“You gotta be “This tall” to even “Think” about getting on this ride because the final stop for this ride is skill.”

Before the word coach was used in sports, it was strictly used as a means of transportation. There was a horse, a coachman to stir the reins used to direct the horse, and the coach was where the passenger rested until they reached their destination.

T – Talent
A – Attitude
L – Listening
L – Leveling-up

Talent

Talent is what you do well.

Having God-given bat speed is talent. Being able to maintain that bat speed, making contact and driving the ball against varying pitch types, locations and speeds is skill.

Attitude

Attitude is how you act.

Having a good attitude when things are going well is one thing. Maintaining it when things are not going well is another thing.

Listen

Listening and hearing are not the same. Listening leads to understanding and when you understand something, you can do something.

What if you had an opportunity to be trained by the world’s greatest hitting coach for a week with a guarantee you could develop into one of the top hitters in America?

But what if your new hitting coach did not speak the same language as you? You could hear what he was saying, but you wouldn’t be able to understand.

As Alan Alda said, “Listening is being able to be changed by the other person.”

Leveling-up

To level up means to increase something in order to remove unfair treatment of others.

What do you call a person who has success and uses it to serve others? I call that person significant.

Remember: Skills pay the bills and significant people can change the life of struggling people.

Since talent is what you do well and habits are things you do well repeatedly without thought, skills are things you do well repeatedly without thought while under stress.

I challenge you to use fall baseball wisely so you can develop the skills you need to achieve your future goal because there are people whose lives are tied to your dreams.

For more information, visit L.E.A.D. Center for Youth today. Also, check out our Digital Magazine.

C.J. Stewart has built a reputation as one of the leading professional hitting instructors in the country. He is a former professional baseball player in the Chicago Cubs organization and has also served as an associate scout for the Cincinnati Reds. As founder and CEO of Diamond Directors Player Development, C.J. has more than 22 years of player development experience and has built an impressive list of clients, including some of the top young prospects in baseball today. If your desire is to change your game for the better, C.J. Stewart has a proven system of development and a track record of success that can work for you.

My coaching philosophy is that practice prepares you to perform and performance prepares you to practice. My four phase development strategy starts in August each year with a commitment to assessment to determine what does not work and what does work for three months.

This is how I do things and it works for me—those who I instruct to coach and the boys who are coached by my coaches.

I was on vacation with my family in July in Jamaica, where you have to drive on the left side of the road. That can be crazy.

It’s about what’s right in addition to who’s right.

It was my first time experiencing this and I was a bit uneasy. I had to trust the experience and expertise of the other driver. I had to submit and humble myself.

In our Assessment Phase for L.E.A.D. Center For Youth, we don’t teach; we use contests and competition to lead the learning for our players.

Being athletic is about being able to think critically at a high level to get things down that you’ve never done before or have little experience doing. I am convinced that coaches coach greatness out of our players more than we do to bring it out by spending too much time talking rather than allowing our players to figure things out.

Kinesthetic learners love the Assessment Phase because they are hands on. Visual and auditory learners struggle during this time but their dominant learning style is elevated during our Engagement Phase (November-January) when it is time to build habits and strength based on what works.

We do a lot of teaching during this time now that I have seen what they can and cannot do for three months.

This fall, I ask my players to do three things: be athletic, submit and be humble.

1. Athletic – being able to think critically at a high level to get things down that you’ve never done before or have little experience doing
2. Submit – yield to the authority or the will of another person
3. Humility – not thinking less than of myself but thinking of others more than myself

I want my players to get the best:

• College baseball offers
• MLB Signing Bonuses
• NIL Deals in high school and college
• Post athletic career transition

For more information, visit L.E.A.D. Center for Youth today. Also, check out our Digital Magazine.

C.J. Stewart has built a reputation as one of the leading professional hitting instructors in the country. He is a former professional baseball player in the Chicago Cubs organization and has also served as an associate scout for the Cincinnati Reds. As founder and CEO of Diamond Directors Player Development, C.J. has more than 22 years of player development experience and has built an impressive list of clients, including some of the top young prospects in baseball today. If your desire is to change your game for the better, C.J. Stewart has a proven system of development and a track record of success that can work for you.

#earntheA is a part of the rebranding of L.E.A.D. Center For Youth, a sports based development organization that uses the sport of baseball to help Black boys overcome three curve balls that threaten their success: crime, poverty and racism.

When L.E.A.D. started in 2007, we served Black boys citywide, attracting some of the top players from Dekalb, Rockdale and Fulton counties to play baseball for us proudly wearing the Ambassador “A” on their jersey and hat. They put into action our core values of excellence, humility, integrity, loyalty, stewardship and teamwork on and off the field. They weren’t perfect but they were our L.E.A.D. Ambassadors and we protected them and their need to dream.

In 2010, we committed to exclusively serving Black boys, grades 6-12, from Atlanta Public Schools where I received my foundational education. We continued to have success on the baseball field competing in national tournaments.

In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic caused the quality of our play on the field to suffer. The boys in our program possessed the spirit of competition, but lost the opportunity to receive thousands of reps and hundreds of in-game at-bats needed to compete at the national level.

L.E.A.D. now is partnering with Minority Baseball Prospects (MBP) to help us win championships on the diamond and continue helping our boys win at the game of life.

On Sunday, August 20, 2023, L.E.A.D. will sponsor MBP signature evaluations for 100 high school baseball players attending Atlanta Public Schools.

Using MBP’s proprietary, signature Swaggy Chain rating system, select players will be invited to join L.E.A.D.’s Ambassador Program which includes year-round baseball training, development and competition, as well as college and career support, all at no-cost to families.

Quincy Carter is a friend of mine and former teammate in the Chicago Cubs Minor Leagues. In high school, he was the top quarterback in the country but delayed getting on the football field because he was our second round draft pick for the Cubs. He later went on to be QB1 at the University of Georgia and the first Black quarterback to start for the Dallas Cowboys. I remember talking to him one night after he had a long day of Cowboys Training Camp. He told me that he was working really hard to earn his Cowboys Star.

I was confused–he was their second round pick and the heir apparent to the recently retired Hall-of-Famer, Troy Aikman. Well, apparently, the Cowboys didn’t just give you a Star because you were on the team.

Starting this year, the Ambassador “A” will be earned in a new way.

August through October, our boys will compete in baseball games and national tournaments for L.E.A.D. wearing our signature red jersey and hat with a number on the back. However, the front of the jersey and their hat will be blank until our 2023-24 Ambassadors are announced in November.

At that time they will have worked to #EarnTheA.

For more information, visit L.E.A.D. Center for Youth today. Also, check out our Digital Magazine.

C.J. Stewart has built a reputation as one of the leading professional hitting instructors in the country. He is a former professional baseball player in the Chicago Cubs organization and has also served as an associate scout for the Cincinnati Reds. As founder and CEO of Diamond Directors Player Development, C.J. has more than 22 years of player development experience and has built an impressive list of clients, including some of the top young prospects in baseball today. If your desire is to change your game for the better, C.J. Stewart has a proven system of development and a track record of success that can work for you.