the social worker district social worker and also the community liaison which really in a nutshell means I just move all around the district you might see me in your school you might see me at another school i come out to the events to support you i am moving all around
the district i graduated from Ipsilante High School back in the 80s all our Ipsy alone where you at back in the Well they not 80s they younger than me oh he older than me darren Brown is my guy and so today
gentlemen I really um am happy that we are now talking about mental health mental health was taboo when I grew up it was as somebody said for crazy people but what we understand is mental
health is real and it really does matter how you regulate yourself your emotional intelligence how you go about your day things that you have encountered that may have caused you pain and strife and hurt feelings it's all how you go about
your day and so I was uh I have the opportunity to bring in men who have sports backgrounds and that's what I wanted to do today to talk about mental health from the sports background athletic background so some of you are
going to meet some professional players some a couple will be on Zoom but the others will be up here and they will share their story vulnerable open uh and in the way they want to about mental health and so I'm asking you to ask
questions to get involved don't stay in your same circle we have adults here we have people from the community i want to introduce our councilman Ipsilani uh Roland Tus he's on the Ipsellani city council stand up Roland he is um a young
man that is doing doing things in our community you can be anything you want to be um all of our YCS staff I mean not YCS staff all the YCS staff stand up raise your hand stand up we have our YCF
staff here to support you um I'm asking you to stay in this area please stay in this area the bathrooms you go out this door turn right turn right turn right and they are on your left you come back
this way we will have breakout sessions you'll be with Santino and Sean santino has his name up head hand up santino and Sean we'll take you during breakout sessions we have a great lunch for you you'll be out there sitting down we have
a couple people that will be on Zoom for us today and so I'm just asking you to relax enjoy yourself ask questions we have resource tables out there for you and then I'm going to have a couple other things so that you can take with you and put in your backpack as we move
throughout the day any question oh let me say that seriously Terren this is Tara Willis everybody say "Hey Tara." Amen district um on the outside part but she does just a kid from Ipsy i do you don't
know my story and this year we collaborated together to bring this to you so I am hoping that you will enjoy yourself there are some QR codes for surveys so I'm going to ask you to pull out your phone and use the QR codes for
surveys but I want you to leave here and say you have met some people you know some people that work in the district you know our community members we have Dr kimberly Jones she used to work at the county sheriff's office she
was a um professor at WCC and she is an attorney so I want you to get to know people we have our school board trustee Janice Townsen in the house we have Miss
See I'm calling people like names i call Miss Bing um I just say Bing social worker over at ACE pena is social worker for Wisdy is behavior specialist at over at
ACE um Mr dr terry Dr terry he is at WCC he's with Advanced Ipsy please talk to him please talk to him stop at his table he has some great information for you and we have Coach Brown yes say hey coach say it like that
say hey coach and we have Solomon Young here who is our tech person and I am going to Oh Turquoise Neil i'm sorry turquoise Neil and just y'all give her a hand y'all gota give her a big
last night and man they tow her car and we was running all around trying to hit the car that was an experience they they came yes and instead of just saying "Hey go in there and see if somebody in there with the car," they put it on the hooks and we
out there it was experience so she was back here early this morning with me making it work have I missed anybody have I missed anybody solomon Young came in also give him a
hand cuz he came in after Zane solomon Z what did I say young i said young leave me alone leave me alone okay y'all ready i can't hear you are you ready are you ready yes ma'am
all right Terra and your come on in i don't want to yes I'm not on the panel yeah yeah yeah i got appcate thanks okay good morning everyone all right so I want to introduce real
quick this is Melanie Smith and she is a intern at Eastern Michigan University um or entering week from Eastern Michigan University and she's going to be the just a kid from Ipsy moderator today and we also have JD who's one of your
classmates and then Jaylen Jaylen scoot up just a little bit all right they are also going to be engaging in the conversation and asking questions so students you might get a question from your uh thank you because I was gonna say
colleague um and so Melanie is going to get started by um introducing herself and then also asking each of the uh panelists to introduce themselves
also all right go ahead and stand up good morning everyone good morning everyone thank you for coming thank you for coming thank you for speaking use your teacher voice um okay if all of our panelists could please introduce themselves and let us
know what you're doing start with you good morning everyone my name is Johnny EPS um right now I'm the service center manager for Michigan Works prior to that I'm an Ipsellani grad class of 1992 after graduating from Ipsellani
