L.E.A.D. had another great week of baseball. This was Week 2 of our Middle School Character Development League. The success of the MSCDL is due to the tireless planning and dedication of our Middle School Director Kerwin Giles. Here is Kerwin’s weekly account of the on field development of our LEADers.

Monday March 4

I attended practice at Harper-Archer. We had a great day of practice as I worked with the infielders and pitchers on certain situations that I saw from the week of games before. The LEADers were very eager to learn new things about the game. It is our responsibility to find out where our LEADers best fit on the field so they can have the best chance to succeed.

Kerwin Giles at the 2012 L.E.A.D. Middle School Pep Rally

Friday March 8

Friday night lights(baseball style) featured B.E.S.T. vs. Harper-Archer. The B.E.S.T. Eagles bats continued to ring loud putting up 17 runs on their way to a 17-3 victory. Despite the score, Harper-Archer’s play improved tremendously. The Eagles got an excellent pitching performance from Reginald Parham but it looks as if their bats will carry them a long way this year.

Saturday March 9

Our day got started with Brown vs. Sylvan Hills. The Browns Dolphins got a very strong pitching performance and rode that to a 8-3 win over the Bears of Sylvan Hills. Sylvan felt the effects of not having their usual catcher, as they allowed a numerous of passed balls to allow Brown to score some easy runs. Sylvan’s overall play also improved leaps and bounds and I expect it to continue under the LEADership of Coach Sedrick Parker.

Our second game featured King vs. Young. This game will go down in L.E.A.D. Middle School Character Development League history. This was our first game to go into extra innings as King fought back from a 3 run deficit to defeat the defending champs 8-7. Young went ahead early and stayed ahead 7-4 until the 6th inning when the King bats began to awake. After tying the game at 7, King got a 1-2-3 inning in the top half of the inning and got a walk-off hit in the bottom half for the come from the behind victory. This game also had several Life/Character teaching moments, as this great game of baseball will provide about the ups and downs, peeks and valleys that our LEADers will definitely go through.

We finished the day with Kennedy vs. Parks. Parks jumped out to an early 5-0 lead and held on for a 5-2 victory. Kennedy showed the most improvement from last week but was not able to complete the comeback after scoring 2 runs in the last inning. Parks got an excellent pitching performance and held on with good defense.

For the past four Tuesday’s, I have been serving as an in school mentor for our L.E.A.D. baseball team at Harper-Archer Middle School. This mentoring program is yet another great idea from my wife Kelli who serves as L.E.A.D.’s Executive Director. I will continue to serve in this role until the last week of the school year.

A group shot of the Harper-Archer Jaguars on L.E.A.D. Signing Day 2013

I spend 45 quality minutes per week with the LEADers at Harper-Archer Middle School to ensure that they connect L.E.A.D. with their academic success. Here is my weekly format for mentoring.

Take role. School attendance is one of the ways that our LEADers pay to be in our year round program. If you aren’t at school, you are missing opportunities to learn.  Our success as an organization is based on increasing the the high school graduation rate of African-American males in high school.  The current APS graduation rate for AA males is 52%.  Click here to check out the IMPACT STATS for L.E.A.D.

Recite the L.E.A.D. precept. Our precept puts us all on one accord. We link arms and recite “I am proud to be a creation of God. I’m thankful for this opportunity to be a LEADer. I am my brothers keeper and together we will achieve greatness.”

Recite a prayer. It is always great to hear our LEADers offer a prayer of acknowledgement and thanks to God for His many blessings to us.

Recite the L.E.A.D. mission statement. Understanding our mission allows our LEADers to recognize that we aren’t just a “baseball team”. L.E.A.D.’s mission is to provide inner city Atlanta at-risk males with access to higher education and civic engagement through baseball. We achieve our mission in the areas of academics, athletics, service/civic engagement and exposure.

