 00:30:31,000
Speaker 3: through it and lean in. And like that's one of

638
00:30:31,000 --> 00:30:32,840
Speaker 3: the things that I kind of it taught me in

639
00:30:32,880 --> 00:30:35,120
Speaker 3: those experiences. And I even think about what you mentioned

640
00:30:35,120 --> 00:30:38,000
Speaker 3: with leadership Atlanta, it kind of feels very similar to

641
00:30:38,000 --> 00:30:39,280
Speaker 3: what I went through when I got my NBA at

642
00:30:39,280 --> 00:30:41,800
Speaker 3: Georgia Tech. You know, I kind of again, I was

643
00:30:41,800 --> 00:30:44,320
Speaker 3: for a long time kind of scared to embrace my

644
00:30:44,360 --> 00:30:45,440
Speaker 3: blackness and a lot of different things.

645
00:30:45,480 --> 00:30:46,360
Speaker 4: I thought it was too black.

646
00:30:46,400 --> 00:30:48,880
Speaker 3: And it was funny because when I went to tech,

647
00:30:49,480 --> 00:30:52,120
Speaker 3: you know, it's interesting, like you realize a lot of

648
00:30:52,160 --> 00:30:54,280
Speaker 3: folks don't interact with people that look like us. We're

649
00:30:54,280 --> 00:30:56,600
Speaker 3: just gonna be honest, you know, I think, I, you know, again,

650
00:30:56,680 --> 00:30:59,320
Speaker 3: like I and I remember like realizing like, oh, like,

651
00:31:00,080 --> 00:31:02,280
Speaker 3: you know, I'm like the first black person some of

652
00:31:02,320 --> 00:31:04,240
Speaker 3: y'all have actually like really sat down and talked to, like,

653
00:31:04,280 --> 00:31:07,640
Speaker 3: especially outside of work, and even at work, that person

654
00:31:07,720 --> 00:31:09,280
Speaker 3: might not even be on your same level. It might

655
00:31:09,320 --> 00:31:11,320
Speaker 3: just be you know, the you know, the guy do

656
00:31:11,320 --> 00:31:13,080
Speaker 3: the security or something like that, so you already think

657
00:31:13,120 --> 00:31:15,680
Speaker 3: you're kind of above them. And you know, there were

658
00:31:15,720 --> 00:31:19,640
Speaker 3: definitely some moments in which I felt really uncomfortable with

659
00:31:19,640 --> 00:31:21,520
Speaker 3: some of the conversations that we were having because it

660
00:31:21,600 --> 00:31:23,800
Speaker 3: just made me feel like, oh, wow, y'all are really

661
00:31:23,880 --> 00:31:26,080
Speaker 3: over here living in a bubble. But then I got

662
00:31:26,080 --> 00:31:27,720
Speaker 3: to a certain point there I said, you know what

663
00:31:28,120 --> 00:31:30,880
Speaker 3: it was the moment when you know, we had been

664
00:31:30,920 --> 00:31:32,600
Speaker 3: going through the courses and I, you know, in the

665
00:31:32,640 --> 00:31:34,480
Speaker 3: beginning it was really tough on me because I hadn't

666
00:31:34,520 --> 00:31:36,840
Speaker 3: just taken some of those classes before. But once we

667
00:31:36,920 --> 00:31:39,560
Speaker 3: kind of got into like our core classes, all of

668
00:31:39,600 --> 00:31:41,760
Speaker 3: a sudden, I kind of started winning a lot of

669
00:31:41,760 --> 00:31:44,640
Speaker 3: stuff and coming in first and second place and all

670
00:31:44,640 --> 00:31:46,320
Speaker 3: this distance. And then that's that's when like the envy

671
00:31:46,400 --> 00:31:48,160
Speaker 3: started kind of coming in, right, because it's like, oh, well,

672
00:31:48,160 --> 00:31:49,680
Speaker 3: you know, you think you're this and you're that, and

673
00:31:49,720 --> 00:31:51,400
Speaker 3: it was like, well, no, I'm just being myself. And

674
00:31:51,440 --> 00:31:54,320
Speaker 3: so a moment kind of flipped where I said, you

675
00:31:54,360 --> 00:31:55,400
Speaker 3: know what, I'm just gonna come.

676
00:31:55,320 --> 00:31:57,840
Speaker 4: In here be black as hell forget y'all. Or so

677
00:31:57,600 --> 00:31:58,440
Speaker 4: is so even.

678
00:31:58,280 --> 00:31:59,840
Speaker 3: For me when I like we would we would come

679
00:31:59,840 --> 00:32:02,800
Speaker 3: to class, and before we would have class, they would

680
00:32:02,800 --> 00:32:05,160
Speaker 3: always feed us dinner. And I would make it a

681
00:32:05,200 --> 00:32:07,840
Speaker 3: point when we go to the cafeteria, you know, I

682
00:32:07,840 --> 00:32:10,400
Speaker 3: would always talk to all the staff like everybody would

683
00:32:10,400 --> 00:32:12,440
Speaker 3: just disrespect them and just like, hey, where's my stuff at?

684
00:32:12,440 --> 00:32:14,000
Speaker 3: And I would make sure because again they all looked

685
00:32:14,040 --> 00:32:16,080
Speaker 3: like me. And it got to a certain point to

686
00:32:16,120 --> 00:32:19,400
Speaker 3: where I literally would have them make me a picture

687
00:32:19,400 --> 00:32:21,480
Speaker 3: of kool aid, and I would bring a picture of

688
00:32:21,520 --> 00:32:23,040
Speaker 3: kool aid to my class and sit it on my

689
00:32:23,080 --> 00:32:25,400
Speaker 3: desk and I would sit there and I would have cups,

690
00:32:25,560 --> 00:32:26,800
Speaker 3: like if they want something to drink, I got something

691
00:32:26,840 --> 00:32:28,160
Speaker 3: to drink. And you know, it even went to the

692
00:32:28,200 --> 00:32:29,920
Speaker 3: point to where and I'm not gonna get to the

693
00:32:29,920 --> 00:32:31,520
Speaker 3: whole story, but like, you know, the whole purpose of

694
00:32:31,520 --> 00:32:33,880
Speaker 3: being in the NBA programs you have a capstone project.

695
00:32:34,440 --> 00:32:36,600
Speaker 3: And you know, the kind of the wakening moment for

696
00:32:36,720 --> 00:32:39,560
Speaker 3: me was we had the capstone. I was already in

697
00:32:39,640 --> 00:32:41,440
Speaker 3: kind of in my cohort, in my class, I was

698
00:32:41,480 --> 00:32:44,480
Speaker 3: basically the top student and you know, it was me

699
00:32:44,600 --> 00:32:46,720
Speaker 3: and it was this other guy. You know, again, we're

700
00:32:46,720 --> 00:32:48,600
Speaker 3: not gonna get into what they looked like, but they

701
00:32:48,680 --> 00:32:50,920
Speaker 3: weren't like us. And I mean it wasn't even that

702
00:32:50,960 --> 00:32:52,320
Speaker 3: they were white. It was just a lot of other

703
00:32:52,360 --> 00:32:55,880
Speaker 3: people in the class. And you know, we had like

704
00:32:55,960 --> 00:32:59,880
Speaker 3: self formed groups for our capstone. And when everybody's so

705
00:33:00,080 --> 00:33:01,960
Speaker 3: form and I realized was I was like, wow, I'm

706
00:33:02,000 --> 00:33:04,880
Speaker 3: the number one student in this class and nobody wants

707
00:33:04,880 --> 00:33:07,680
Speaker 3: to be on my team. And then I looked around

708
00:33:08,000 --> 00:33:11,240
Speaker 3: and all the students that were left were all the

709
00:33:11,280 --> 00:33:15,000
Speaker 3: other black students in my cohort, and so I got

710
00:33:15,000 --> 00:33:17,080
Speaker 3: them all together. I said, you know what, I got

711
00:33:17,160 --> 00:33:17,680
Speaker 3: us all together.

712
00:33:18,640 --> 00:33:18,880
Speaker 5: I said.

713
00:33:18,920 --> 00:33:20,640
Speaker 3: We went in the room and I said, hey, y'all, look,

714
00:33:20,680 --> 00:33:22,080
Speaker 3: we all gonna be on the same team. We're gonna

715
00:33:22,120 --> 00:33:24,720
Speaker 3: kick the ass, period. And I said, just because look

716
00:33:24,760 --> 00:33:26,840
Speaker 3: look at us, Look at everybody in this room right now,

717
00:33:27,160 --> 00:33:30,440
Speaker 3: look at everybody else. And we ended up winning that thing,

718
00:33:30,520 --> 00:33:32,040
Speaker 3: went in first place in that competition.