High School I played division one basketball at Missouri State University uh the two-year starter Letterman um all academics after I graduated college I played professional basketball for six years
overseas some of the countries I played in was Taiwan China Macedonia Argentina Brazil Uruguay and Dominican Republic after grad um playing overseas I got back into the workforce um I started off
working at Ipsy public schools as a pair pro for two years i worked with first and second graders after that I got hired in Washington County working with juvenile delinquents uh from there I got the job where I'm at now for 15 years i
also coach basketball i coached at Ipsy High i coached at Lincoln i coached at Canton and right now I'm currently coaching my son in travel basketball we played for the family we played for Lindsay Hunter we played for Common Bonds and right now we're playing our
second year on the Puma circuit so just a little bit of my background thank you thank you it's time for me to get back no my name is Opio no no you Oh I My
name is Opio Sha um I'm a Will graduate class of 1996 um born and raised right here in Ipsellani um I was a division one football player i received a full ride scholarship to the University of Toledo um also attended school at Eastern Michigan University and I'm now
a business owner here in the Ipsson community run a print shop called the Print Giants um printed the shirts you have on we do a lot of printing for Ipsy Community Schools Lincoln local schools um I have three sons uh one graduate from Lincoln uh high school i have
another another one getting ready to graduate from Lincoln High School this year he's a senior um and that's uh that's me i'm a proud member of this community i love working with the kids giving back and u share my story with you guys
my name is Thomas i'm from Chicago originally um as y'all can see I work for the sheriff's office been with county sheriff's office for the last 19 years um currently I'm school resource officer at Lincoln started my singing here at Willow Run um at Willow Run over
at Ipsy High School and currently now at Lincoln um as I said from the Chicago area originally played D1 football at the University of Michigan um was a three and a half year starter offensive line played both guards both tackles played in the NFL with the Arizona
Cardinals played in the CFL with the Edmonton Eskimos played over NFL in Europe won a World Bowl over the equivalent of Super Bowl as captain of that team um played arena football won an Arena Cup while doing that
came back to the University of Michigan i was a strength and conditioning coach for football and basketball got tired of that and uh came over to the sheriff's office been with the sheriff's office for about 19 and a half years now um
live in Ipsy Township i hang out i I consider myself a a second son of Ipsellani at this particular point um go to church over at Second Baptist off of Hamilton with uh George Waddles is my pastor and uh just happy to be here with
you young men today and hopefully we start making some connections and giving you guys some something to think about as far as what your next step is going to take how many seniors I got in here okay it's it's that time young man
and uh once this year is over with that's when real life starts to happen so hopefully we got some plans in place everybody else you got a little bit of time strongly suggest to you from an academic standpoint get on top of them grades if you haven't already done so
some of your faces look a little bit familiar um where I dealt with a another Q&A sort of situation and probably enough a lot of guys had so as you continue to move forward
academically because as you move forward it's only going to get a talk so thank you for your time and uh Freddy have a great day thank you okay so we're going to get right into the questions my first question and answer when you feel it's appropriate
um what does it mean to be strong and do you correlate being strong with grit i think being strong is simply rising to the occasion right how many of you guys have ever
been scared of something everybody should raise their hand everybody should raise their hand so strong typically has a con connotation of being physically strong how much you can lift and all of that to an extent it has something to do with
the physicality of things but also can you be mentally and emotionally strong um I lost my dad several years ago and watching my mother go through that whole process of planning the funeral and
everything else um dealing with family all of that never saw my mom cry i'm sure my mother had her her moments to herself but her level of strength that she was trying to show was more so for me and the other surrounding family
members in order to keep everybody else moving in the right direction when you have that level of fear of whatever it is but you still have the ability to rise to the occasion that to me is what's being strong if you
find yourself trying something and it doesn't work out do you give up or you get back on that proverbial horse again and you try again are you finding ways to make yourself better to me those are
aspects of being strong and that's where the grit part comes in right everybody Lions y'all like the Lions I'm a Bears fan but anyway we see you got that green on today
though but anyway that was one of their main things that they talked about was grit everything's not going to go your way right you may come from a challenge challenging family situation you may be struggling in school your girlfriend may have cheated
