Keep On Pushing Tony

I am so glad that I have a lot of desire and drive in my heart.  More importantly, I am thankful for some of the people who remind me of that when I tend to forget sometimes.  Over the years there have been several moments were I thought I was not making any difference or reaching the youth that I was working with.  In the past when that happened I would always vent my frustrations to one of my friends and mentors, Bill Chain, and he would always shoot down the nonsense I was saying to him.  He would say “Tony, you’re crazy to think that these kids are not listening to you.  They love being around you and your energy, but more importantly they are listening to the life lessons you are teaching them through your love of sports.”  Bill would always stress that those 10, 11, and 12 year olds (back in 2004) would one day thank me for being a father figure in their lives and for always motivating and uplifting them each and every day.  I used to think he was crazy for saying I am crazy.

Fast forward to March earlier this year and I was having another one of those days when I couldn’t see the fruit of my work and the mission of the S.M.A.R.T. organization.  That day I am riding the Metrorail home thinking that I haven’t accomplished anything and that I need to start to shift my career focus.  Well out of the blue I hear a youngster call out “What’s up Coach Scott” and it happened to be one of the 11 year olds that I first started working with back in 2004 who are Seniors at Ballou High School here in Washington, DC.  My stop was coming up but I had enough time to exchange telephone numbers with the youngster.  That same evening I get a call from him.  We must have talked for at least a good hour.  In the middle of the conversation he starts to talk about how he and the rest of the boys miss me being around.  My reply to him was modest at best because I was always assured that they never listened to me and got tired of the old ball coach yelling at them and instilling discipline in their lives.  He could not disagree more.  He started to explain that since 2004-2005, when I first worked with them, he is now starting to see some of the lessons that I would try to teach he and the rest of the boys.  He explained that he sees a fight in school every day and usually it’s for no reason or a real stupid one.  He started to talk about how he wished he and the other boys didn’t give me such a hard time when I would try and get my points across to them about growing up in life and how education was important, etc.  The conversation was very reassuring for me!

Every time I am ready to give up because I can’t raise enough funds or I can’t get a program or project off the ground fast enough I think about those boys I first started working with back in 2004 and how a lot of what I was trying to teach them did sink in.  And I have to say I owe a lot of it to the simple words of encouragement Bill Chain would always say to me “Keep On Pushing Tony”.  Thanks Bill!!

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