719
00:33:32,120 --> 00:33:33,760
Speaker 4: They was even mad about that. They even lied on

720
00:33:33,800 --> 00:33:35,360
Speaker 4: me and said I cheated on that. I can't cheat

721
00:33:35,400 --> 00:33:37,240
Speaker 4: on this stuff, So no, I get I get it right.

722
00:33:37,680 --> 00:33:40,080
Speaker 3: Even since then, I've been a lot more comforable just

723
00:33:40,080 --> 00:33:42,520
Speaker 3: express you know, embracing that and just being myself out

724
00:33:42,560 --> 00:33:44,080
Speaker 3: in public. And ever since then, you know, I've kind

725
00:33:44,080 --> 00:33:46,160
Speaker 3: of been doing my own things. I really like moments

726
00:33:46,200 --> 00:33:59,600
Speaker 3: like those stories kind of definitely resonate one of things

727
00:33:59,680 --> 00:34:01,959
Speaker 3: y'all tall about you though, Yeah, y'all said, I got

728
00:34:02,000 --> 00:34:03,920
Speaker 3: to ask about how y'all met, Like I hear there's

729
00:34:03,920 --> 00:34:05,360
Speaker 3: an interest story behind that.

730
00:34:05,560 --> 00:34:07,360
Speaker 4: So what's what's the story about how y'all met?

731
00:34:07,560 --> 00:34:09,480
Speaker 1: So I'll start just by saying, you know, I was

732
00:34:09,480 --> 00:34:12,560
Speaker 1: born in Atlanta. My parents got divorced, so I'm not

733
00:34:12,640 --> 00:34:15,600
Speaker 1: a grady baby. I am a Georgia Baptist baby, which

734
00:34:15,600 --> 00:34:19,200
Speaker 1: I think is a real thing still and I always

735
00:34:19,239 --> 00:34:19,719
Speaker 1: tell C. J.

736
00:34:19,840 --> 00:34:20,319
Speaker 2: Lott we was.

737
00:34:20,360 --> 00:34:22,919
Speaker 1: We was both on Medicaid, just in different facilities. It's

738
00:34:22,920 --> 00:34:26,400
Speaker 1: the same thing. And my parents got divorced when I

739
00:34:26,440 --> 00:34:29,880
Speaker 1: was around five or six. So I moved from East Atlanta,

740
00:34:29,920 --> 00:34:32,359
Speaker 1: where I was living with my parents and sometimes my aunt,

741
00:34:32,760 --> 00:34:36,200
Speaker 1: to a farm in Oglethorpe County, Georgia, near Athens with

742
00:34:36,280 --> 00:34:40,560
Speaker 1: my grandparents. So very much a country girl being, you know,

743
00:34:40,680 --> 00:34:43,000
Speaker 1: raised from that young age. So when I came back

744
00:34:43,040 --> 00:34:46,200
Speaker 1: to Atlanta after I graduated from high school, I was

745
00:34:46,239 --> 00:34:49,080
Speaker 1: working at southdie Cab foot Locker.

746
00:34:50,800 --> 00:34:57,040
Speaker 3: So did you know Dale, Yes, funny polyester pants and everything.

747
00:34:56,920 --> 00:34:59,680
Speaker 2: Right DoD but we was fresh and up.

748
00:35:00,920 --> 00:35:02,480
Speaker 5: They looked a lot better on the women though.

749
00:35:03,600 --> 00:35:07,640
Speaker 1: So I had transferred from Georgia Square Mall in Athens

750
00:35:07,680 --> 00:35:09,839
Speaker 1: to the foot locker, you know at South the kV.

751
00:35:09,920 --> 00:35:12,439
Speaker 1: And I was getting off work late one night because

752
00:35:12,440 --> 00:35:14,040
Speaker 1: you know, you gotta make the drop, you gotta walk

753
00:35:14,040 --> 00:35:16,680
Speaker 1: with somebody to make the drop for the money, and

754
00:35:17,560 --> 00:35:20,880
Speaker 1: I'm getting off Candler Road. My aunt lived on Glenwood,

755
00:35:21,320 --> 00:35:25,720
Speaker 1: so in that little stretch of I twenty I'm driving

756
00:35:25,760 --> 00:35:28,359
Speaker 1: and I see this guy go, you know, put up

757
00:35:28,440 --> 00:35:32,120
Speaker 1: his hand like your number or whatever. So you know,

758
00:35:32,320 --> 00:35:35,040
Speaker 1: my grandma, being who she is, you know, she's very

759
00:35:35,040 --> 00:35:35,640
Speaker 1: protective of me.

760
00:35:35,719 --> 00:35:36,879
Speaker 2: First thing she said was.

761
00:35:36,960 --> 00:35:38,520
Speaker 1: Don't go up there and get involved with none of

762
00:35:38,520 --> 00:35:40,440
Speaker 1: the men up that they just gonna take advantage of you.

763
00:35:41,000 --> 00:35:43,160
Speaker 1: So I'm sitting here thinking like, okay, this is how

764
00:35:43,160 --> 00:35:44,919
Speaker 1: it ends. God, you brought me up here to get

765
00:35:44,920 --> 00:35:46,880
Speaker 1: pulled over and bludgeon to death.

766
00:35:46,640 --> 00:35:48,200
Speaker 2: On the side of the road. Like I don't know.

767
00:35:48,680 --> 00:35:51,640
Speaker 2: But so I was like, he's making advances. I just

768
00:35:51,640 --> 00:35:52,800
Speaker 2: smiled at him. Whatever.

769
00:35:53,120 --> 00:35:54,640
Speaker 1: But I got off on my exit at Glenn with

770
00:35:54,640 --> 00:35:56,919
Speaker 1: because I'm like, surely he's gonna keep going. This dude

771
00:35:56,960 --> 00:36:00,200
Speaker 1: follows me off the exit, and so you know there

772
00:36:00,320 --> 00:36:02,279
Speaker 1: is Greater Piney Grows. That's the church my parents go,

773
00:36:02,480 --> 00:36:04,440
Speaker 1: all right, so across the street. At the time, it

774
00:36:04,480 --> 00:36:07,920
Speaker 1: was a Texico Mexico. So I pulled over at the

775
00:36:07,960 --> 00:36:12,239
Speaker 1: Texico at the front door, rolled down my window, had

776
00:36:12,239 --> 00:36:14,640
Speaker 1: my mace, my little can of mace, and I was like,

777
00:36:15,920 --> 00:36:17,520
Speaker 1: can I help you? And he just looked at me

778
00:36:17,680 --> 00:36:19,879
Speaker 1: like you're gonna mace me? And I was like, you're

779
00:36:19,880 --> 00:36:22,440
Speaker 1: gonna do something to be maceed, like, I don't know.

780
00:36:22,800 --> 00:36:24,040
Speaker 2: And that was when.

781
00:36:24,760 --> 00:36:29,719
Speaker 5: September seventh, nineteen ninety sixty. Okay, you know.

782
00:36:29,719 --> 00:36:31,640
Speaker 2: It's it's been together ever since.

783
00:36:32,000 --> 00:36:33,759
Speaker 3: We might have been at foot Lock at the same time.

784
00:36:34,760 --> 00:36:36,200
Speaker 3: I was there during freaking Yeah.

785
00:36:36,360 --> 00:36:37,759
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, I was too.

786
00:36:37,960 --> 00:36:41,000
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, it was uh, you know it was. It

787
00:36:41,040 --> 00:36:43,279
Speaker 5: was awesome too. I don't even know if we've ever

788
00:36:43,440 --> 00:36:47,000
Speaker 5: like if I shared this with her, you know, in

789
00:36:47,360 --> 00:36:50,520
Speaker 5: this type of public space. But you know, it's unfortunate.