on you whatever the case may be life is always going to show you some level of problem i woke up this morning I was just telling these gentlemen up here I woke up this morning my basement flooded still here still got a smile on my face why because that right there is an
inconvenience me letting my basement be flooded and then having control over my emotional well-being for the day when I know I have to come over here and converse with you young men that to me would not be being strong it would be saying that I'm
allowing something on the outside having a direct effect or control over my emotional state does that make sense so that's where the grit part comes in when you find yourself up against the trouble you got to meet it squirtly face
to face right and then I'm sorry go ahead appeal um what is your definition of grit and how do you correlate it with being an athlete how would you correlate it to being already strong but okay grit
um the word grit has some layers to it um and when dealing with these young men in our community I'm going be honest um sometimes I think the the terms like grit and grind um they get a negative uh association in
my opinion um to some of us we feel like it's positive because it's like you know I got to stay on the grind I got but at the same time as he was speaking being full of grit being so ready for the grind but then not being in touch with your emotions and not being in touch with balance um a lot of
our young men learn how to grit and grind but don't learn how to be in touch with themselves don't learn how to be honest with themselves or how to deal with emotions um grit how hard can you love can you be okay with love you know or do you feel like loving is weaker do
you feel like that's So grit to me um is being in touch as you said with your emotions um being able to stay strong in times of adversity um having balance knowing who you are as a person um even outside of athletics um when you're
pushed or persuaded to go a certain way but that's not really how you feel inside do you have enough grit do you have enough grind to stick to your own line stay in your own line and your own lane of how you want to move to me that's for where we're at and the young men we're dealing with you guys here
today that's the that's the kind of grit that I think you guys need to have to try to adapt so that's my you know quick and so we're gonna before we go on I want to have student participation and have him ask one of the questions to the audience
real quick so all right so what are some challenges you faced in school and what are some researches resources that you use to uh overcome this go ahead yes can you stand up please
so I said what are some challenges you face in school and what resources do you use to overcome it yeah I need to overcome it i didn't do the work can Can we comment from the panel i just
I got to ask you brother you said when he when when she when he asked your challenge you mentioned that the teachers are your challenge which is okay that's all right um what's challenging with your teachers and only reason I ask is
because ideally that's supposed to be one of your resources so if your teachers are a challenge for you what's the challenge start with trying to test my ego i don't know i got you so how about no stay standing up young brother how about
this um sometimes man um especially at your age and just I'm going just keep it 100 with you um your teachers are a resource they're there to help you not to say that they're perfect not to say some of them they're humans as well too they have personalities and sometimes personalities don't mix it don't matter
the age what I've come to find out as a adult as a man and this there's levels to being a man even in adulthood um a lot of times you got to look inside first um I'll flip it around and say
"Okay your teachers are a challenge to you what can you do or what do you do in the situations that can better that situation or what are you bringing to the table that maybe you're a challenge to your teachers if we be real about it are you being a challenge to them you said it's your they're they're trying to
challenge your ego at your age that might be a situation you might need to check your ego because if an adult is telling you that or if an adult is challenging your ego nine times out of 10 your ego might be out of line a little bit and at this age is the time to humble humble be humble a little bit
listen and let me work on me i We have some young ladies that is not young we have some ladies in our community and they're big on this work on you i'm big on this i could find a problem or a situation whether it's in my office whether it's with my wife whether it's with my
kids as a young man I would often times look at them or that situation as the problem and I could focus i could get angry i could get emotional all the things they doing wrong and how it's affected me and you usually don't get resolved from that
where I started getting this is just me personally where I started getting better resolved is when I started saying what can I do in this situation what's my what's you know what what am I doing wrong and if you can't find anything that you doing wrong and you can't find no fault in the situation you totally
out of line that's any situation that's relationships that's business that's in sports with coaches it don't matter if you can't find any responsibility that you have in a situation that's a problem and if you find yourself spending more
