How CJ and Kelli Stewart Are Building Black Excellence Through Baseball

On this episode of Butternomics, our host, Brandon Butler, sits down with CJ and Kelli Stewart to break down how they’re using baseball to build character, confidence, and cultural pride in Black youth. From turning $40,000 into a million-dollar mentorship program to creating coaching certifications that heal generational trauma, they’re transforming more than just talent. The Stewarts share real talk on pricing your value, showing up with purpose, and building community through sports. This is a masterclass in what it means to lead with love—and legacy.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
What's more important than the amount of time that a
child spends in and enrichment programming. The most important factor
is not the time spent, is who they've spent the
time with. The coach or that mentor or that leader
can make the difference in changing their trajectory more so
than any other factor. So we wanted to make sure
that we created a curriculum that really centered the coaches

(00:22):
as well.

Speaker 2 (00:23):
Working with the youth is definitely.

Speaker 1 (00:24):
A part of that curriculum, but helping our coaches deal
with the baggage that they bring to the table is too.

Speaker 3 (00:34):
He everybody, Welcome to ano episode of butteron Nomics. I'm
your host, Brandan Butler, found the CEO of Butter at Yell,
and today we got some special guests in the building. Man,
they've been running around here, they've been out here on
the road doing stuff, out here in these streets doing stuff.
And we're so honored to have mister and missus CJ
and Kelly Stewart.

Speaker 4 (00:52):
How y'all doing today?

Speaker 2 (00:54):
Awesome? I'm doing well. Happy to be here one great.

Speaker 4 (00:56):
Likewise, happy to have y'all here. Happy to have y'all
here now.

Speaker 3 (01:00):
A lot of times, you know, people say, you know,
tell us about yourself and who's that, And we were
actually just talking about some AI stuff offline. I don't
shy not to scare them, letting them know the terminator
was gonna come get us.

Speaker 5 (01:08):
We're gonna be all right.

Speaker 3 (01:12):
But you know what I actually even do though, is
I ask chat chept to actually write bios about all
my guests. So yeah, yeah, you can't escape it. You
can't escape it, you know, kind of a starting point.
So I'm gonna read what chat cheebt said about you
all because it knows who y'all are. And then I
want y'all to tell me what's missing with facts and
all this kind of stuff.

Speaker 4 (01:32):
Cool, cool deal, All right, let's see.

Speaker 3 (01:36):
CJ and Kelly Stewart are co founder's lead a pioneering
youth development organization transforming lives through sports education and culturally
informed mentorship. Born and raised in Atlanta, CJ is a
former professional baseball player who turned his passion into purpose,
guiding young athletes toward leadership and life success. Kelly brings
a deep expertise in education, coaching and strategic programming, shaping

(01:57):
leads innovative approach to ensuring the organization's initiative, like their
groundbreaking Rookie League and Human Ambassador Project, which fostered meaningful
impact across communities. Together, c J and Kelly are reshaping
how we see you sports, emphasizing character development and community
empowerment to create lasting change, not only in Atlanta but nationwide.

Speaker 2 (02:16):
I like, Chap, that's my new friend. That's pretty accurate.
It was a kind of point point. That was the only point.

Speaker 4 (02:24):
You have to run that to me, I want to
show you off line.

Speaker 2 (02:28):
That's what's up.

Speaker 4 (02:29):
Well, No welcome so much of the podcast. Man, how's
everything going?

Speaker 2 (02:31):
Everything as well.

Speaker 1 (02:32):
We are in the middle of summer programming, which is
very eventful. So we got our girls playing tennis. They
just wrapped up a tennis camp at Agnes Scott College.
Shout out to Agnes Scott for rolling out the red
carpet to our lady ambassadors. And so we kicked off
our Ambassador Summer tournament yesterday out at Lake Point.

Speaker 2 (02:53):
So we in the thick of it.

Speaker 3 (02:55):
Okay, okay, Now, look y'all built really something something really
impactful and special here with Lee, Like, before we get
into it, what smarkey idea behind that?

Speaker 5 (03:03):
So and even as you were reading the bio. You know,
it really laid out the what, but you know it
didn't lay out the why. And so the why. It
was around two thousand and seven, and so Kelly and
I were about nine years entire for profit business Diamond Directors,
And so the mission for Diamond Directors is to provide
the blueprint of success for diamondsport athletes. So I'm working

(03:26):
with boys in baseball and girls in softball. And by
that time, I think we had probably had about fifteen
guys that we had worked with over the nine years
that have made that major league debut. Around this time
as well, too, we're training a very young Jason Hayward,
Dextra Fowler, Andrew McCutcheon, and one of our clients, Staying Conway,

(03:49):
a white man who was an executive with Majestic Realty.
I was training his middle school age white son, Davis,
and Stan said three things to me that changed the
trajectory of my life, that really convicted me and connected
me to my calling, which is lead. He said, Number one,

(04:10):
you are a really good coach, but your rates are
just too low. So I was competing with my competitors
based on costs, because that's all I knew to do.
So you know, if you took your rate down from
fifty dollars an hour to forty dollars, then I would
take mine down to thirty five. And so he was
just really helping me to understand that you can't be

(04:32):
the best and the cheapest at the same time. You
got to really choose. The second thing that he said was,
you know, as good as you are, it shouldn't be
so easy for people to get access to you. So
you're developing major leaguers, you got some of the cheapest rates,
and somebody can walk off the street and have access
to you. And then the third thing he said that
really changed the game for me, and I just told
Kelly we got to do something about it. He said,

(04:54):
there's a decline of blacks and baseball. You're not doing
anything about it, and essentially you're planting the seeds and
and it's not yours. So I've got this for a
profit business, developing major leaguers at a very cheap rate.
But I'm doing it in the suburbs. It's black players,
it's white players. And that's how Lead got started. And

(05:15):
Kelly had to put it together.

Speaker 2 (05:17):
Yes, he did put that load on me. But it
was it was you know, I liking it too.

Speaker 1 (05:23):
When I hear people say their husband got a call
to preach, and it's like, you don't get in the
way of that calling. When God is called, you know,
someone to preach, you don't stand in the way of that.
And what I saw in CJ, even though I didn't
understand at the time, how I was going to help,
you know, help him because my background was in you know,

(05:43):
it was in business. I graduated from Kennessas State with
the degree in business focusing on organizational development. So I
ain't really know anything about sports. I didn't grow up
playing sports. I grew up in Rotc on the competitive
rifle side, but not you know, Maine sports. So when
he told me that, I just saw this conviction in

(06:03):
his eyes, and I was like, you're not going to
talk this man out.

Speaker 2 (06:06):
Of this, So figure out what your lane is in it.

Speaker 1 (06:09):
And so what we did was put together a budget
that was about forty thousand dollars. And I guess, you know,
and you know, when you don't come from money, when
somebody tells you to put a budget together, like you
don't really know what is what does that mean? And
so I feel like when we came up with the
budget we came it was like forty grand to do
a summer program. I think stan knew we had, you know,

(06:30):
maybe shot it a little short, and he ended up
giving us sixty grand worth of seed money and we've
turned that into one point eight million dollars to this day.

Speaker 4 (06:38):
Yep, No, that's amazing.