790
00:36:50,600 --> 00:36:54,080
Speaker 5: But for me, again, as a kid that's grown up

791
00:36:54,080 --> 00:36:56,480
Speaker 5: to be a professional athlete who's also trying to figure

792
00:36:56,520 --> 00:37:03,000
Speaker 5: out life, what I'm also working to reject is this

793
00:37:04,640 --> 00:37:08,280
Speaker 5: notion that I may have to consider at some point

794
00:37:08,280 --> 00:37:11,040
Speaker 5: falling in love with a white woman so that I

795
00:37:11,040 --> 00:37:15,480
Speaker 5: can navigate the world, you know. And so it's like,

796
00:37:16,360 --> 00:37:18,640
Speaker 5: and that does happen for people, whether they're honest about

797
00:37:18,640 --> 00:37:20,200
Speaker 5: it and so on and so forth. I mean, you know,

798
00:37:20,400 --> 00:37:23,120
Speaker 5: when we're making choices where we're saying yes to something

799
00:37:23,160 --> 00:37:27,799
Speaker 5: and know to something else. Yeah, but when when I

800
00:37:27,840 --> 00:37:31,239
Speaker 5: saw Kelly, it was just kind of like, this is

801
00:37:31,280 --> 00:37:37,160
Speaker 5: what I need. Like it's she's dark skinned, nice smile,

802
00:37:38,080 --> 00:37:40,680
Speaker 5: like it's all of these things. From an external standpoint,

803
00:37:40,719 --> 00:37:43,400
Speaker 5: it was like, and then if the internal is great,

804
00:37:43,680 --> 00:37:47,759
Speaker 5: then you know that's even better because you know, for me,

805
00:37:47,800 --> 00:37:51,520
Speaker 5: as a child being raised at Elizabeth Baptist Church and

806
00:37:51,600 --> 00:37:54,200
Speaker 5: we're members there now and I'm a deacon there, I

807
00:37:54,239 --> 00:37:58,960
Speaker 5: had known enough of the Bible to understand that blessings

808
00:37:59,000 --> 00:38:03,640
Speaker 5: for men are attached to their wife. So I'm saying,

809
00:38:03,760 --> 00:38:06,200
Speaker 5: so I'm saying to myself like I'm still wrestling with

810
00:38:06,960 --> 00:38:08,960
Speaker 5: and then even also too, I mean, just you know,

811
00:38:10,719 --> 00:38:14,279
Speaker 5: the thought even from a colorism standpoint, you know, I'm

812
00:38:14,360 --> 00:38:19,160
Speaker 5: dark skinned, dark skinned wife. Well, if I get a

813
00:38:19,200 --> 00:38:21,920
Speaker 5: light skinned wife or a light skinned girlfriend, we have children,

814
00:38:22,000 --> 00:38:23,920
Speaker 5: we can have light skinned kids and then life could

815
00:38:23,960 --> 00:38:27,600
Speaker 5: be easier for them. Now Nate Sayers would say, well,

816
00:38:28,080 --> 00:38:30,360
Speaker 5: you know, all that stuff doesn't matter, but you're not

817
00:38:30,480 --> 00:38:33,160
Speaker 5: dark skin. If you're if you're dark skinned African American,

818
00:38:33,200 --> 00:38:39,360
Speaker 5: and you're pretty much at the bottom of society on Earth. Uh,

819
00:38:39,480 --> 00:38:41,800
Speaker 5: and then the and then the dark skinned black woman

820
00:38:42,000 --> 00:38:45,480
Speaker 5: is at the absolute bottom. So you know, going through

821
00:38:45,480 --> 00:38:47,640
Speaker 5: all those things, but you know, in that moment, in

822
00:38:47,719 --> 00:38:50,680
Speaker 5: that in that decision, not only with you know, Kelly

823
00:38:50,719 --> 00:38:53,160
Speaker 5: and meeting her. But it's very much like I mean,

824
00:38:53,360 --> 00:38:56,719
Speaker 5: everything that I'm pretty much accomplishing are things that growing

825
00:38:56,800 --> 00:39:00,719
Speaker 5: up in trauma that I was dreaming about that had

826
00:39:00,719 --> 00:39:03,840
Speaker 5: I not even had the dream and the pathway to

827
00:39:03,960 --> 00:39:05,640
Speaker 5: fulfill it, I don't know if it would have been

828
00:39:05,640 --> 00:39:09,560
Speaker 5: worth living. Yeah, because all the odds were counted against me. Anyway.

829
00:39:10,080 --> 00:39:12,359
Speaker 4: Yeah, look, man, look y'all, y'all got me over here.

830
00:39:12,400 --> 00:39:15,680
Speaker 3: Reminiscences. Man, I used to work at South calv I said.

831
00:39:15,680 --> 00:39:18,680
Speaker 3: My parents are Deacon and Deaconessa's at Grove. I've been

832
00:39:18,680 --> 00:39:20,560
Speaker 3: a member there personally for almost forty years.

833
00:39:20,640 --> 00:39:21,200
Speaker 5: Believe it or not.

834
00:39:21,280 --> 00:39:22,879
Speaker 2: Wow, that's what's I.

835
00:39:22,840 --> 00:39:26,239
Speaker 3: Grew up in Stone Mountain, played at Ritan Park and

836
00:39:26,480 --> 00:39:28,080
Speaker 3: you know we were even talking to right like you

837
00:39:28,080 --> 00:39:30,200
Speaker 3: talked about how important parks like Gresham Park were in

838
00:39:30,200 --> 00:39:32,399
Speaker 3: the cab County Like where does where does that sit

839
00:39:32,480 --> 00:39:35,000
Speaker 3: in kind of like the whole pathiano like sports in

840
00:39:35,000 --> 00:39:35,520
Speaker 3: your opinion?

841
00:39:35,760 --> 00:39:41,440
Speaker 5: Yeah, so always heard as a child, you know, Decatur

842
00:39:41,440 --> 00:39:46,000
Speaker 5: where is greater? And so even my family, a lot

843
00:39:46,040 --> 00:39:48,960
Speaker 5: of my family has moved to Decatur. So what I

844
00:39:49,000 --> 00:39:51,200
Speaker 5: started to really see, and I don't know it as

845
00:39:51,280 --> 00:39:54,920
Speaker 5: a fact, but the filling was you know, you're relegated

846
00:39:54,960 --> 00:39:57,680
Speaker 5: to the City of Atlanta, and then as you do

847
00:39:57,760 --> 00:39:59,839
Speaker 5: better in life, then you can move and move out.

848
00:40:00,680 --> 00:40:04,360
Speaker 5: And so when when I would play against Aggresham Park teams,

849
00:40:06,000 --> 00:40:12,000
Speaker 5: I start seeing a lot, a lot of two parents households,

850
00:40:12,920 --> 00:40:17,040
Speaker 5: and nicer houses, nicer cars, and so with all of

851
00:40:17,080 --> 00:40:22,200
Speaker 5: those things, I just do believe that it's easier for

852
00:40:22,280 --> 00:40:26,840
Speaker 5: kids to perform better. Yeah, So the cab County kids

853
00:40:27,080 --> 00:40:29,839
Speaker 5: were able to play with a different level of fight

854
00:40:30,000 --> 00:40:32,160
Speaker 5: than kids from the City of Atlanta. So City of Atlanta,

855
00:40:32,200 --> 00:40:34,320
Speaker 5: you know, you know where people are really working to

856
00:40:34,320 --> 00:40:36,080
Speaker 5: get it out of the mud. And and quite frankly,

857
00:40:36,239 --> 00:40:40,960
Speaker 5: it exists even now. You can expound on it, Kelly.

858
00:40:40,960 --> 00:40:43,120
Speaker 5: But when you know, when I think about a trauma

859
00:40:43,200 --> 00:40:47,200
Speaker 5: informed approach to sports, you know, children that are that

860
00:40:47,239 --> 00:40:53,200
Speaker 5: are struggling with adverse childhood experiences. If you don't have

861
00:40:53,320 --> 00:40:56,359
Speaker 5: that buffer, it's very difficult to say, all right, let

862
00:40:56,400 --> 00:40:58,520
Speaker 5: me buckle down and throw a strike, yeah, or let

863
00:40:58,600 --> 00:41:01,560
Speaker 5: me buckle down and serve an ace on this. You

864
00:41:01,640 --> 00:41:06,200
Speaker 5: may say it, but are you regulated enough to be

865
00:41:06,239 --> 00:41:09,640
Speaker 5: able to do it? Versus children that are coming from

866
00:41:09,800 --> 00:41:12,920
Speaker 5: very strong households and a very strong community a strong

867
00:41:12,960 --> 00:41:16,879
Speaker 5: community to where if an opponent calls you the N word,

868
00:41:17,239 --> 00:41:19,160
Speaker 5: you don't have a coach trying to figure out what

869
00:41:19,239 --> 00:41:23,600
Speaker 5: to say. The caap kind of kids like they were

870
00:41:23,680 --> 00:41:25,759
Speaker 5: protected from what I saw.