time focusing on other people's responsib and he makes a good point because um teachers are a representative of bosses so eventually you going to have to step outside of high school and you're gonna have to work for a boss and there all of
us adults have had bosses that we do not get along with or we don't agree with their alignment but we want that paycheck and so this is just preparation for that next step in your life so thank you somebody else had a comment over here no I just want to I just want to
piggyback on that real quick we're talking about emotions right when you're talking about my teachers are trying me or testing me again if you allow yourself to be tried or tested you
will always find yourself being tried and tested you have to understand that certain situations unless it's if it ain't put money in your pocket food on the table or roof over your head it really doesn't matter in the big scheme
of things and I loved how you said your ego because that's really what it is your young male ego is bruised and having been a young male with an ego who still has an ego the bruising comes really
easily and that's why I feel like and especially for my line of work when I'm dealing with individuals your age that are out of pocket and I'm looking at a majority of their responses it's emotional responses it's a quick emotional response instead
of a rational response and that's where I think the difference between boys adolescence and men is the difference right what separates us as human beings from animals it's our ability to reason okay
your frontal lobe still isn't developed yet that's why for young men especially when we start driving you start looking at your car insurance rates why are they so high because of the fact that your frontal lobe isn't fully developed and you still respond to emotional um
stimuluses instead of actually thinking through it and theoretically when you turn 25 that's when things should should come into focus why can't you go to the military at 18 it's easy enough for me to tell you as an 18-y old to jump out a perfectly
good airplane a 25 year old when I'm able to think about it that don't make good sense to me does that make Do y'all get the point it's easier for me to send you off on a crash out mission at 18 than it is at 50 because I have the
ability to think through so I love the fact that you were able to you know articulate what was going on huge and I salute you for that but what I want you to take away from what I'm saying what people saying monitor your emotional state and
see what I can do better and real quick also we all have known egos to get in your way if some of our best friends we grew with had an ego at your young age and guess what they're not here with us now because of the
ego so sometime you know you're young your coach will tell you to do something if you don't do it right you going to have to do it again but your ego I ain't doing it again i did it right the first time that's not okay go do one or two things you going to be off the team or you on the sideline running more so
sometimes we got to check our ego like we've been saying because sometimes your ego will put you in a worse situation than you were before that's a good point um and far as far as ego and athletics so I'm assuming that you all are Gen
Xers right and so when we played sports there was really no like combiveness with your coach your coach said "This is what you gonna do and that's what you're gonna do." You just made a point like your ego kind of gets in the way so can you give some tools and tips on how to u
manage that so one thing when I was playing and coaching you know I tell my kids all the time I forgot more about basketball than you know they sit there and think about that so when we play when the coach tell you to do something you did it uh Coach Brown was our
coaches when I was in high school and he really helped shape me to become what I am now through that but you have to realize you don't know everything you study learning every day like now I
still learn things every day and I've been out of college years so the day you stop learning is the day you start dying i think the other piece behind it too is if you're playing and your coach getting after you appreciate hard
coaching okay i think what's happening right now and again as I said we gonna keep it 100 i'm old i grew up in an era where you know do as you told
where your generation falls short is because you feel like you're better than the situation or you take personally goes back to that ego thing when coach is getting in your butt you got to realize something as
coach is getting in your butt it's not because coach gets off on getting getting after you it's because of the fact that coach is trying to get you to understand a concept and for whatever reason you aren't understanding that concept when coach gets
quiet that's when you need to start worrying because at this particular point Bo Shckler I didn't play for coach Bo play for coach Mohler and coach Carr but Bo was always around the football building one of coaches coach Bo's main
statements was you coach the ones who want to be coached there's only one of me time this pouring into a young young person and they're not accepting what I'm pouring in when I can be pouring into
another individual that's going to readily accept what I'm giving them and then we're going to see that maturation process where they get better and better so if they're on your butt take it as a positive because that individual sees something in you they get quiet that's