Time for reflections. Our LEADers are dealing with so many social issues that make it difficult to focus on receiving a quality education. We spend time discussing negative issues and resolve them as a group. This is my favorite time with them. It is powerful. They want to be successful in life so bad. They only need someone like me that can lead the way.

Collect the Tracking Sheets. Our LEADers pay for their L.E.A.D. experience with their school attendance, behavior and grades. They are required to have their teachers sign off on their tracking sheets weekly. The tracking sheets are like money. Bad tracking sheets, no baseball!

There are four things that must be in place to be an effective mentor according to my wife Kelli.

1. You must have something of value. Our mentees love baseball and L.E.A.D. provides a path to college and career opportunities.  L.E.A.D. was established in 2007.  We will have our first college graduating class this summer.

2. You must develop a relationship. Our mentoring program, baseball practices, baseball games, service projects, and exposure events gives us a great platform to build relationships with our LEADers.

3. You must have consistent interaction. L.E.A.D. is year round. You can’t be more consistent than that.

4. They must trust you. Once all of the above are established, they will no doubt trust you and if they trust you, you can mentor them.

This is yet another reason why L.E.A.D. works.

The Harper-Archer Jaguars

This upcoming week will be exciting in Atlanta. L.E.A.D. will host its 3rd Annual L.E.A.D. Middle School Signing Week.

L.E.A.D. Signing Day 2012 at Jean Childs Young Middle School

L.E.A.D. Signing Day 2012 at John F. Kennedy Middle School

My dreams of playing professional baseball began at the age of 8 or 9 when I would watch Chicago Cubs baseball games with my grandfather in the day time and Braves games at night on the Super Station.  From that point on, my decision making for success was based on that dream coming true.  Everything that I did would either help me or hurt me with regards to being a Cubbie.

My parents have allowed a lot of awesome people to come into my life to mentor me. One of the best youth coaches that I ever had was James Holiday.  We all respected him for his baseball knowledge but most of all, he was always there for us.  We knew that we would have a team to play for every year and that he would bring the best out of us.  He was strict but we needed the discipline.  He got me ready for the next level.

L to R: L.E.A.D. Ambassadors Earl Muhammad, Cedric Reed, Evelyn Holiday, James Holiday, myself and Howard Walker

One of the best decisions that I ever made was signing to attend GA State University to play baseball for Coach Mike Hurst.  He is a living legend and has poured himself into thousands of young men and women.  He taught me so many valuable lessons that I use today when I mentor our L.E.A.D. Ambassadors.  My time at GSU has prepared me for success in life.

After college, my dream of playing professional baseball came true when I signed with the Chicago Cubs.  It was everything that I thought that it would be.  Upon my retirement, I began training amateur and professional hitters through my for-profit business Diamond Directors.

I remember training Josh Merrigan when he was 11 years old and now he is entering his freshman year at Georgia State University.  I have watched James Clements take thousands of swings since he was in middle school and now he is a freshman GSU Panther as well.

James Clements and his mother Kellie

Our success of Diamond Directors caused my wife/business partner Kelli and I to start a non-profit organization L.E.A.D. (Launch, Expose, Advise, Direct) in 2007 to provide inner city Atlanta youth males with access to higher education and civic engagement through baseball.  We successfully do that by graduating 100% of our Ambassadors from high school while 100% of them enroll in college and 92% enroll with baseball scholarship opportunities.

Accepting the award with L.E.A.D. Ambassadors Earl Muhammad and Tabias Wimby along my side

Two weeks ago, GSU Head Baseball Coach Greg Frady called to inform me about being honored as the 2013 Professional Achievement Award recipient. I was full of emotion that day and still on Cloud 9 now. Private victories always precede public victories. Thank you Coach Frady for empowering me to empower others.

God has blessed me in so many ways to be a blessing to so many others. I take my calling to serve others seriously. I can be all that God wants me to be because of an amazing wife, daughters, parents, family members, friends and supporters. I accept this award on behalf of you all. Without you, I can’t achieve anything worth talking about professionally.