Speaker 3 (06:40):
I think. I think one of the things I hear
a couple of things in here were like, yeah, just
information understanding kind of like what the market asked for
and understand how to price stuff is just one of
the key things that I'm kind of even hearing this part.
Like I had a mentor that used to tell me,
you know, if you race to the bottom, especially when
it comes to price, and it's not about necessarily that
you you know, if you race to the bottom, it's

(07:01):
not that you want to win, but it's even worse.

Speaker 4 (07:03):
To come in second place.

Speaker 3 (07:04):
Wow, you know what I'm saying, Because like to your point,
and I understand that, like I've done you know, web
and app development and kind of done service based businesses
where you do charge like an hourly rate and all
that stuff, and you kind of start realizing, like yeah,
like let me be a little bit cheaper, and all
of a sudden you start being like, wait a minute,
y'all charge it how much an hour?

Speaker 2 (07:20):
Right?

Speaker 3 (07:21):
I mean I've worked in the agency world, you know.
I remember hell, I was at Eccenture. They was building
me out for like seven hundred dollars an hour, and
you start asking yourself, well, how could I build myself?

Speaker 2 (07:31):
I Am not.

Speaker 3 (07:32):
Building myself out over here at fifty dollars an hour
seventy five? And you start clousing how they add that
value and stuff in and so it takes those moments
where you really kind of understand and I think, you know,
I've even had this conversation with other folks too. It's
just like clarity around like budgets and like what people
can actually do, especially doing these large brands. I think
that's something I see a lot of times when you know,
black business owners and minority business are trying to start something.

(07:53):
We go to these brands and we're asking for like
chump change. And I can always tell people and again
this is an anything in Shaw, This is just a
last in general, because I tell people all the time.

Speaker 4 (08:01):
It's like what I had to realize was it's not.

Speaker 5 (08:05):
Their money period, you know what I mean.

Speaker 3 (08:07):
Like what people don't understand about like budgets, especially for
these large companies, is if they don't spend the money,
they lose it, and so they're looking for partners. And
a lot of times we come in because you know,
when I'm about to say, it's going to sound bad,
but just hear what I'm saying is we think about
everything through our pocket, through our lens, and through experience

(08:27):
to your point, right, Like again, like I would when
I when I used to again have clients, have a team,
and we would go to clients and a lot of
people on my team, you know, we're black people of color,
and they would come back with an estimate. I say, no, no, no,
you scared to ask for money because you're thinking about
this through your bank account lens respectfully. So when I say,
like this is a half million dollar project, you scared

(08:47):
to ask for half a million dollars because you don't
have half million dollars period, because you've never put down ten,
twenty thirty thousand dollars on the house before. So it's
just even a mindset shift in how we have to
talk to these companies, right, Like how did you all
get more comfortable with asking for the amounts that really
tied into what you were actually worth from a value standpoint.

Speaker 1 (09:08):
So to your point of clarity on budget, that's the
first thing we had to get clear on what is
our true value because to your point of racing to
the bottom, it's like, the more clients I get, if
I have to luwer my price to get them, that's
the win for me. Right, It's like, no, that's not
the wind. So we had mentors along the way that
helped us understand, you know, this is what your value is,
and if you work at your optimum value, you get

(09:31):
more time back, right, I.

Speaker 2 (09:32):
Mean like and it's like it makes sense. But when
you're in business.

Speaker 1 (09:37):
First of all, we didn't have a blueprint for business
from anybody in our family, you know, no mentor internally
in our own family. So you know, by the grace
of God, we got connected with folks in the community
who saw something in us and like, let me set
these people on the right path. So I feel like
the moment that we understood our value, that's when we

(09:57):
became more confident in how we presented our services because
we understand our value. In understanding what we do, yeah,
because some people can't even articulate what they do. And
that's that's very prevalent in coaching. And that's something that
CJ has been working on for years is creating a
coaching certification. So you just don't become a coach because

(10:19):
you got a bucket of balls in a baseball cap,
in a bat You have to be able to articulate
what you do, because then you can't articulate your value.

Speaker 5 (10:27):
And I also think that you know, I operated from
the paradigm. If it's God's will, then it's God's bill,
and so then you know, starting there, one of the
things that I have to just be very clear on
is that I haven't been called to do this job
over here. I've been called a coach, and so I'm
not gonna take this job and do three jobs just

(10:51):
to make ends meet when I'm called to do this. So,
if I'm called to do this right here, and I
have an understanding of my value, it's probably got to
scare me first before I then share it with somebody else. Yeah,
And so then I share it with somebody else and
it scares me and it doesn't scare them, then I
can start to build my value from there, and so

(11:12):
understanding value is important because my value minus my emotions
equals my cost. I like that one so well.

Speaker 1 (11:19):
And that's why you got to have that diversity of
thought around the table of your mentors and the people
who you sit around. And I mean we as African Americans,
we really got to check our circles because now, I
mean I sit around a lot of people that when
I throw out numbers like fifteen million dollars, they don't blink. Right,
you understand what I'm saying. But if we don't make
sure we have that diversity of thought in our leaders,

(11:43):
in our teams, we will continue to shrink and be small.

Speaker 3 (11:47):
Yeah, there's a thing called the law compensation you heard right,
and talks about like you're paid based on three things.
It's like one what you do, Two is how well
you do do it, in three is how hard you
are to be replaced at doing it. Like, So to
your point of like you know your your skills, monitor

(12:07):
what you say, skills min's emotions equal your value.

Speaker 5 (12:09):
Value minus emotive emotional equals costs.

Speaker 3 (12:12):
Right, you know what I'm saying, Like, I really love
that idea, and I think that's to your point that's
something that we just have to get more comfortable and
get again get in circles. And I understand it, right,
I said, because I had to do the same thing
because I had never been around those kind of conversations.
I always kind of joke and say, you don't see,
you don't know a big house to he see a
big house, you know, and guess what, it's a bigger
house somewhere else, right, you.

Speaker 2 (12:31):
Know what I'm saying.

Speaker 3 (12:31):
Now tell me now, y'all launched this coaching certification program
like on Jackie Robinson day, right, Like what was the
significance around that?

Speaker 5 (12:39):
So April fifteenth, nineteen forty seven is when Jackie Robinson
became the second black man to play Major League baseball
eighteen eighty four, Moses fleetwood Walker was the first black
man to play. And this a whole nother story with that.
But Jackie Robinson, who was born weren't in Georgia and

(13:01):
then moved to Los Angeles as a very young child
and continue to develop his skills on and off the field.
I mean, he in addition to being a really good
baseball player, he also played tennis and he also played football,
and I think he did all three at UCLA, and
so just that connection of Georgia and timing it up.

(13:24):
The awesomeness of it is because for a couple of
years we had been wanting to launch something on Jackie
Robinson Day and Kelly didn't pulled the trigger on it
because we weren't ready, and I was very frustrated because
I'm just like, I want to do something on Jackie
Robinson Day. And so finally being able to do this
was so awesome. You know, two things that's very important

(13:46):
behind us, and Kelly can give more to details. One,
when I met Kelly, we and that's a whole another
story on how we met, but met her at she
got her real estate license at nineteen. Oh. You know,
here is a young woman who has not yet graduated
from college, who got a real estate license and is

(14:08):
selling real estate. And so even when I think about
wealth and being connected to home ownership, you know, at
nineteen years old, she's moving people through this process to
become wealthy.

