I was born and raised in Atlanta, and I remember watching the Hawks back in the day on TBS when Dominique Wilkins was our star player and, for a moment, I believed that I could play in the NBA.

I would hang his posters on my wall and close a wire hanger at the top of my bedroom door and work on dunks all night using a sock as a basketball.

He earned the nickname “The Human Highlight Reel” because of his powerful dunks. Make no mistake about it, he was a legit scorer, but he never had enough skilled players around him to get us to the Conference Finals. He did, however, lead us to the Conference Semi-Finals four times.

If the Hawks win tonight against the 76ers, we will advance to the 2021 NBA Conference Finals. I watched the Hawks’ first four games this season and swore on my life that we would go deep in the playoffs. Then they lost game five, and like a fair-weather fan, I bailed on them.

Once they got on a roll mid-March, I was wearing my Hawks gear again, along with my brand new Trae Young x Top Ten High ‘Ice Trae’s.’

Since then, they finished 5th in the Eastern Conference, and they have taught me how to F.I.G.H.T.

Focus

Coaches ask their players to focus all the time, but it’s not something that you can just do. You have to be trained to focus. Focus is a skill, and a skill is something that you do well repeatedly without thought while under stress.

Inspire

Motivation is internal, and inspiration is external. The Hawks inspire each other to believe in their own personal skills and trust each other to perform as a team.

Grind

The Urban Dictionary has a great definition of grind. For me, only convicted people can grind. Being convicted moves you to act in a spiritual/soulful way. It’s beyond “putting your mind to it” and “blood, sweat, and tears.”

Hustle

Hustle is the fuel for the grind. To hustle is the ability to make things happen when things are not going your way. It cannot be taught, but it can be caught.

Talk less. Fight more.

Talk is cheap, and everybody can afford it.

My wife, Kelli, and I are the co-founders of L.E.A.D., Inc. (Launch, Expose, Advise, Direct). L.E.A.D. is a 501 (c)3 nonprofit organization operating in Atlanta, Georgia. Through our year-round Pathway2Empowerment, sport-based youth development (SBYD) programming, we inspire and equip Black males with the empowerment they need to live sustainable lives of significance.

Our mission is to empower an at-risk generation to lead and transform their city of Atlanta by using the sport of baseball to teach Black boys how to overcome three curveballs that threaten their success: crime, poverty, and racism.

Our vision is to develop Black boys into Ambassadors who will lead their City of Atlanta to lead the world.

As the Chief Visionary Officer, my job is to be the face of the organization. I cast a vision for us that is so crazy and possibly improbable that people want to join us to help make it become a reality for the betterment of Atlanta, our state, our country, and the world.

Whether the Hawks make it to the Eastern Finals or beyond this year, they have modeled for me the right way to F.I.G.H.T.

Now, if they win it all, I’m going to be decked out in Hawks gear and say that at the beginning of the season, I said a resounding “This Is Our Year!” in my house. 😀

Go Hawks, F.I.G.H.T.✊🏿

Editor’s Note: This is the first in a three-part series on the importance of giving today’s inner city kids the tools they need to be ready for college, career and life.

To teach is to provide someone information. To preach is to challenge someone to do something with what they’ve learned, so that the information becomes knowledge-based on experience. To empower is to give someone responsibility and authority.

Our competitive advantage at L.E.A.D. is our ability to empower the Black boys we serve. While there is value in tutoring students in afterschool programs, there is also value in teaching students what’s not being taught in school and providing a safe space to talk about shared issues such as truancy and behavior. L.E.A.D. partners with tAtlanta Public Schools (APS) to recruit our Ambassadors APS has educators, nice buildings and state of the art technology to enhance the educational experience of its students. APS educators are also under tremendous pressure to teach based on what student need to know for standardized tests instead of what students need to know for life. Students need programming that will increase their proficiency in social emotional learning (SEL) skils. As a partner, we feel it’s our responsibility to fill this gap. As leaders who have shared experiences with our Ambassadors, we understand the many personal, social, familial and academic challenges they face every day. Academic rigor is not the answer; fortifying their SEL capacities is.

SEL capacities operate like the engine of a vehicle. They determine how we act. Years ago, SEL was known as “soft skills,” but the capacities that makeup SEL are far from soft. Possessing SEL capacities is not like breathing air. You can live without having many—or even any of them, I suppose. What I know is that it will be hard to live a productive life without a suitable dosage of all of them. After all, being alive and living are two different things.

At L.E.A.D., we recognized the need for SEL development in the Atlanta Public Schools system, and we believe that to partner is to provide what someone needs but does not have. Through our funding partner, Laureus USA, we were able to access a research based SEL tool that helps us develop and measure SEL in the students-athletes we serve..

As I stated earlier, APS has a lot of great educational resources. What it does not have is the time to teach SEL capacities to its students at the level they need it. APS serves approximately 51,000 students, and 80% of them live at or below the poverty level. According to the Metro Atlanta Chamber of Commerce, if you’re born in the city of Atlanta, you have about a 4% chance of making it out of poverty in your lifetime. Atlanta is also the No. 1 city in America for racial income inequality.

Understanding these issues and needs, L.E.A.D. spends a lot of time teaching and preaching SEL development to our Ambassadors and empowering them to live out what they are learning. We do this so they can graduate from high school ready for college, career and life.

In my next blog, I will examine some of the innovative ways we develop SEL in our sports-based youth development (SBYD) programming.

Photo credit: Steve West