871
00:41:25,800 --> 00:41:28,239
Speaker 1: And it's very important because when you talk about aces,

872
00:41:28,360 --> 00:41:33,120
Speaker 1: that buffering is so important because when the area in

873
00:41:33,160 --> 00:41:37,120
Speaker 1: our brain that deals with our trauma response, that fight

874
00:41:37,200 --> 00:41:40,439
Speaker 1: or flight is maybe that sits right in the base

875
00:41:40,480 --> 00:41:43,600
Speaker 1: of our brain. Unfortunately, I think that's just like a

876
00:41:43,640 --> 00:41:45,680
Speaker 1: cruel joke that God plays on us. That's the most

877
00:41:45,920 --> 00:41:49,560
Speaker 1: developed form part of our brain when we're born, when

878
00:41:49,560 --> 00:41:52,520
Speaker 1: we're younger, when we really need that cerebral frontal cortex

879
00:41:52,600 --> 00:41:55,160
Speaker 1: to be more developed, but that comes later. And so

880
00:41:56,200 --> 00:41:59,000
Speaker 1: this is the lens of our brain that our children

881
00:41:59,040 --> 00:42:01,359
Speaker 1: are working most from, which is why they need good

882
00:42:01,360 --> 00:42:04,000
Speaker 1: parenting and why they need good leaders because that first

883
00:42:04,120 --> 00:42:06,200
Speaker 1: response nine times out of ten.

884
00:42:06,200 --> 00:42:07,120
Speaker 2: Gonna be the wrong one.

885
00:42:07,680 --> 00:42:11,040
Speaker 1: So having you know those role models on those parents

886
00:42:11,440 --> 00:42:13,600
Speaker 1: you know and coaches in your lives as a child

887
00:42:13,680 --> 00:42:15,880
Speaker 1: to help buffer you if somebody do call you an

888
00:42:15,920 --> 00:42:18,400
Speaker 1: in word on the field, to help you, to regulate

889
00:42:18,440 --> 00:42:20,520
Speaker 1: you and bring you down so you're not acting out

890
00:42:20,560 --> 00:42:23,160
Speaker 1: of that parasympathetic nervous system and you just on fire,

891
00:42:23,719 --> 00:42:25,680
Speaker 1: and you know, you go off and do something that's

892
00:42:25,719 --> 00:42:28,239
Speaker 1: going to have detrimental implications down the road.

893
00:42:28,760 --> 00:42:29,000
Speaker 2: You know.

894
00:42:29,120 --> 00:42:31,560
Speaker 1: I feel like that's a lot of what our inner

895
00:42:31,560 --> 00:42:34,080
Speaker 1: city youth, you know, missed. I know, my mom growing

896
00:42:34,120 --> 00:42:37,480
Speaker 1: up struggled with drug addiction, and my mom and dad

897
00:42:37,520 --> 00:42:40,279
Speaker 1: divorced when I was young, and my grandma she did

898
00:42:40,320 --> 00:42:42,040
Speaker 1: the best she could with me. You know, she was

899
00:42:42,600 --> 00:42:44,839
Speaker 1: taking care of my grandfather who was down with all

900
00:42:44,880 --> 00:42:46,640
Speaker 1: zearmers by the time I moved, so she had a

901
00:42:46,680 --> 00:42:48,680
Speaker 1: lot on her, you know, and now you're trying to

902
00:42:48,760 --> 00:42:49,760
Speaker 1: raise a little girl.

903
00:42:50,280 --> 00:42:51,399
Speaker 2: You know, I was a.

904
00:42:51,360 --> 00:42:55,240
Speaker 1: Handful, you know, a little bit, but she the buffer

905
00:42:55,280 --> 00:42:57,600
Speaker 1: that she provided for me was that I knew I

906
00:42:57,640 --> 00:42:59,719
Speaker 1: had a place to go home. Because a lot of

907
00:42:59,719 --> 00:43:04,080
Speaker 1: my who'se or people in my community whose parents were

908
00:43:05,000 --> 00:43:08,560
Speaker 1: consumed by drug addiction, some of them went to foster care,

909
00:43:09,000 --> 00:43:10,759
Speaker 1: and my grandma kept me out of falster care. Like,

910
00:43:10,760 --> 00:43:12,680
Speaker 1: if there's nothing else I can point to that she

911
00:43:12,800 --> 00:43:14,680
Speaker 1: did for me. She made sure I had a stable

912
00:43:14,719 --> 00:43:16,320
Speaker 1: home to be at and my life would be a

913
00:43:16,360 --> 00:43:18,239
Speaker 1: lot different if I didn't have her in my life.

914
00:43:18,360 --> 00:43:21,600
Speaker 1: But making sure that there is that buffering system, and

915
00:43:21,600 --> 00:43:24,239
Speaker 1: that's what we act as as coaches, partnering with our

916
00:43:24,280 --> 00:43:27,959
Speaker 1: families because it gets overwhelming, you know, out here trying

917
00:43:27,960 --> 00:43:30,800
Speaker 1: to hustle up. You know the odds are against you.

918
00:43:30,360 --> 00:43:32,680
Speaker 1: You you live, you live in bancad and you see

919
00:43:32,680 --> 00:43:35,200
Speaker 1: these four hundred thousand, five hundred thousand dollar town homes

920
00:43:35,239 --> 00:43:37,719
Speaker 1: going up and you can't make your rent, and you

921
00:43:37,760 --> 00:43:40,640
Speaker 1: know the changes that are happening aren't necessarily happening for you,

922
00:43:41,000 --> 00:43:42,600
Speaker 1: and you trying to figure out how do I fit

923
00:43:42,640 --> 00:43:44,960
Speaker 1: in in the community that I've been in for generations

924
00:43:45,360 --> 00:43:47,719
Speaker 1: And then, by the way, my son or daughter wants

925
00:43:47,719 --> 00:43:49,920
Speaker 1: to play baseball or tennis, I have no way how

926
00:43:49,920 --> 00:43:52,759
Speaker 1: to make that happen because I'm trying not to get

927
00:43:52,800 --> 00:43:55,880
Speaker 1: put out of my house now that I'm renting, not

928
00:43:55,960 --> 00:43:57,759
Speaker 1: because I can't make the rent, but because the guy

929
00:43:57,760 --> 00:43:59,800
Speaker 1: who normally does Section eight trying to cash in on

930
00:43:59,840 --> 00:44:02,759
Speaker 1: the gentrification, and now that's pushing me out. So our

931
00:44:02,800 --> 00:44:06,160
Speaker 1: parents are juggling so much. And that's why we come

932
00:44:06,239 --> 00:44:08,920
Speaker 1: in to help be that buffer for our kids. Because

933
00:44:09,280 --> 00:44:10,880
Speaker 1: if you don't see it, feel like you got a

934
00:44:10,880 --> 00:44:14,560
Speaker 1: way then selling water on the ramp strapped up is

935
00:44:14,600 --> 00:44:15,240
Speaker 1: your way.

936
00:44:15,760 --> 00:44:18,640
Speaker 5: So and bringing it back the Diggression Park, I experienced it.

937
00:44:18,880 --> 00:44:21,640
Speaker 5: There's a correlation that I can see now as an adult,

938
00:44:22,040 --> 00:44:26,600
Speaker 5: a correlation between performance and protection. It's hard to perform

939
00:44:26,920 --> 00:44:29,319
Speaker 5: when you know you aren't protected. Yeah, and so that's

940
00:44:29,360 --> 00:44:32,680
Speaker 5: why for us, with our progression to performance, we can

941
00:44:32,760 --> 00:44:36,520
Speaker 5: go into any community, black, white, Asian, whatever it is,

942
00:44:37,160 --> 00:44:40,239
Speaker 5: everything is going to start with protection. And you know

943
00:44:40,800 --> 00:44:43,440
Speaker 5: that's that's why even for me now, and which is

944
00:44:43,440 --> 00:44:45,759
Speaker 5: why it's great to be able to be on butter

945
00:44:45,880 --> 00:44:50,040
Speaker 5: Nomics with you, because if I have some moments of

946
00:44:50,480 --> 00:44:56,719
Speaker 5: vulnerability and people try to scorn me, because I really

947
00:44:56,719 --> 00:44:59,000
Speaker 5: work hard to try to not be places where I'm

948
00:44:59,040 --> 00:45:02,000
Speaker 5: not able to be my because because I may say

949
00:45:02,040 --> 00:45:04,560
Speaker 5: something and be misquoted. But then hopefully if I do

950
00:45:04,600 --> 00:45:06,399
Speaker 5: a good job today here with you, then people can

951
00:45:06,440 --> 00:45:08,080
Speaker 5: come back and look back at this. But it's like, man,

952
00:45:08,080 --> 00:45:10,960
Speaker 5: I want protection. So that's what I saw with kids

953
00:45:11,000 --> 00:45:12,840
Speaker 5: at Aggresham Park. But they were some They were the

954
00:45:12,880 --> 00:45:15,360
Speaker 5: real deal, y'all were the real deal. Yeah, it was.