Speaker 1 (14:20):
And I was a dog with it too, but I
had a ten cent nine and I ain't know what
to do with the money.

Speaker 4 (14:25):
The whole enough podcast.

Speaker 5 (14:26):
So I wanted to create something where a nineteen year
old version of me who was very, very lost. I
flunked out of college twice. Fortunately I was able to
play professional baseball and meet a lot of people and
see a lot of different things. But if I was
coming out of high school, even at eighteen years old,
I probably would have taken this type of opportunity to

(14:48):
be a professional coach over being a professional player. Really
loved coaching, So that was one thing. The second thing
is is having people work for us is hard, even
our children. Being our children is hard because of very
high standards, clear expectations, and swift accountability. And so we
have a probationary period for ninety days or coaches that

(15:13):
are coming in and working with us, and essentially what
we end up doing is paying them to learn how
to work for us for ninety days, and maybe they
stay or maybe they go. But I was thinking to myself,
what if we can get people to spend ninety days
learning how to work for us, and they pay us
to learn how to do it. So now if we

(15:34):
hire them, then they can come in and actually start working.
But if we don't choose them, they can go somewhere
else and work. Presumably that black boy growing up in
the city of Atlanta, living with a working class family
and poverty that eighteen year old kid can graduate from
high school. So that was the why behind starting it.

Speaker 1 (15:55):
Yeah, and pedagogy for pros is grounded in sports based
youth development. SBID is a fairly new discipline and you've development,
but it basically says that there's more to get out
of sport than just trophies and wins.

Speaker 2 (16:09):
Now, I mean, make no mistakes about it.

Speaker 5 (16:10):
We want to win absolutely.

Speaker 1 (16:11):
Yeah, I'm not saying that winning is not important. So
winning is very important. And what's also important is that
you understand how to handle yourself when it comes down
to the business of sports too, because if you get
an opportunity to play sports at its highest levels and
now you have nil deals that even trickle down to
high school, you need to be able to handle your
business at the table of business. And so what kind

(16:33):
of twenty first century skills do you have? You know
off the field, and sports is just a great breeding
ground to build those skills because it brings in the competition,
it brings in the stress, it brings in the pressure
having to perform, you know, under pressure and understress. But
it also deals with the fact that as coaches, we
come to the table with our own set of what

(16:55):
the industry calls adverse childhood experiences. And I don't think
we talk about this enough because we are quick to
label a coach bitter without asking the question why, like
what happened to this coach to make this coach feel
this way? And coaches are too important to the ecosystem
of sports for us to just discard them so readily.

(17:16):
So there's a research that shows that what's more important
than the amount of time that a child spends in
in enrichment programming. What the most important factor is, not
the time spent, is who they've spent the time with.
The coach or that mentor or that leader can make
the difference in changing their trajectory more so than any
other factor. So we wanted to make sure that we

(17:37):
created a curriculum that really centered the coaches as well.

Speaker 2 (17:41):
Working with the youth is.

Speaker 1 (17:42):
Definitely a part of that curriculum, but helping our coaches
deal with the baggage that they bring to the table
is to.

Speaker 4 (17:59):
Coaches really.

Speaker 3 (18:00):
I was actually listening to the thing the other day
with the whole situations happened at Columbia High School, with
the coach that got you know, and again like it's
crazy because you know, and again I'm trying to be
nice and talking about it, but like it's crazy because
like he got let go after all these amazing things
that he's done. He's put his own money up to
help get these kids. I mean, that's what real coaching is,
especially at that level, right, A lot of high school

(18:21):
coaches really invest their own time, their on money. And
apparently one of the kids that snuck out or didn't
come back after curfew, which again we all know that,
like you don't break curfew, you don't sneak out. But
he was in Freeport, Bahamas, and you know, trying to
like do some stuff and like when the coach basically
like had him, like I had his shoes, like I
should whoop you. And then parents that don't even have

(18:42):
kids that are playing there go back and complain. Now
this coach has lost his job. But it's like that
gap that gets created now all because of a moment
where now again think about it, that child would have
got snuck out of something bad would have happened. So
he was trying to hold the child accountable. It wasn't
like he was like whooping them or do anything crazy.
But he was coaching them up in things outside of

(19:02):
just the sport. Like coaches are so important, right, to
see your point, We need these especially in our communities.
We need these kind of role models, these figures in
our communities, and we can't just so readily discard them.

Speaker 1 (19:11):
Right, Yeah, absolutely, And even in situations like that.

Speaker 2 (19:14):
It's just in general.

Speaker 1 (19:16):
So we do overnight trips and things like that, and
I take it very seriously for a parent to allow
their children to come with us anywhere, but especially overnight.
You know, you just can't trust anybody you know around
your children. So I always say, like my grandma used
to say, if I can't discipline them, they need to
be around me.

Speaker 2 (19:34):
That'll cut all that out.

Speaker 3 (19:37):
One of the things y'all talked about, too, is how
you like bring this coaching and this experience to kids
even in the elementary school level, Like why is it
important to even bring these opportunities to kids at these schools?

Speaker 1 (19:48):
So I just wanted before CJ starts to answer this,
I just want to make sure that everybody listening knows
that the Rookie League is.

Speaker 5 (19:54):
Just a program.

Speaker 2 (19:55):
He loves the rookies we just started this two years ago.

Speaker 5 (19:58):
But go ahead, yeah, I mean, you know, when I
think about the and as I go down this pass,
just remind me that I got to talk about the
Rookie League. Okay, But Africans were stolen from the continent
of Africa and brought to America sixteen nineteen. Before we
were stolen and brought here, we were playing a game

(20:20):
in Africa with a ball and a stick. So sixteen
nineteen and so now baseball is invented in eighteen forty five,
and so eighteen sixty five June nineteen, eighteen sixty five.
So between that time, in eighteen forty five and eighteen
sixty five, Africans are playing baseball. Talked about Moses Fleet

(20:44):
will Walker eighteen eighty four and so on. To be
black is to play baseball. We were doing it before
we even got here. I'm not saying you got to
play Major League baseball. I'm not saying you even got
to play a full season. But to be black is
to like at least be aware of it.

Speaker 2 (21:02):
It's a staple in our community.

Speaker 5 (21:03):
It's a staple in our community, and there's a lot
of other staples. But I'm not here to talk about
the other staples I do baseball. And so when I
think about myself as a child growing up in Bankhead
and falling in love with baseball in nineteen eighty four
at the age of eight years old, I was fortunate
enough that I had a grandmother and aunts that lived

(21:24):
in southwest Atlanta who knew some people. I don't even
know how I got connected, but they told me that
I should go play baseball at Cascade Youth Organization, which
was right down the street from Hank Aaron. All type
of people would be there then Counsel and John Lewis,
Corretascott King, all of these people, And so I had

(21:46):
to leave my neighborhood to go to another neighborhood, which
happened to have been middle class in black to play baseball.
And so right now, when I think about the Rookie League,
there's a lot of parents who are raising children working
class like my family, that can't afford to do all
of that moving, and they're also having to deal with
the stress of if my son is going to play baseball,

(22:08):
he can't even start out at a foundational level because
people are going to pick at him if he's not
playing travel ball. And so the Rookie League and having
it is so important because now by law, you have
to go to school, and so for you to be
able to have school based programming offered by Lead and
play in a league and then be able to be
in a pipeline where you can become a Lead Ambassador,

(22:31):
which is a national caliber team, It's what I wish
I would have had.

