Learning Leadership

I have been fortunate to find great leaders and role models all throughout my life. Thanks in great part to my parents I was exposed to leaders in a lot of different walks of life. I had my coaches at different levels who tried to instill in me sportsmanship and teamwork. I had great teachers who helped me in the classroom.

When I was about 12, I attended a leadership camp hosted by the California Association for Director of Activities(CADA) /California Association for Student Leaders (CASL). There were a lot of team building activities as part of this camp, but it gave me the chance to interact with students from other schools who were also looking to lead. We could talk about activities they had done at their school that got everyone involved. We also had various keynote speakers that addressed us throughout the camp. One speaker I remember called up students to assist with an activity. Getting called up was scary, because you could see all the other students looking up at you. The presenter built those students up and made them feel comfortable so they could do the exercise successfully, while we all watched. His ability to put them at ease gave us all courage to take the activities back to our own school. It also showed us how to be courageous when trying anything new.

When I was a young player with the Yankees, I had the chance to attend some of their leadership camps that featured Mariano Rivera and Derek Jeter. One of the big lessons from those was approaching each game with the mindset that we are the best team on the planet, no one was close. If we lost a game, that was OK, because we still could come back tomorrow and get the job done. Their confidence set a tone for all of us. That is confidence that many youth are not exposed to.

I knew early that if I was ever successful with baseball, I wanted to start a foundation that could give opportunities like these to youth. Whether it is sending them to leadership workshops, exposing them to leaders from all walks of life in our webinar series, supporting organizations that help youth, or producing our camps, we want to give experiences to young people to teach skills that will lead them to following their dreams, as I have been lucky enough to do. With a little help, we can ALL RISE.