955
00:45:15,440 --> 00:45:17,200
Speaker 3: It was a very it was very interesting. I mean

956
00:45:17,480 --> 00:45:18,920
Speaker 3: you don't notice it as much as kind of when

957
00:45:18,920 --> 00:45:21,080
Speaker 3: you're in it. But yeah, when I look around, like

958
00:45:21,120 --> 00:45:22,600
Speaker 3: I said, it was just you know, that was my

959
00:45:22,640 --> 00:45:24,640
Speaker 3: parents and they moved out here and we kind of

960
00:45:24,680 --> 00:45:26,880
Speaker 3: moved a stone mountain and and again it.

961
00:45:26,920 --> 00:45:27,879
Speaker 4: Just kind of grew up in that space.

962
00:45:27,960 --> 00:45:29,880
Speaker 3: You don't realize that you are kind of like incubated

963
00:45:29,880 --> 00:45:31,360
Speaker 3: from a lot of things, and just made it easier

964
00:45:31,360 --> 00:45:34,040
Speaker 3: to focus on some of the other stuff. Now. Obviously,

965
00:45:34,040 --> 00:45:36,160
Speaker 3: you know, again there's things that didn't happen out there

966
00:45:36,200 --> 00:45:38,160
Speaker 3: that could have been better, right, But like, you know,

967
00:45:38,480 --> 00:45:40,640
Speaker 3: it was a very interesting time, especially, and I mean

968
00:45:40,680 --> 00:45:41,359
Speaker 3: it's changing now.

969
00:45:41,360 --> 00:45:42,080
Speaker 4: It's interesting too.

970
00:45:42,120 --> 00:45:44,000
Speaker 3: Like you know, I remember being at Ridane High School

971
00:45:44,040 --> 00:45:47,319
Speaker 3: and I was on the the yearbook staff, and I

972
00:45:47,320 --> 00:45:49,440
Speaker 3: remember like looking at some of the old readan yearbooks

973
00:45:49,440 --> 00:45:50,759
Speaker 3: and it was interesting, like they were like it was

974
00:45:50,800 --> 00:45:53,320
Speaker 3: like white, white, white, and like two black students and

975
00:45:53,360 --> 00:45:55,759
Speaker 3: I boom, everything was just and like even for me,

976
00:45:56,280 --> 00:45:58,759
Speaker 3: you know, it was interesting, was you know, as I

977
00:45:58,800 --> 00:46:00,400
Speaker 3: kind of looked back on my high school career, like

978
00:46:00,440 --> 00:46:02,399
Speaker 3: I tell people, like I didn't know any white people,

979
00:46:03,360 --> 00:46:04,839
Speaker 3: you know what I mean, I just didn't know any

980
00:46:04,960 --> 00:46:07,120
Speaker 3: And so like when I actually even went to college,

981
00:46:07,160 --> 00:46:09,799
Speaker 3: I went to Moorhouse and it was cool. I was

982
00:46:09,840 --> 00:46:11,440
Speaker 3: on scholarship, but I was like, you know what, I

983
00:46:11,480 --> 00:46:12,600
Speaker 3: just wanted to get out the city, and so I

984
00:46:12,680 --> 00:46:14,840
Speaker 3: ended up going to Georgia Southern and I loved it

985
00:46:14,880 --> 00:46:16,319
Speaker 3: down there. But that was really the first time I

986
00:46:16,360 --> 00:46:18,759
Speaker 3: really got to meet people that just looked like and

987
00:46:18,800 --> 00:46:20,680
Speaker 3: got to just learn from them and talk to them.

988
00:46:20,719 --> 00:46:23,319
Speaker 3: And I always tell people too, like I had never

989
00:46:23,360 --> 00:46:25,839
Speaker 3: heard Pink Floyd before. I had never heard of these things.

990
00:46:25,880 --> 00:46:27,560
Speaker 3: So it just gave me a different perspective. And I

991
00:46:27,600 --> 00:46:30,040
Speaker 3: think going into the world this kind of helped me

992
00:46:30,080 --> 00:46:31,800
Speaker 3: be more prepared for certain areas now Ageain. I'm not

993
00:46:31,840 --> 00:46:33,560
Speaker 3: saying that's the right path for everybody, because I think

994
00:46:33,800 --> 00:46:36,319
Speaker 3: it's interesting when I talk to people that aren't from

995
00:46:36,320 --> 00:46:38,040
Speaker 3: Atlanta and they came here, especially to go to the

996
00:46:38,120 --> 00:46:41,560
Speaker 3: auc They come from areas where it's exact opposite, and

997
00:46:41,840 --> 00:46:43,480
Speaker 3: but for me, I feel like, you know, it kind

998
00:46:43,480 --> 00:46:45,719
Speaker 3: of helped me get ready for just being in the

999
00:46:45,760 --> 00:46:48,839
Speaker 3: world around more diverse people than just lots of different perspectives, right,

1000
00:46:48,920 --> 00:46:51,320
Speaker 3: And so yeah, you know again, like that was a

1001
00:46:51,440 --> 00:46:53,319
Speaker 3: very it was an interesting time back there, you know,

1002
00:46:53,360 --> 00:46:55,120
Speaker 3: and still Mountain Top say you were.

1003
00:46:55,080 --> 00:46:59,360
Speaker 2: There when it was Dan, and you were there.

1004
00:46:59,280 --> 00:47:00,839
Speaker 3: For that, right.

1005
00:47:01,000 --> 00:47:01,680
Speaker 4: I remember all that.

1006
00:47:01,760 --> 00:47:15,239
Speaker 3: I remember all that, and then you know, even talking

1007
00:47:15,280 --> 00:47:17,920
Speaker 3: about just like you know, economics and opportunities. I know

1008
00:47:17,960 --> 00:47:20,440
Speaker 3: a lot of times when parents are thinking they want

1009
00:47:20,440 --> 00:47:22,360
Speaker 3: to really you know, it's like the can they afford

1010
00:47:22,440 --> 00:47:24,440
Speaker 3: to put their kids in travel ball and all these

1011
00:47:24,760 --> 00:47:26,360
Speaker 3: But you all kind of have this idea of foundation

1012
00:47:26,560 --> 00:47:28,920
Speaker 3: ball because sometimes people like look down on like rec

1013
00:47:29,000 --> 00:47:31,000
Speaker 3: leagues and I don't know for me again, that's where

1014
00:47:31,000 --> 00:47:31,719
Speaker 3: it all started at.

1015
00:47:32,120 --> 00:47:32,279
Speaker 2: You know.

1016
00:47:32,800 --> 00:47:35,640
Speaker 3: You know I didn't play travel ball. I played rec

1017
00:47:35,760 --> 00:47:37,640
Speaker 3: league until I was good enough to actually make the

1018
00:47:37,719 --> 00:47:40,080
Speaker 3: high school team. You know, So why did you all

1019
00:47:40,160 --> 00:47:42,239
Speaker 3: kind of like recoin the idea of like rec ball

1020
00:47:42,320 --> 00:47:43,279
Speaker 3: in the foundation ball.

1021
00:47:43,520 --> 00:47:45,239
Speaker 5: Yeah. So the reframing it is just to make sure

1022
00:47:45,239 --> 00:47:47,279
Speaker 5: that people can have a sense of pride and not

1023
00:47:47,440 --> 00:47:52,759
Speaker 5: feel shame of being connected to wreck ball. Now, I mean,

1024
00:47:52,800 --> 00:47:56,439
Speaker 5: it's become a bad thing. So you know, we're still

1025
00:47:56,480 --> 00:47:59,399
Speaker 5: going through this process of reframing it. What I love

1026
00:47:59,480 --> 00:48:02,200
Speaker 5: about foundation ball right now for us that is really

1027
00:48:02,280 --> 00:48:06,240
Speaker 5: prevalent in our rookie ball programming. The atmosphere is electric.