Speaker 2 (22:36):
So and shout out to Atlanta Public Schools.

Speaker 1 (22:38):
They have been our partner in empowerment for since two
thousand and nine twenty ten. Being able to bring these
programs to the school, like CJ said, just cuts down
a lot of barriers, you know, for our families who
are already just you know, doing the best they can
to make the necessities happen. You know, baseball and other

(22:59):
enrichment stuff is just extra that might not happen.

Speaker 2 (23:02):
And for us growing up as kids, that was us.

Speaker 1 (23:05):
You know, if my grandma had to work, we worked
all day and all night because she was a domestic worker.
And for the families that she worked for during the day,
they had businesses. We clean those businesses at night so
she couldn't be taking me back and forth to practice
or something. So the things that I had to get
involved with and had to be in school, had to
be school based.

Speaker 2 (23:23):
Hence why I got involved in rotccus. It's a class
at school.

Speaker 1 (23:27):
And so making sure that we cut down those barriers
that keep our families from accessing these enriching sports program
because with pay to play sports being what it is,
so sportspace youth development is on one side of the spectrum.
Pay to play sports is on the opposite end of
the spectrum. And so with pay to play being what
it is, it is pricing out you know, you who

(23:47):
come from marginalized situations, like from a social economic, racial standpoint,
and that's not fair and we're leveling the playing field
in that respect.

Speaker 3 (23:57):
Yeah, absolutely, And you know, see general you kind of
mentioned even your experience in leadership Atlanta really kind of
helped you even more embrace that, especially if coming from
being an athlete and working and now you're around this
whole new group of people that are you know, moving
and kind of shaping the culture of Atlanta and all
that stuff, Like, what did that really teach you and
help help transform you about how you want to approach
you know, especially helping support black boys in these sports.

Speaker 5 (24:19):
It was such a convicting moment, I'm even just like
just pausing, just even now, just really trying to talk
about it. So it was, it was good, but it
also continues to even have challenges. It was it was
good and that I went in not feeling comfortable being black.
So this is twenty fourteen. I graduated in twenty fifteen.

(24:43):
I left being openly black, like no more talking this way,
no more dressing this way.

Speaker 3 (24:53):
No more.

Speaker 5 (24:55):
Even one of the things that Kelly used to always
talk to me about, even when I would take photos,
I'm sick and you know, some especially if I'm taking
photos of somebody that's smaller than me, I would kind
of lean down and lean in, and one of the
things that she would tell me is, you know, you know,
stand up. And so now because I wear my for doors,
I got to lean over just a little bit, but

(25:15):
I would, but I ended up I would take a
lot of pictures even like like this right here, just
with my chin up literally. But I had to go
through that convicting experience to be able to do that,
and it was really really hard on me mentally. So
that was an amazing accomplishment. I got in on the
first time. Several people applied three and four times.

Speaker 3 (25:35):
But I'm still I'm still applying, Okay, okay, and you know,
and so like you know, even the connection of it,
you know, being post civil rights era and bringing these
leaders together.

Speaker 5 (25:50):
So my challenge even now though, is is now that
I've gone through that was with the best and brightest
of the city, I'm still in a place which has
an effect on my mental health in that I still
have to be cautious because like, I'm not the I'm

(26:10):
not the speaker that's going to get paid tens of
thousands of dollars because I'm going to be able to
say the things that needs to be heard. But I
do have experiences and rich experiences where I'm able to
convict people. And so if I don't have somebody who
can now connect them to my conviction, like Kelly, then

(26:31):
I can be misunderstood. So I struggle with telling myself
sometimes like don't talk at all, but then I have
people say talk, So yeah.

Speaker 2 (26:39):
Well, I think the blessing and a curse, well, the
blessing and the burden of being involved in leadership cohorts
like Leadership Atlanta, and we're also alums of Leadership Georgia
is that you find yourself in spaces where you can
have conversations in a raw, very transparent way amongst some

(27:01):
of the most influential, you know, leaders that are in
our state, and you have that free flow of thought
and you can say things that if you say it
in other spaces, could be taken out of context and
make you look like you're a reckless person. But it's like,
I just sat with other peers who I had this

(27:22):
conversation with freely, and so I think what we've had
to do is just really be cognizant of where we
are when we are talking and saying certain things, because
we got to be like, this ain't no leadership Atlanta Roam,
because if we say this, it's going to be like
throwing out a hand grenade and people are gonna be like,
you know, CJ and Kelly trying to resurrect the Black Panthers,
And it's like.

Speaker 1 (27:41):
That's not what we said, you know what I'm saying.
So I think that's what we have experienced.

Speaker 5 (27:46):
And so what I'm daily asking myself is and I'm
not coming on here making a statement of what I'm
going to do, but I do wrestle with like, so
what do I need to do. Do I need to
run for office? How much money do I need to make?
Where I can be me right? And I don't think
I'm a reckless person. So if I'm out here and
I'm saying something, I want to live and be free

(28:09):
just like other other people. We have leaders in our
country right now that just I envy them for just
being able to be free.

Speaker 2 (28:16):
And I think what.

Speaker 1 (28:17):
People need to understand about us is is before we
fight for youth in the community, we're fighting for our
two African American daughters first, you know what I'm saying.
And so there's a level of pride that we have
in that where we can't shrink and where we can't
show up. We can't afford to not show up authentically
because they got to look at us every day and

(28:38):
we're telling them to go out and do these things.
But if they don't see mom and dad doing it,
then we're a fraud, you know what I'm saying. So
I can't go out here and not speak clearly and
plainly about the racism that still exists in our world,
that still exists in sports when I know my daughters
have experienced it to a certain level, like I can't
go out there and act like everything is okay when

(29:00):
it's not okay. I mean, even you know, in a
situation last night we were playing. Listen, we had a
tough game last night. But all I'm saying is, you know,
officiating was a little sketchy. That's all I'm saying. But
what we have to do is have to let our
boys know that. Listen, if you don't get them calls
on the corners, make it better, you understand what I'm saying,

(29:21):
And just making sure that they are aware of the
opposition that they have. It's already you got a scout
your opponent. That's sports, that's basic. But when you're an
African American, it's other threats that you have to go
up to the plate with, or you have to go
up to the service line with with tennis terms that
other athletes don't have to go up there with. And
we just want to make sure from a cultural standpoint

(29:43):
that our youth are aware of those things.

Speaker 3 (29:45):
Yeah, I mean, you know, I played and the sport
I played growing up was baseball. Yeah I didn't, you know,
go all the way I tore up my shoulders and
all that stuff, But I played with Brandon Phillips back
at Riga High School and all that stuff back in
the day. And you know, even as I kind of
think about it, like what what's always been interesting is
what it taught me was and I try to teach
this to my two kids. I have a thirteen year
old daughter and an eight year old son, right and

(30:07):
I actually coached my son's t ball team.