when you really need to start worrying because they are moved on to someone else how many people in here are athletes for YCS raise your hand good number good point go on to the next thank you Panda
okay so getting into our next question what strategies do you use to manage stress pressure and emotional struggles in your lives all right um at this age I'm 47 years old prayer and
meditation um and exercise exercise i I'm not the five days seven days a week working out two times a day jogging and running miles i'm just getting heavy on the exercise committing to it but meditation and pray um what I tell you
guys as as as young men um your spiritual foundation um that doesn't mean you have to be religious that don't mean you have to believe in any one thing but your your ability to be in touch with yourself your inner
self any everybody in here got an idea of what your inner self is raise your hand if you got idea what your inner self is your conscious how many people talk to their self i do okay cool so you got an idea about
inner self um man being young men and I listen let me just say this i don't like to separate um I'm 47 i know that's you know 20 25 years away from where you are it ain't that different to me um
when I see you guys and I see some of your habits and behaviors and stuff like that I knew plenty of guys and some of the stuff I could remember as well too people falling asleep in the auditorium when people speaking all kind of stuff like that it's not that big of a difference um but what I could remember
being a 17 or 18 um when it comes to spirituality or understanding of myself and dealing with stress um at that age a lot of times you like to get into music you like to hang out you like to party um you get emotional about stress as you
get older you start to find out a lot of those things that you use to try to curb stress or to try to deal with anxiety they don't work they may work for a second but you will find yourself coming back to that same place like "Excuse my French damn I'm back here again." You
know I I I hid I ran away from it i smoked a little bit i was drinking a little bit whatever I was doing to try to get away from that stress I was dealing with damn I'm back here again how do I get back here again because you're not in touch with your inner self you're dealing with it outwardly so I
try to uh take time in the morning i try to take 30 at least 30 to 45 minutes in the morning even if it's not exercise to pray to meditate talk to myself um think about life think about my family the stuff that's important to me I have to take time for myself so I think the
biggest thing that I can tell you as far as dealing with stress is take time for yourself my dad used to say this to me when I was young and I did not understand it he used to say man sometimes take some time to touch your toes and when I was 14 and 15 I used to touch your toes
Okay I get it but I ain't really getting it by the time I start being 30 35 I'll tell you like this some of you all know between your parents uncles and some people adults can't touch their toes think about that physically you
cannot touch your toes so to be a man or a woman and to be 20 25 30 taking some time to reach down and touch your feet and be in touch with yourself the energy the flow of the blood in your body it means something right now you probably like man what is this dude talking about
take a chance when you get out the shower tonight and you just chilling and you watching put your phone down for a minute touch your toes for a minute feeling you know feel your shoulders hug yourself for a minute man listen it's the most natural type of uh fulfillment
that you can really get and it don't take anything external you don't have to spend no money you don't have to spend no energy you're just with yourself so I try to take time in the morning and give myself 30 to 45 minutes to just be in touch with self and I tell you what happened it does not mean that I don't deal with no stress throughout the day
sometimes I'mma be honest i could meditate and by the time I get downstairs the my phone ring and the first distraction is stress but the way I can deal with that stress throughout the day I can find myself coming back to myself instead of getting lost in the
day and that's just so would you say stretching or or um meditating in the morning makes your day better or would you say that it's a difference in your days i can't say it makes my day better i I
can say it allows me to deal with what comes from the day better the day is g the day is going to be what it's going to be to some extent don't get me wrong you can make things and you can move in a certain way but you can't always control what comes at you but my
preparation can help me control how I handle things that come my way how many um students in here right now how many people meditate anybody okay do you listen to like music to kind of get your day started like what helps
you get your day started and to come out positive can somebody give me an example go ahead stand up please wake up okay anybody else go ahead
me when I wake up I don't touch my phone i do like push-ups sit ups jump squats get myself together and I grab my body so at that point I'm in my head thinking what I'm doing i'm supposed to do great for school i was thinking to myself like a day go like myself especially when I'm
brushing my teeth looking okay and I'mma challenge y'all to put that phone down you know what I mean like because that is just like somebody at work told me I can't remember what the word is but it is just nonstop drama because I know y'all on Snapchat on Instagram all these