1028
00:48:07,200 --> 00:48:10,000
Speaker 5: We do change the rules a bit to make sure

1029
00:48:10,000 --> 00:48:15,040
Speaker 5: that the game can go faster, and so parents are

1030
00:48:15,080 --> 00:48:17,200
Speaker 5: seeing that they some of the parents that are there

1031
00:48:17,239 --> 00:48:19,120
Speaker 5: are really no baseball though. They'll jump out of like,

1032
00:48:19,120 --> 00:48:20,520
Speaker 5: well it shouldn't happen that way. So we're having to

1033
00:48:20,520 --> 00:48:25,560
Speaker 5: constantly remind them of that we have music. It is, uh,

1034
00:48:26,000 --> 00:48:27,520
Speaker 5: you better get there early so that you can have

1035
00:48:27,560 --> 00:48:29,960
Speaker 5: a parking spot. So the kids are like, they're seeing this,

1036
00:48:31,880 --> 00:48:35,600
Speaker 5: oh yeah, live stream it and so now it gives

1037
00:48:35,680 --> 00:48:38,480
Speaker 5: them a sense in this in this world of social media,

1038
00:48:38,560 --> 00:48:41,439
Speaker 5: and we have very good content focus on the team,

1039
00:48:42,040 --> 00:48:44,920
Speaker 5: and so now then they get to then move up

1040
00:48:45,160 --> 00:48:48,920
Speaker 5: to our Junior Ambassador League, which is more the intermediate

1041
00:48:49,360 --> 00:48:51,839
Speaker 5: type level at the moment, and then they can move

1042
00:48:51,920 --> 00:48:54,600
Speaker 5: up to our Advanced Elite Ambassador League. So what we're

1043
00:48:54,640 --> 00:48:56,440
Speaker 5: saying is is this is where you're going to start,

1044
00:48:56,920 --> 00:48:59,160
Speaker 5: but this is where you can go. A lot of

1045
00:48:59,239 --> 00:49:02,880
Speaker 5: the mindset is too, is around talent, habits, and skills.

1046
00:49:03,400 --> 00:49:06,320
Speaker 5: So talent is what you do well. Habits is what

1047
00:49:06,440 --> 00:49:09,560
Speaker 5: you do well repeatedly without thought, and skills is what

1048
00:49:09,640 --> 00:49:13,000
Speaker 5: you do well repeatedly without thought while under stress. And

1049
00:49:13,080 --> 00:49:15,359
Speaker 5: so talent is not the ceiling, its the floor. When

1050
00:49:15,400 --> 00:49:18,480
Speaker 5: I was a kid, people would talk about you about talent,

1051
00:49:18,960 --> 00:49:21,120
Speaker 5: but I always thought that that was the ceiling, so

1052
00:49:21,239 --> 00:49:24,759
Speaker 5: I stopped working. But habits is what you do well

1053
00:49:24,800 --> 00:49:28,520
Speaker 5: repeatedly without thought. But that takes tens of thousands of

1054
00:49:28,680 --> 00:49:31,680
Speaker 5: hours of work. So it's not just I'm gonna put

1055
00:49:31,719 --> 00:49:35,160
Speaker 5: in some work. I mean like, there's some numbers deliveredness

1056
00:49:35,200 --> 00:49:38,080
Speaker 5: that goes along with that. And so within our programming

1057
00:49:38,120 --> 00:49:42,440
Speaker 5: from a foundation standpoint, it's not a high level of accountability.

1058
00:49:42,560 --> 00:49:46,960
Speaker 5: From a fundamental standpoint, we are having fun. But for

1059
00:49:47,080 --> 00:49:50,080
Speaker 5: those people that want to put in the work and

1060
00:49:50,160 --> 00:49:52,480
Speaker 5: put into tens of thousands of hours, we have programming

1061
00:49:52,560 --> 00:49:55,239
Speaker 5: for that. Now, when we get to skills, these are

1062
00:49:55,280 --> 00:49:58,160
Speaker 5: things that you do well repeatedly without thought while understress.

1063
00:49:58,480 --> 00:50:02,840
Speaker 5: Scouts are out here on our performance level. Team I

1064
00:50:02,960 --> 00:50:07,560
Speaker 5: Ambassadors have to make guarantees before games. So if you

1065
00:50:07,719 --> 00:50:10,960
Speaker 5: when you were playing at Redan, maybe you did, but

1066
00:50:11,080 --> 00:50:13,359
Speaker 5: consider this. If you're playing at Ridan and the coach said,

1067
00:50:13,360 --> 00:50:15,280
Speaker 5: you got to turn in the guarantee, and your guarantee

1068
00:50:15,400 --> 00:50:18,600
Speaker 5: is I guarantee that I will only make one era today.

1069
00:50:19,600 --> 00:50:22,480
Speaker 5: So when you make that second era, you now got

1070
00:50:22,520 --> 00:50:24,160
Speaker 5: a choice to make. I can be removed from the

1071
00:50:24,200 --> 00:50:27,360
Speaker 5: game immediately. Or at the end of the game, I

1072
00:50:27,480 --> 00:50:30,920
Speaker 5: have two hundred push ups within twenty minutes that I've

1073
00:50:30,960 --> 00:50:33,719
Speaker 5: got to do, or I can just not play in

1074
00:50:33,760 --> 00:50:36,239
Speaker 5: the game at all. But I think those are the

1075
00:50:36,320 --> 00:50:38,200
Speaker 5: kind of people that you would want to be working

1076
00:50:38,280 --> 00:50:42,200
Speaker 5: as engineers for you for your show. So that but

1077
00:50:42,320 --> 00:50:46,640
Speaker 5: the foundation level is here. We're not going to panalize

1078
00:50:46,719 --> 00:50:49,120
Speaker 5: you for not being able to throw a strike, but

1079
00:50:49,280 --> 00:50:53,560
Speaker 5: you can't move forward unless you can throw strike right period.

1080
00:50:54,000 --> 00:50:57,080
Speaker 1: And so to even speak into that dedication part, it's like,

1081
00:50:57,680 --> 00:51:00,080
Speaker 1: so in one part of our programming this year, we

1082
00:51:00,200 --> 00:51:03,000
Speaker 1: had a young man who loved playing shortstop and he

1083
00:51:03,080 --> 00:51:07,560
Speaker 1: didn't want anybody to take his shortstop position. So this

1084
00:51:07,760 --> 00:51:12,399
Speaker 1: baby had to use the restroom and opted to pee

1085
00:51:12,440 --> 00:51:15,960
Speaker 1: on himself because he wasn't gonna surrender his short stop position.

1086
00:51:16,040 --> 00:51:17,440
Speaker 1: He was like, Coach, I didn't want nobody to take

1087
00:51:17,440 --> 00:51:19,279
Speaker 1: my position. While I went to the bathroom, I was like,

1088
00:51:19,960 --> 00:51:20,560
Speaker 1: you the kid.

1089
00:51:20,719 --> 00:51:21,400
Speaker 2: You the young man.

1090
00:51:21,400 --> 00:51:26,360
Speaker 1: I'm higher I mean, but no, literally no, because we

1091
00:51:26,400 --> 00:51:28,480
Speaker 1: were out there, like what's what's on his class whatever?

1092
00:51:28,480 --> 00:51:30,000
Speaker 1: He was like, Coach, I knew if I had went

1093
00:51:30,040 --> 00:51:31,799
Speaker 1: to the bathroom, one of them was gonna take my spot.

1094
00:51:31,880 --> 00:51:34,520
Speaker 1: And I'm like, like, dass, I mean, of course I

1095
00:51:34,600 --> 00:51:36,759
Speaker 1: want kids to go to the restroom. However, but that

1096
00:51:36,920 --> 00:51:39,399
Speaker 1: level of dedication that he felt like in his mind

1097
00:51:39,480 --> 00:51:42,920
Speaker 1: he processed that like I like, that's a dog, you

1098
00:51:42,960 --> 00:51:43,760
Speaker 1: know what I'm saying.

1099
00:51:43,640 --> 00:51:44,200
Speaker 2: To a level.

1100
00:51:44,320 --> 00:51:47,279
Speaker 1: So that's why I love sports for even situations like

1101
00:51:47,360 --> 00:51:49,840
Speaker 1: that that are like crazy but funny, but like.