Speaker 4 (30:09):
It's the same thing.

Speaker 2 (30:10):
Ain't that fun?

Speaker 4 (30:11):
It's fun.

Speaker 3 (30:11):
Let me tell you, it's fun. Kids be out there, man,
I need to get y'all out there to come out.

Speaker 2 (30:16):
That is the most fun.

Speaker 3 (30:17):
But like, it's the same thing I always kind of
think about, just like I tell my kids, there's gonna
be moments when you get tired.

Speaker 4 (30:24):
You know, you a little beat up, you know you're hurting,
you're not.

Speaker 3 (30:27):
Feeling your best, but you still got to go up
there and suck it up, and you got to get
through it and lean in. And like that's one of
the things that I kind of it taught me in
those experiences. And I even think about what you mentioned
with leadership Atlanta, it kind of feels very similar to
what I went through when I got my NBA at
Georgia Tech. You know, I kind of again, I was
for a long time kind of scared to embrace my
blackness and a lot of different things.

Speaker 4 (30:45):
I thought it was too black.

Speaker 3 (30:46):
And it was funny because when I went to tech,
you know, it's interesting, like you realize a lot of
folks don't interact with people that look like us. We're
just gonna be honest, you know, I think, I, you know, again,
like I and I remember like realizing like, oh, like,
you know, I'm like the first black person some of
y'all have actually like really sat down and talked to, like,
especially outside of work, and even at work, that person

(31:07):
might not even be on your same level. It might
just be you know, the you know, the guy do
the security or something like that, so you already think
you're kind of above them. And you know, there were
definitely some moments in which I felt really uncomfortable with
some of the conversations that we were having because it
just made me feel like, oh, wow, y'all are really
over here living in a bubble. But then I got
to a certain point there I said, you know what

(31:28):
it was the moment when you know, we had been
going through the courses and I, you know, in the
beginning it was really tough on me because I hadn't
just taken some of those classes before. But once we
kind of got into like our core classes, all of
a sudden, I kind of started winning a lot of
stuff and coming in first and second place and all
this distance. And then that's that's when like the envy
started kind of coming in, right, because it's like, oh, well,

(31:48):
you know, you think you're this and you're that, and
it was like, well, no, I'm just being myself. And
so a moment kind of flipped where I said, you
know what, I'm just gonna come.

Speaker 4 (31:55):
In here be black as hell forget y'all. Or so
is so even.

Speaker 3 (31:58):
For me when I like we would we would come
to class, and before we would have class, they would
always feed us dinner. And I would make it a
point when we go to the cafeteria, you know, I
would always talk to all the staff like everybody would
just disrespect them and just like, hey, where's my stuff at?
And I would make sure because again they all looked
like me. And it got to a certain point to
where I literally would have them make me a picture

(32:19):
of kool aid, and I would bring a picture of
kool aid to my class and sit it on my
desk and I would sit there and I would have cups,
like if they want something to drink, I got something
to drink. And you know, it even went to the
point to where and I'm not gonna get to the
whole story, but like, you know, the whole purpose of
being in the NBA programs you have a capstone project.
And you know, the kind of the wakening moment for
me was we had the capstone. I was already in

(32:39):
kind of in my cohort, in my class, I was
basically the top student and you know, it was me
and it was this other guy. You know, again, we're
not gonna get into what they looked like, but they
weren't like us. And I mean it wasn't even that
they were white. It was just a lot of other
people in the class. And you know, we had like
self formed groups for our capstone. And when everybody's so

(33:00):
form and I realized was I was like, wow, I'm
the number one student in this class and nobody wants
to be on my team. And then I looked around
and all the students that were left were all the
other black students in my cohort, and so I got
them all together. I said, you know what, I got
us all together.

Speaker 5 (33:18):
I said.

Speaker 3 (33:18):
We went in the room and I said, hey, y'all, look,
we all gonna be on the same team. We're gonna
kick the ass, period. And I said, just because look
look at us, Look at everybody in this room right now,
look at everybody else. And we ended up winning that thing,
went in first place in that competition.

Speaker 4 (33:32):
They was even mad about that. They even lied on
me and said I cheated on that. I can't cheat
on this stuff, So no, I get I get it right.

Speaker 3 (33:37):
Even since then, I've been a lot more comforable just
express you know, embracing that and just being myself out
in public. And ever since then, you know, I've kind
of been doing my own things. I really like moments
like those stories kind of definitely resonate one of things

(33:59):
y'all tall about you though, Yeah, y'all said, I got
to ask about how y'all met, Like I hear there's
an interest story behind that.

Speaker 4 (34:05):
So what's what's the story about how y'all met?

Speaker 1 (34:07):
So I'll start just by saying, you know, I was
born in Atlanta. My parents got divorced, so I'm not
a grady baby. I am a Georgia Baptist baby, which
I think is a real thing still and I always
tell C. J.

Speaker 2 (34:19):
Lott we was.

Speaker 1 (34:20):
We was both on Medicaid, just in different facilities. It's
the same thing. And my parents got divorced when I
was around five or six. So I moved from East Atlanta,
where I was living with my parents and sometimes my aunt,
to a farm in Oglethorpe County, Georgia, near Athens with
my grandparents. So very much a country girl being, you know,

(34:40):
raised from that young age. So when I came back
to Atlanta after I graduated from high school, I was
working at southdie Cab foot Locker.

Speaker 3 (34:50):
So did you know Dale, Yes, funny polyester pants and everything.

Speaker 2 (34:56):
Right DoD but we was fresh and up.

Speaker 5 (35:00):
They looked a lot better on the women though.

Speaker 1 (35:03):
So I had transferred from Georgia Square Mall in Athens
to the foot locker, you know at South the kV.
And I was getting off work late one night because
you know, you gotta make the drop, you gotta walk
with somebody to make the drop for the money, and
I'm getting off Candler Road. My aunt lived on Glenwood,
so in that little stretch of I twenty I'm driving

(35:25):
and I see this guy go, you know, put up
his hand like your number or whatever. So you know,
my grandma, being who she is, you know, she's very
protective of me.

Speaker 2 (35:35):
First thing she said was.

Speaker 1 (35:36):
Don't go up there and get involved with none of
the men up that they just gonna take advantage of you.
So I'm sitting here thinking like, okay, this is how
it ends. God, you brought me up here to get
pulled over and bludgeon to death.

Speaker 2 (35:46):
On the side of the road. Like I don't know.
But so I was like, he's making advances. I just
smiled at him. Whatever.

Speaker 1 (35:53):
But I got off on my exit at Glenn with
because I'm like, surely he's gonna keep going. This dude
follows me off the exit, and so you know there
is Greater Piney Grows. That's the church my parents go,
all right, so across the street. At the time, it
was a Texico Mexico. So I pulled over at the
Texico at the front door, rolled down my window, had
my mace, my little can of mace, and I was like,

(36:15):
can I help you? And he just looked at me
like you're gonna mace me? And I was like, you're
gonna do something to be maceed, like, I don't know.

