Reaching Generation iY

8/16/2018

From 1989 through 1992, Sterling Brown started at wide receiver for the University of Richmond football team.

Twice, the Fort Lee, NJ, native earned All-Yankee Conference honors. During his final season, UR finished 7-4 and ascended as high as No. 9 in the country in what was then called Division I-AA.

During his first three years, however, the Spiders struggled mightily. Try as they might, they managed just four wins in 29 games. Some guys quit. Others transferred. Brown stayed the course, and, though he didn’t fully comprehend at the time, that challenging interlude set the tone for his life’s work.

“Going through adversity was a struggle,” he said, “but it’s something I look back on with fondness. I realize how formative those experiences were in terms of my own character. They had a huge impact on what I do today.”

What he does today is preach the gospel of perseverance, resilience, positive attitude, and leadership. He serves as director of character development at Kennesaw State University in Georgia. He coordinates the community service program for the school’s athletes. And he travels the country representing Growing Leaders, a non-profit organization charged with – as the name suggests – developing leadership skills in Generation iY, youth born since 2000 who have grown up, for better or worse, with ready access to the “i-technologies.” It was in that role that Brown visited Collegiate yesterday to conduct a series of well-received workshops which provided a wealth of food for thought for athletes, coaches, and parents.

He talked of a fast-paced, rapidly changing, often uncertain world and the need for the new school coach to develop strategies to meet today’s athletes “where they are” without compromising values.

He shared thoughts and insights based on research, surveys, and practical experience on the nationwide decline of such time-honored virtues as resilience, empathy, work ethic, and self-awareness, of attention span, and of internal motivation.

He spoke of the importance of concise, directed, intentional communication with athletes.

He advocated for setting high standards, for tough love when necessary, and for measured, positive guidance at a time when youth are bombarded with electronic stimuli and their attention is often diverted from the tasks at hand.

The result, he said, would be a culture of positive leadership.

Between sessions, he spoke of his mission and the joy of his journey.

How do you define the term "new school coach"?

The old school coach was hardened, tough, all about winning, authoritarian, my-way-or-the-highway. The new school idea means we care about the individual, the connections, the relationships. It’s having a balance of relationships and results. If you’re all about relationships, you won’t go anywhere or win anything. If you’re all about results, you’ll burn bridges and destroy relationships. Because students are experiential and speak a different language, coaches have to adjust to their learning style. They’re finding that when they make tweaks, they’re getting results.

I was with a program in the Northwest, a Pac-12 team, that’s had great success. Their coach was saying that recruits want to be part of a culture that’s new and trendy. They want a culture of mentorship. They want coaches who really care about them and will teach them how to get better as people, not just how to win. They recognize that they have to make some adjustments to meet the students where they are. To me, that’s the new school idea.

So the paradigm has really shifted for coaches?

Yes, the adults have to adjust, but the research is showing that kids are hungry for leadership. They’re hungry to make their own adjustments. It’s a matter of what environment will that be best cultivated in. It’s an environment where there’s growth, where there’s safety. It’s an environment where leaders are creating a dialogue so that students feel safe to explore, participate, take ownership; where they feel empowered even to fail; where they can step out and take a risk; where they’re not punished or reprimanded because they took a risk.

What’s the most important message you’d like athletes to take from their session with you?

It’s that I have the opportunity to lead. The world needs me to step up and do that, whether I’m young or old, or I’ve been validated as a leader or not, I’m the driver of the car. If I see myself as a leader, that should inform how I act as a leader and influence the world around me.

What’s the most important message for coaches?

Times have changed. The mindset of the students – expectations, priorities, and values – has changed. If we’re willing to do the hard work of adjusting, understanding, and meet them where they are, they’ll respond. When it’s not just about performance, the interesting thing is, they perform.

And the most important message for parents?

Sometimes kids need to fail. If kids aren’t exercising some of the very same muscles that build character and leadership in us as adults, because of the world they’re growing up in that’s so vast, so entertaining, so nurturing, how then are they going to lead in a changing world?

Do you have hope for Generation iY?

Yes. Kids are gifted. They’re resilient. They’re amazingly talented. We run into problems when external forces affect leadership, expectations, relationships, communication…all of these things the research is telling us…but 100 percent, I have huge hope for this generation.

-- Weldon Bradshaw

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