1102
00:51:50,239 --> 00:51:52,799
Speaker 5: You to do and just lastly on that, you got

1103
00:51:52,920 --> 00:51:54,520
Speaker 5: to have a place where you can just simply just

1104
00:51:54,600 --> 00:51:57,120
Speaker 5: develop a feel. Yeah. I mean I think about even

1105
00:51:57,200 --> 00:51:58,680
Speaker 5: right now being able to do this with you. I

1106
00:51:58,760 --> 00:52:01,840
Speaker 5: remember the first time being able to be interviewed and

1107
00:52:01,920 --> 00:52:04,440
Speaker 5: do something like this. I was just so nervous, couldn't

1108
00:52:04,480 --> 00:52:08,440
Speaker 5: sleep the night before. But now when I go into situations,

1109
00:52:08,480 --> 00:52:11,200
Speaker 5: it's like, look, let me just get a feel then

1110
00:52:11,239 --> 00:52:15,200
Speaker 5: the fundamentals, and then I can have fun. So if

1111
00:52:15,239 --> 00:52:17,319
Speaker 5: I start out something that I've never done before, people

1112
00:52:17,320 --> 00:52:18,040
Speaker 5: will say something like.

1113
00:52:18,080 --> 00:52:18,960
Speaker 2: You know, just have fun.

1114
00:52:19,520 --> 00:52:21,320
Speaker 5: No, I need to get a feel first. Let me

1115
00:52:21,360 --> 00:52:22,880
Speaker 5: get a feel for it. And that's again what the

1116
00:52:22,960 --> 00:52:27,640
Speaker 5: foundation ball does. Look, we got to teach them how

1117
00:52:27,640 --> 00:52:31,399
Speaker 5: to put on their hate the belt, the belt, the belt.

1118
00:52:31,719 --> 00:52:35,759
Speaker 5: But but if you got a kid who does have

1119
00:52:35,920 --> 00:52:38,719
Speaker 5: some talent and he's eight years old, and then you

1120
00:52:38,960 --> 00:52:42,920
Speaker 5: send him to the suburbs to play travel ball and

1121
00:52:43,120 --> 00:52:44,719
Speaker 5: he does have some talent, but he doesn't know how

1122
00:52:44,800 --> 00:52:46,120
Speaker 5: the right way to put on the belt, and he

1123
00:52:46,200 --> 00:52:49,960
Speaker 5: doesn't know all of the nuances. It's going to be

1124
00:52:50,080 --> 00:52:52,640
Speaker 5: traumatic because he's going to get picked on. And then

1125
00:52:52,680 --> 00:52:54,960
Speaker 5: hopefully you got a coach that'll protect you. But in

1126
00:52:55,080 --> 00:52:58,040
Speaker 5: some of those high charge environments and travel ball, they'll

1127
00:52:58,080 --> 00:52:58,680
Speaker 5: just get rid of you.

1128
00:52:58,920 --> 00:53:01,480
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, look I mean and again I think it's

1129
00:53:01,520 --> 00:53:02,120
Speaker 4: to your points.

1130
00:53:02,160 --> 00:53:04,719
Speaker 3: It's getting those reps in, Like I always think about

1131
00:53:04,719 --> 00:53:05,880
Speaker 3: it when it comes to me, and even just like

1132
00:53:05,920 --> 00:53:08,239
Speaker 3: public speaking and stuff like that, like people like you

1133
00:53:08,320 --> 00:53:09,800
Speaker 3: get nervous, I'm like, I don't even think about it

1134
00:53:09,840 --> 00:53:11,759
Speaker 3: because I've done it so long. But those reps came

1135
00:53:11,880 --> 00:53:14,960
Speaker 3: from my mom making me do all those Easter speeches

1136
00:53:15,000 --> 00:53:16,360
Speaker 3: back at Piney Grove back in the day that I

1137
00:53:16,440 --> 00:53:18,120
Speaker 3: used to hate it is they made me do the

1138
00:53:18,160 --> 00:53:18,960
Speaker 3: welcome every weekend.

1139
00:53:19,000 --> 00:53:19,640
Speaker 4: I used to hate that.

1140
00:53:19,760 --> 00:53:21,360
Speaker 3: But like now, when it's time for me to get up,

1141
00:53:21,400 --> 00:53:23,680
Speaker 3: I tell people like I go to my little zone. Yep,

1142
00:53:23,800 --> 00:53:25,040
Speaker 3: I get rid of I'm like, all right, I just

1143
00:53:25,080 --> 00:53:26,680
Speaker 3: get up there and just do the thing. You know again,

1144
00:53:26,719 --> 00:53:28,080
Speaker 3: that's that's you know. I have a friend of mine

1145
00:53:28,120 --> 00:53:30,480
Speaker 3: he will always tell me, he would say, you know,

1146
00:53:30,840 --> 00:53:33,320
Speaker 3: looks get you in the door, Talent get you hired.

1147
00:53:33,400 --> 00:53:35,440
Speaker 3: But when you're on, it's all about stage presence, Like

1148
00:53:35,520 --> 00:53:37,320
Speaker 3: what do you do when the lights are on? And

1149
00:53:37,360 --> 00:53:39,040
Speaker 3: that's something I've always kind of thought about. So no,

1150
00:53:39,080 --> 00:53:41,000
Speaker 3: I love this conversation. Man, Look cause we're getting ready

1151
00:53:41,000 --> 00:53:42,200
Speaker 3: to wrap this up. I just want to ask, like,

1152
00:53:42,239 --> 00:53:44,759
Speaker 3: what's one thing that you really hope that listeners walk

1153
00:53:44,760 --> 00:53:47,000
Speaker 3: away from understanding about, you know, your work and the

1154
00:53:47,080 --> 00:53:49,040
Speaker 3: impact and what you all are doing with lead.

1155
00:53:49,640 --> 00:53:54,080
Speaker 1: So for me, I being a woman who grew up

1156
00:53:54,560 --> 00:53:58,440
Speaker 1: in some really tough situations, trying to grow up and

1157
00:53:58,480 --> 00:54:01,560
Speaker 1: be a kid is hard enough as it is, even

1158
00:54:01,600 --> 00:54:04,520
Speaker 1: if you have the quote unquote perfect circumstances that it's

1159
00:54:04,600 --> 00:54:07,880
Speaker 1: hard enough as it is. Navigating adolescents with relationships with

1160
00:54:08,040 --> 00:54:11,120
Speaker 1: friends and you know, just growing and your body change

1161
00:54:11,160 --> 00:54:13,600
Speaker 1: and all these types of things. You add in something

1162
00:54:14,040 --> 00:54:17,799
Speaker 1: as charged as sports, you really need folks in your

1163
00:54:17,880 --> 00:54:20,480
Speaker 1: life who are going to protect you. And when we

1164
00:54:20,640 --> 00:54:24,400
Speaker 1: talk about these adverse childhood experiences, I'm not just talking

1165
00:54:24,440 --> 00:54:30,160
Speaker 1: about parents, getting divorced, you know, domestic abuse or sexual abuse.

1166
00:54:30,520 --> 00:54:34,120
Speaker 1: I'm talking about just the stress of trying to measure

1167
00:54:34,200 --> 00:54:38,400
Speaker 1: up and to be the best. So what my takeaway

1168
00:54:38,480 --> 00:54:41,600
Speaker 1: is I want folks listening is like, love your kids.

1169
00:54:42,520 --> 00:54:44,319
Speaker 2: It's hard. It's hard out here. It's hard out here

1170
00:54:44,360 --> 00:54:44,600
Speaker 2: for us.

1171
00:54:44,640 --> 00:54:47,239
Speaker 1: It's harder for them because they have less, say soul

1172
00:54:47,280 --> 00:54:49,400
Speaker 1: in their life and what happens in our life. So

1173
00:54:49,800 --> 00:54:52,640
Speaker 1: love your kids when they strike out, it's not the

1174
00:54:52,760 --> 00:54:55,239
Speaker 1: end of the world. And at the same time, they

1175
00:54:55,320 --> 00:54:57,480
Speaker 1: need to understand if they want big things and they're

1176
00:54:57,560 --> 00:54:59,759
Speaker 1: making big claims about what they want, that's gonna take

1177
00:54:59,760 --> 00:55:02,239
Speaker 1: big work and there's going to have to be some

1178
00:55:02,440 --> 00:55:06,520
Speaker 1: level of accountability, you know, and standards and expectations there

1179
00:55:07,200 --> 00:55:07,600
Speaker 1: as well.