Speaker 2 (36:22):
And that was when.

Speaker 5 (36:24):
September seventh, nineteen ninety sixty. Okay, you know.

Speaker 2 (36:29):
It's it's been together ever since.

Speaker 3 (36:32):
We might have been at foot Lock at the same time.
I was there during freaking Yeah.

Speaker 2 (36:36):
Yes, yes, I was too.

Speaker 5 (36:37):
Yeah, yeah, it was uh, you know it was. It
was awesome too. I don't even know if we've ever
like if I shared this with her, you know, in
this type of public space. But you know, it's unfortunate.
But for me, again, as a kid that's grown up
to be a professional athlete who's also trying to figure
out life, what I'm also working to reject is this

(37:04):
notion that I may have to consider at some point
falling in love with a white woman so that I
can navigate the world, you know. And so it's like,
and that does happen for people, whether they're honest about
it and so on and so forth. I mean, you know,
when we're making choices where we're saying yes to something
and know to something else. Yeah, but when when I

(37:27):
saw Kelly, it was just kind of like, this is
what I need. Like it's she's dark skinned, nice smile,
like it's all of these things. From an external standpoint,
it was like, and then if the internal is great,
then you know that's even better because you know, for me,
as a child being raised at Elizabeth Baptist Church and

(37:51):
we're members there now and I'm a deacon there, I
had known enough of the Bible to understand that blessings
for men are attached to their wife. So I'm saying,
so I'm saying to myself like I'm still wrestling with
and then even also too, I mean, just you know,
the thought even from a colorism standpoint, you know, I'm

(38:14):
dark skinned, dark skinned wife. Well, if I get a
light skinned wife or a light skinned girlfriend, we have children,
we can have light skinned kids and then life could
be easier for them. Now Nate Sayers would say, well,
you know, all that stuff doesn't matter, but you're not
dark skin. If you're if you're dark skinned African American,
and you're pretty much at the bottom of society on Earth. Uh,

(38:39):
and then the and then the dark skinned black woman
is at the absolute bottom. So you know, going through
all those things, but you know, in that moment, in
that in that decision, not only with you know, Kelly
and meeting her. But it's very much like I mean,
everything that I'm pretty much accomplishing are things that growing
up in trauma that I was dreaming about that had

(39:00):
I not even had the dream and the pathway to
fulfill it, I don't know if it would have been
worth living. Yeah, because all the odds were counted against me. Anyway.

Speaker 4 (39:10):
Yeah, look, man, look y'all, y'all got me over here.

Speaker 3 (39:12):
Reminiscences. Man, I used to work at South calv I said.
My parents are Deacon and Deaconessa's at Grove. I've been
a member there personally for almost forty years.

Speaker 5 (39:20):
Believe it or not.

Speaker 2 (39:21):
Wow, that's what's I.

Speaker 3 (39:22):
Grew up in Stone Mountain, played at Ritan Park and
you know we were even talking to right like you
talked about how important parks like Gresham Park were in
the cab County Like where does where does that sit
in kind of like the whole pathiano like sports in
your opinion?

Speaker 5 (39:35):
Yeah, so always heard as a child, you know, Decatur
where is greater? And so even my family, a lot
of my family has moved to Decatur. So what I
started to really see, and I don't know it as
a fact, but the filling was you know, you're relegated
to the City of Atlanta, and then as you do

(39:57):
better in life, then you can move and move out.
And so when when I would play against Aggresham Park teams,
I start seeing a lot, a lot of two parents households,
and nicer houses, nicer cars, and so with all of
those things, I just do believe that it's easier for

(40:22):
kids to perform better. Yeah, So the cab County kids
were able to play with a different level of fight
than kids from the City of Atlanta. So City of Atlanta,
you know, you know where people are really working to
get it out of the mud. And and quite frankly,
it exists even now. You can expound on it, Kelly.
But when you know, when I think about a trauma

(40:43):
informed approach to sports, you know, children that are that
are struggling with adverse childhood experiences. If you don't have
that buffer, it's very difficult to say, all right, let
me buckle down and throw a strike, yeah, or let
me buckle down and serve an ace on this. You
may say it, but are you regulated enough to be

(41:06):
able to do it? Versus children that are coming from
very strong households and a very strong community a strong
community to where if an opponent calls you the N word,
you don't have a coach trying to figure out what
to say. The caap kind of kids like they were
protected from what I saw.

Speaker 1 (41:25):
And it's very important because when you talk about aces,
that buffering is so important because when the area in
our brain that deals with our trauma response, that fight
or flight is maybe that sits right in the base
of our brain. Unfortunately, I think that's just like a
cruel joke that God plays on us. That's the most

(41:45):
developed form part of our brain when we're born, when
we're younger, when we really need that cerebral frontal cortex
to be more developed, but that comes later. And so
this is the lens of our brain that our children
are working most from, which is why they need good
parenting and why they need good leaders because that first
response nine times out of ten.

Speaker 2 (42:06):
Gonna be the wrong one.

Speaker 1 (42:07):
So having you know those role models on those parents
you know and coaches in your lives as a child
to help buffer you if somebody do call you an
in word on the field, to help you, to regulate
you and bring you down so you're not acting out
of that parasympathetic nervous system and you just on fire,
and you know, you go off and do something that's
going to have detrimental implications down the road.

Speaker 2 (42:28):
You know.

Speaker 1 (42:29):
I feel like that's a lot of what our inner
city youth, you know, missed. I know, my mom growing
up struggled with drug addiction, and my mom and dad
divorced when I was young, and my grandma she did
the best she could with me. You know, she was
taking care of my grandfather who was down with all
zearmers by the time I moved, so she had a
lot on her, you know, and now you're trying to
raise a little girl.

Speaker 2 (42:50):
You know, I was a.

Speaker 1 (42:51):
Handful, you know, a little bit, but she the buffer
that she provided for me was that I knew I
had a place to go home. Because a lot of
my who'se or people in my community whose parents were
consumed by drug addiction, some of them went to foster care,
and my grandma kept me out of falster care. Like,
if there's nothing else I can point to that she

(43:12):
did for me. She made sure I had a stable
home to be at and my life would be a
lot different if I didn't have her in my life.
But making sure that there is that buffering system, and
that's what we act as as coaches, partnering with our
families because it gets overwhelming, you know, out here trying
to hustle up. You know the odds are against you.
You you live, you live in bancad and you see
these four hundred thousand, five hundred thousand dollar town homes

(43:35):
going up and you can't make your rent, and you
know the changes that are happening aren't necessarily happening for you,
and you trying to figure out how do I fit
in in the community that I've been in for generations
And then, by the way, my son or daughter wants
to play baseball or tennis, I have no way how
to make that happen because I'm trying not to get
put out of my house now that I'm renting, not

(43:55):
because I can't make the rent, but because the guy
who normally does Section eight trying to cash in on
the gentrification, and now that's pushing me out. So our
parents are juggling so much. And that's why we come
in to help be that buffer for our kids. Because
if you don't see it, feel like you got a
way then selling water on the ramp strapped up is
your way.

Speaker 5 (44:15):
So and bringing it back the Diggression Park, I experienced it.
There's a correlation that I can see now as an adult,
a correlation between performance and protection. It's hard to perform
when you know you aren't protected. Yeah, and so that's
why for us, with our progression to performance, we can
go into any community, black, white, Asian, whatever it is,

(44:37):
everything is going to start with protection. And you know
that's that's why even for me now, and which is
why it's great to be able to be on butter
Nomics with you, because if I have some moments of
vulnerability and people try to scorn me, because I really
work hard to try to not be places where I'm

(44:59):
not able to be my because because I may say
something and be misquoted. But then hopefully if I do
a good job today here with you, then people can
come back and look back at this. But it's like, man,
I want protection. So that's what I saw with kids
at Aggresham Park. But they were some They were the
real deal, y'all were the real deal. Yeah, it was.

Speaker 3 (45:15):
It was a very it was very interesting. I mean
you don't notice it as much as kind of when
you're in it. But yeah, when I look around, like
I said, it was just you know, that was my
parents and they moved out here and we kind of
moved a stone mountain and and again it.

Speaker 4 (45:26):
Just kind of grew up in that space.

Speaker 3 (45:27):
You don't realize that you are kind of like incubated
from a lot of things, and just made it easier
to focus on some of the other stuff. Now. Obviously,
you know, again there's things that didn't happen out there
that could have been better, right, But like, you know,
it was a very interesting time, especially, and I mean
it's changing now.

Speaker 4 (45:41):
It's interesting too.

Speaker 3 (45:42):
Like you know, I remember being at Ridane High School
and I was on the the yearbook staff, and I
remember like looking at some of the old readan yearbooks
and it was interesting, like they were like it was
like white, white, white, and like two black students and
I boom, everything was just and like even for me,
you know, it was interesting, was you know, as I
kind of looked back on my high school career, like
I tell people, like I didn't know any white people,

(46:03):
you know what I mean, I just didn't know any
And so like when I actually even went to college,
I went to Moorhouse and it was cool. I was
on scholarship, but I was like, you know what, I
just wanted to get out the city, and so I
ended up going to Georgia Southern and I loved it
down there. But that was really the first time I
really got to meet people that just looked like and
got to just learn from them and talk to them.
And I always tell people too, like I had never
heard Pink Floyd before. I had never heard of these things.

(46:25):
So it just gave me a different perspective. And I
think going into the world this kind of helped me
be more prepared for certain areas now Ageain. I'm not
saying that's the right path for everybody, because I think
it's interesting when I talk to people that aren't from
Atlanta and they came here, especially to go to the
auc They come from areas where it's exact opposite, and
but for me, I feel like, you know, it kind
of helped me get ready for just being in the
world around more diverse people than just lots of different perspectives, right,

(46:48):
And so yeah, you know again, like that was a
very it was an interesting time back there, you know,
and still Mountain Top say you were.

Speaker 2 (46:55):
There when it was Dan, and you were there.

Speaker 3 (46:59):
For that, right.

Speaker 4 (47:01):
I remember all that.

Speaker 3 (47:01):
I remember all that, and then you know, even talking
about just like you know, economics and opportunities. I know
a lot of times when parents are thinking they want
to really you know, it's like the can they afford

(47:22):
to put their kids in travel ball and all these
But you all kind of have this idea of foundation
ball because sometimes people like look down on like rec
leagues and I don't know for me again, that's where
it all started at.

Speaker 2 (47:32):
You know.

Speaker 3 (47:32):
You know I didn't play travel ball. I played rec
league until I was good enough to actually make the
high school team. You know, So why did you all
kind of like recoin the idea of like rec ball
in the foundation ball.

Speaker 5 (47:43):
Yeah. So the reframing it is just to make sure
that people can have a sense of pride and not
feel shame of being connected to wreck ball. Now, I mean,
it's become a bad thing. So you know, we're still
going through this process of reframing it. What I love
about foundation ball right now for us that is really
prevalent in our rookie ball programming. The atmosphere is electric.

(48:07):
We do change the rules a bit to make sure
that the game can go faster, and so parents are
seeing that they some of the parents that are there
are really no baseball though. They'll jump out of like,
well it shouldn't happen that way. So we're having to
constantly remind them of that we have music. It is, uh,
you better get there early so that you can have

(48:27):
a parking spot. So the kids are like, they're seeing this,
oh yeah, live stream it and so now it gives
them a sense in this in this world of social media,
and we have very good content focus on the team,
and so now then they get to then move up
to our Junior Ambassador League, which is more the intermediate

(48:49):
type level at the moment, and then they can move
up to our Advanced Elite Ambassador League. So what we're
saying is is this is where you're going to start,
but this is where you can go. A lot of
the mindset is too, is around talent, habits, and skills.
So talent is what you do well. Habits is what
you do well repeatedly without thought, and skills is what

(49:09):
you do well repeatedly without thought while under stress. And
so talent is not the ceiling, its the floor. When
I was a kid, people would talk about you about talent,
but I always thought that that was the ceiling, so
I stopped working. But habits is what you do well
repeatedly without thought. But that takes tens of thousands of
hours of work. So it's not just I'm gonna put

(49:31):
in some work. I mean like, there's some numbers deliveredness
that goes along with that. And so within our programming
from a foundation standpoint, it's not a high level of accountability.
From a fundamental standpoint, we are having fun. But for
those people that want to put in the work and
put into tens of thousands of hours, we have programming

(49:52):
for that. Now, when we get to skills, these are
things that you do well repeatedly without thought while understress.
Scouts are out here on our performance level. Team I
Ambassadors have to make guarantees before games. So if you
when you were playing at Redan, maybe you did, but
consider this. If you're playing at Ridan and the coach said,

(50:13):
you got to turn in the guarantee, and your guarantee
is I guarantee that I will only make one era today.
So when you make that second era, you now got
a choice to make. I can be removed from the
game immediately. Or at the end of the game, I
have two hundred push ups within twenty minutes that I've
got to do, or I can just not play in

(50:33):
the game at all. But I think those are the
kind of people that you would want to be working
as engineers for you for your show. So that but
the foundation level is here. We're not going to panalize
you for not being able to throw a strike, but
you can't move forward unless you can throw strike right period.

Speaker 1 (50:54):
And so to even speak into that dedication part, it's like,
so in one part of our programming this year, we
had a young man who loved playing shortstop and he
didn't want anybody to take his shortstop position. So this
baby had to use the restroom and opted to pee
on himself because he wasn't gonna surrender his short stop position.

(51:16):
He was like, Coach, I didn't want nobody to take
my position. While I went to the bathroom, I was like,
you the kid.

Speaker 2 (51:20):
You the young man.

Speaker 1 (51:21):
I'm higher I mean, but no, literally no, because we
were out there, like what's what's on his class whatever?
He was like, Coach, I knew if I had went
to the bathroom, one of them was gonna take my spot.
And I'm like, like, dass, I mean, of course I
want kids to go to the restroom. However, but that
level of dedication that he felt like in his mind
he processed that like I like, that's a dog, you

(51:42):
know what I'm saying.

Speaker 2 (51:43):
To a level.

Speaker 1 (51:44):
So that's why I love sports for even situations like
that that are like crazy but funny, but like.