1180
00:55:08,440 --> 00:55:14,040
Speaker 5: So for me, my earthly talent is coaching, and one

1181
00:55:14,080 --> 00:55:17,560
Speaker 5: of my spiritual gifts is discernment and as well as prophecy,

1182
00:55:17,640 --> 00:55:21,279
Speaker 5: and so prophecy not just about predicting the future, but

1183
00:55:21,480 --> 00:55:25,000
Speaker 5: challenging the status quo. So you know, what keeps me

1184
00:55:25,239 --> 00:55:27,480
Speaker 5: up at night is that we're currently in a pay

1185
00:55:27,560 --> 00:55:30,320
Speaker 5: to play system, and I believe there's going to be

1186
00:55:30,360 --> 00:55:33,400
Speaker 5: a revolution of a play for pay system that trickles

1187
00:55:33,440 --> 00:55:35,759
Speaker 5: all the way down to the to the youth level,

1188
00:55:36,440 --> 00:55:39,279
Speaker 5: and I think when that starts to happen, it's going

1189
00:55:39,320 --> 00:55:43,080
Speaker 5: to really weed out a lot of marginalized, disenfranchised youth,

1190
00:55:43,239 --> 00:55:47,080
Speaker 5: specifically the ones that are African Americans. So, as our

1191
00:55:47,160 --> 00:55:52,360
Speaker 5: chief Visionary officer, working towards getting our organization to a

1192
00:55:52,440 --> 00:55:57,680
Speaker 5: place where our CEO can actually adapt in a way

1193
00:55:58,040 --> 00:56:00,759
Speaker 5: so that we don't get removed from the eCos to myselves,

1194
00:56:01,280 --> 00:56:04,360
Speaker 5: somebody has to protect black boys and black girls that

1195
00:56:04,440 --> 00:56:08,000
Speaker 5: we have in Tennis. And so I think all change

1196
00:56:08,040 --> 00:56:12,000
Speaker 5: has to start with conviction. So conviction is at the heart.

1197
00:56:12,760 --> 00:56:15,919
Speaker 5: And then once there's conviction, now there's connection with the head.

1198
00:56:16,400 --> 00:56:18,319
Speaker 5: A lot of times we try to figure things out

1199
00:56:18,320 --> 00:56:21,080
Speaker 5: at the head level, not the heart level. And then

1200
00:56:21,120 --> 00:56:23,160
Speaker 5: when there's a connection, then there can be a consensus,

1201
00:56:23,200 --> 00:56:26,200
Speaker 5: which is a heartfelt promise, and then we can have

1202
00:56:26,360 --> 00:56:30,840
Speaker 5: collaboration at the hands and then the change is the harvest.

1203
00:56:31,480 --> 00:56:33,839
Speaker 5: So you know, for me, when I show up at

1204
00:56:33,840 --> 00:56:36,600
Speaker 5: a place, man, I'm showing up convicted all the time.

1205
00:56:36,920 --> 00:56:40,800
Speaker 5: And I too, just like the kids need the protection,

1206
00:56:41,280 --> 00:56:44,920
Speaker 5: I need the protection, so I can just I can

1207
00:56:45,080 --> 00:56:49,719
Speaker 5: just be I'm kind of like a James ballwin tight

1208
00:56:50,200 --> 00:56:51,840
Speaker 5: and I think that's probably one of the things that

1209
00:56:51,920 --> 00:56:55,800
Speaker 5: he probably struggled with. It's just, you know, being convicted

1210
00:56:55,880 --> 00:57:00,200
Speaker 5: and just being protected. So but being here is a

1211
00:57:00,280 --> 00:57:02,600
Speaker 5: part of helping me feel like I can get the

1212
00:57:02,719 --> 00:57:05,279
Speaker 5: protection that I need where people can hear my heart.

1213
00:57:05,600 --> 00:57:07,800
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I feel like he's he's he's more on

1214
00:57:07,840 --> 00:57:10,479
Speaker 1: the James Ball inside and I'm more on the Fanny

1215
00:57:10,520 --> 00:57:11,319
Speaker 1: Louhimer side.

1216
00:57:11,360 --> 00:57:13,960
Speaker 2: I'm just raw. I'm just real. What I gotta say.

1217
00:57:14,120 --> 00:57:16,000
Speaker 2: Maybe my subject and verb don't agree, but you know

1218
00:57:16,080 --> 00:57:16,480
Speaker 2: what I mean.

1219
00:57:16,800 --> 00:57:18,560
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's the intention behind it.

1220
00:57:18,680 --> 00:57:20,120
Speaker 2: Yeah, I get it. I get it.

1221
00:57:20,400 --> 00:57:22,360
Speaker 3: Before we get out of here, this has an amazing conversation.

1222
00:57:22,480 --> 00:57:24,400
Speaker 3: Just how can folks get more information? How can they

1223
00:57:24,920 --> 00:57:26,960
Speaker 3: get involved? Look, I want you to come coach my son.

1224
00:57:27,120 --> 00:57:28,200
Speaker 3: I'm trying to find out too.

1225
00:57:28,280 --> 00:57:31,320
Speaker 2: So that's like the most fun part.

1226
00:57:31,960 --> 00:57:32,800
Speaker 4: Give them all the things.

1227
00:57:32,960 --> 00:57:35,840
Speaker 1: Yeah, so all the things. So lead Center for Youth

1228
00:57:35,960 --> 00:57:39,560
Speaker 1: dot org for spelled out f o R. That's our website.

1229
00:57:40,440 --> 00:57:43,280
Speaker 1: We're also on Instagram. I was about to say, I

1230
00:57:43,400 --> 00:57:46,800
Speaker 1: g but my my girls be joning on me for

1231
00:57:46,880 --> 00:57:49,920
Speaker 1: saying I don't know, you know, you know what I'm

1232
00:57:49,960 --> 00:57:54,000
Speaker 1: talking about so it's lead to Legacy Underscore at l

1233
00:57:54,880 --> 00:57:57,400
Speaker 1: we also have From there you can see the other

1234
00:57:57,480 --> 00:58:01,280
Speaker 1: links to our programs for the Ambassadors and for the

1235
00:58:01,400 --> 00:58:04,760
Speaker 1: Lady Ambassadors, and you know, support the kids on Instagram.

1236
00:58:04,920 --> 00:58:07,560
Speaker 1: You know, we put a lot of effort into our content,

1237
00:58:07,720 --> 00:58:10,160
Speaker 1: so go out there like it, you know, send them

1238
00:58:10,280 --> 00:58:13,600
Speaker 1: encouraging messages, hype them up. As far as volunteering, if

1239
00:58:13,600 --> 00:58:15,600
Speaker 1: you go to Lead centerf Youth dot org you'll find

1240
00:58:15,640 --> 00:58:17,439
Speaker 1: a link there for more information on depth.

1241
00:58:17,840 --> 00:58:20,520
Speaker 3: Okay, well, yo, this has been an amazing conversation. Thank

1242
00:58:20,600 --> 00:58:22,440
Speaker 3: y'all so much for coming out, Thank you for having me,

1243
00:58:22,560 --> 00:58:25,400
Speaker 3: Jan Kelly Stewart, y'all doing amazing work and we can't

1244
00:58:25,400 --> 00:58:26,440
Speaker 3: wait to see where everything goes.

1245
00:58:26,520 --> 00:58:27,400
Speaker 5: Man, thank y'all so much.

1246
00:58:27,480 --> 00:58:28,480
Speaker 2: Awesome, Thank you so much.

1247
00:58:28,560 --> 00:58:31,520
Speaker 3: And with that said, y'all, that's the pot. You've been

1248
00:58:31,520 --> 00:58:33,680
Speaker 3: listening to button Nomics and I'm your host, Brandon Butler.

1249
00:58:33,880 --> 00:58:36,680
Speaker 3: Got comments, feedback? Want to be on the show, Send

1250
00:58:36,760 --> 00:58:39,360
Speaker 3: us an email today at hello at butternomics dot com.

1251
00:58:39,840 --> 00:58:42,920
Speaker 3: Butter Nomics is producing in Atlanta, Georgia at iHeartMedia by

1252
00:58:43,000 --> 00:58:46,360
Speaker 3: Casey Pegram with marketing support from Queen and Nikki music

1253
00:58:46,400 --> 00:58:49,040
Speaker 3: provided by mister Hanky. If you haven't already, hit that

1254
00:58:49,120 --> 00:58:51,560
Speaker 3: subscribe button and never missed an episode, and be sure

1255
00:58:51,600 --> 00:58:54,000
Speaker 3: to follow us on all our social platforms at butter

1256
00:58:54,080 --> 00:58:57,360
Speaker 3: dot Atl. Listen to Better Nomics on the iHeartRadio app,

1257
00:58:57,440 --> 00:58:59,800
Speaker 3: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

1258
00:59:00,400 --> 00:59:03,600
Speaker 5: Bat batt