Speaker 5 (51:50):
You to do and just lastly on that, you got
to have a place where you can just simply just
develop a feel. Yeah. I mean I think about even
right now being able to do this with you. I
remember the first time being able to be interviewed and
do something like this. I was just so nervous, couldn't
sleep the night before. But now when I go into situations,
it's like, look, let me just get a feel then

(52:11):
the fundamentals, and then I can have fun. So if
I start out something that I've never done before, people
will say something like.

Speaker 2 (52:18):
You know, just have fun.

Speaker 5 (52:19):
No, I need to get a feel first. Let me
get a feel for it. And that's again what the
foundation ball does. Look, we got to teach them how
to put on their hate the belt, the belt, the belt.
But but if you got a kid who does have
some talent and he's eight years old, and then you
send him to the suburbs to play travel ball and

(52:43):
he does have some talent, but he doesn't know how
the right way to put on the belt, and he
doesn't know all of the nuances. It's going to be
traumatic because he's going to get picked on. And then
hopefully you got a coach that'll protect you. But in
some of those high charge environments and travel ball, they'll
just get rid of you.

Speaker 4 (52:58):
Yeah, yeah, look I mean and again I think it's
to your points.

Speaker 3 (53:02):
It's getting those reps in, Like I always think about
it when it comes to me, and even just like
public speaking and stuff like that, like people like you
get nervous, I'm like, I don't even think about it
because I've done it so long. But those reps came
from my mom making me do all those Easter speeches
back at Piney Grove back in the day that I
used to hate it is they made me do the
welcome every weekend.

Speaker 4 (53:19):
I used to hate that.

Speaker 3 (53:19):
But like now, when it's time for me to get up,
I tell people like I go to my little zone. Yep,
I get rid of I'm like, all right, I just
get up there and just do the thing. You know again,
that's that's you know. I have a friend of mine
he will always tell me, he would say, you know,
looks get you in the door, Talent get you hired.
But when you're on, it's all about stage presence, Like
what do you do when the lights are on? And
that's something I've always kind of thought about. So no,
I love this conversation. Man, Look cause we're getting ready

(53:41):
to wrap this up. I just want to ask, like,
what's one thing that you really hope that listeners walk
away from understanding about, you know, your work and the
impact and what you all are doing with lead.

Speaker 1 (53:49):
So for me, I being a woman who grew up
in some really tough situations, trying to grow up and
be a kid is hard enough as it is, even
if you have the quote unquote perfect circumstances that it's
hard enough as it is. Navigating adolescents with relationships with
friends and you know, just growing and your body change

(54:11):
and all these types of things. You add in something
as charged as sports, you really need folks in your
life who are going to protect you. And when we
talk about these adverse childhood experiences, I'm not just talking
about parents, getting divorced, you know, domestic abuse or sexual abuse.
I'm talking about just the stress of trying to measure

(54:34):
up and to be the best. So what my takeaway
is I want folks listening is like, love your kids.

Speaker 2 (54:42):
It's hard. It's hard out here. It's hard out here
for us.

Speaker 1 (54:44):
It's harder for them because they have less, say soul
in their life and what happens in our life. So
love your kids when they strike out, it's not the
end of the world. And at the same time, they
need to understand if they want big things and they're
making big claims about what they want, that's gonna take
big work and there's going to have to be some
level of accountability, you know, and standards and expectations there

(55:07):
as well.

Speaker 5 (55:08):
So for me, my earthly talent is coaching, and one
of my spiritual gifts is discernment and as well as prophecy,
and so prophecy not just about predicting the future, but
challenging the status quo. So you know, what keeps me
up at night is that we're currently in a pay
to play system, and I believe there's going to be

(55:30):
a revolution of a play for pay system that trickles
all the way down to the to the youth level,
and I think when that starts to happen, it's going
to really weed out a lot of marginalized, disenfranchised youth,
specifically the ones that are African Americans. So, as our
chief Visionary officer, working towards getting our organization to a

(55:52):
place where our CEO can actually adapt in a way
so that we don't get removed from the eCos to myselves,
somebody has to protect black boys and black girls that
we have in Tennis. And so I think all change
has to start with conviction. So conviction is at the heart.

(56:12):
And then once there's conviction, now there's connection with the head.
A lot of times we try to figure things out
at the head level, not the heart level. And then
when there's a connection, then there can be a consensus,
which is a heartfelt promise, and then we can have
collaboration at the hands and then the change is the harvest.
So you know, for me, when I show up at

(56:33):
a place, man, I'm showing up convicted all the time.
And I too, just like the kids need the protection,
I need the protection, so I can just I can
just be I'm kind of like a James ballwin tight
and I think that's probably one of the things that
he probably struggled with. It's just, you know, being convicted

(56:55):
and just being protected. So but being here is a
part of helping me feel like I can get the
protection that I need where people can hear my heart.

Speaker 1 (57:05):
Yeah, and I feel like he's he's he's more on
the James Ball inside and I'm more on the Fanny
Louhimer side.

Speaker 2 (57:11):
I'm just raw. I'm just real. What I gotta say.
Maybe my subject and verb don't agree, but you know
what I mean.

Speaker 5 (57:16):
Yeah, it's the intention behind it.

Speaker 2 (57:18):
Yeah, I get it. I get it.

Speaker 3 (57:20):
Before we get out of here, this has an amazing conversation.
Just how can folks get more information? How can they
get involved? Look, I want you to come coach my son.
I'm trying to find out too.

Speaker 2 (57:28):
So that's like the most fun part.

Speaker 4 (57:31):
Give them all the things.

Speaker 1 (57:32):
Yeah, so all the things. So lead Center for Youth
dot org for spelled out f o R. That's our website.
We're also on Instagram. I was about to say, I
g but my my girls be joning on me for
saying I don't know, you know, you know what I'm
talking about so it's lead to Legacy Underscore at l

(57:54):
we also have From there you can see the other
links to our programs for the Ambassadors and for the
Lady Ambassadors, and you know, support the kids on Instagram.
You know, we put a lot of effort into our content,
so go out there like it, you know, send them
encouraging messages, hype them up. As far as volunteering, if
you go to Lead centerf Youth dot org you'll find

(58:15):
a link there for more information on depth.

Speaker 3 (58:17):
Okay, well, yo, this has been an amazing conversation. Thank
y'all so much for coming out, Thank you for having me,
Jan Kelly Stewart, y'all doing amazing work and we can't
wait to see where everything goes.

Speaker 5 (58:26):
Man, thank y'all so much.

Speaker 2 (58:27):
Awesome, Thank you so much.

Speaker 3 (58:28):
And with that said, y'all, that's the pot. You've been
listening to button Nomics and I'm your host, Brandon Butler.
Got comments, feedback? Want to be on the show, Send
us an email today at hello at butternomics dot com.
Butter Nomics is producing in Atlanta, Georgia at iHeartMedia by
Casey Pegram with marketing support from Queen and Nikki music
provided by mister Hanky. If you haven't already, hit that

(58:49):
subscribe button and never missed an episode, and be sure
to follow us on all our social platforms at butter
dot Atl. Listen to Better Nomics on the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Speaker 5 (59:00):
Bat batt