things watching these stories and us adults get into it too but it's it's putting negativity in your starting your day so try and listen to something positive find some meditation uh podcast or something that you can do in the morning while you are getting ready that's feeding positivity in your life
go ahead you know something go ahead not wake up thank God thank God for waking me up this morning absolutely somebody didn't wake up this morning
that is a good point anybody else hey I just want to throw some notes out there at y'all um because I know having worked in a school and everything else seeing some of y'all all y'all got earpods headphones
everything be conscious be cognizant of what you're feeding your spirit okay okay and everything that Miss Tanner just said and O said um one of the things in being in law enforcement and a small study in which I
was kind of working on especially dealing with juveniles adolescence when they commit crimes what were they listening to prior to when I got when I was playing football I used to be a huge powerlifter
525 pound bench press i'm not listening to Landros okay i'm not listening to Chris Brown or whoever it is that y'all listen to today everything in which I was listening to either before going to play a game or I'm about to attempt a heavy
lift was uber aggressive i'm opening my spirit up to be very animalistic in whatever it is I'm about to go do for that endeavor what I have found is when young people are out committing crimes and because
y'all are the world's greatest self snitchers because everything has to be on social media amen thank y'all for helping me out um I need to post everything the music that you're listening
to it's not edifying God it's not edifying you as a as a person it's not edifying our race of people it's about getting you ready to go act out in a very aggressive fashion with whatever it is that you're going to go do so be cognizant what you're putting in your
ears be cognizant of who you let around being in your in your circle that may be spitting that same sort of venom in your ears and lastly I'mma finish with this because I know we on a schedule i see a therapist and I say that
openly um being in law enforcement for 19 years I grew up on the south side of Chicago seen a lot of death i've had at least two people kill themselves in front of me this close where I saw the cat get killed
um I don't know and I and if you're related to this individual um I say in all due respect over in West Willow the whole Facebook thing when my man died on Facebook Live I was there i stood over that young man and watched him die as my
guys were working on him um but I provided security because we didn't know we didn't know what we didn't know until we did that same day I got sent to the hospital over St joe's because they were bringing in a three-year-old who was dead
um probably from child abuse and for anyone that knows me I love the kids what I ended up finding was and O was talking about exercise the gym was my church that day I I normally spend maybe 90 minutes is my normal workout i was
there for three and a half hours and I couldn't get that funk off of me i had a friend call me who's therapist and when she called me out of the blue we had talked for a while and I said hello verbatim she said "Let it out." I sat in my truck and I cried for 10
minutes reason why I cried telling y'all this is you know we were having conversations about what it means to be a man when I cried it wasn't because I was it was because I was just I was keeping it 100 i was full of that [ __ ] and I couldn't get it off and my mood
and my emotional state was so heavy and it was broken and I didn't know how to fix it and if you know anything about cars you don't know what a rev limiter is when it's in the red I was in the red i had been in the red for years and it's
because of all of the major traumas that I've been a part of and the micro traumas that I've been a part of and we all have them in life whatever that degree may be be conscious and cognizant if you find yourself in the red because if you stay in the red too long what happens to
the motor it blows up i was I was a very very angry person and I didn't know why and my lieutenant after some of my experiences um her husband um was a sergeant at his particular agency he dealt with a lot of
child care and all the things that he saw she ended up putting me in contact with his therapist black male which worked great he was a kappa i'll let that slide i'm a cute we we had things in common annie also
has been in part of law enforcement and so when I say the whole therapist thing and I know some of you guys may not get it or understand but I do know that you have social workers at school yes find your social workers find your person to go talk to and to be able to emote y'all
know what emote means y'all know what catharsism is it's the purging of strong emotion fear and or anger right sadness find that person that you can talk to i love that and I
want to um just reiterate with him that you're right YCS has great social workers you can ask uh your teacher your principal if you're needing something also your parents insurance or whatever insurance it covers therapy and so don't
be afraid to reach out you might not be able to reach out to your parent but reach out to another adult that you trust and ask for that assistance and therapy is really like a fun way to not a fun way not all the time but a way to express yourself and not be judged too
all right go ahead you feel comfortable sharing your thoughts with another person as a man do I feel comfortable sharing I feel comfortable sharing my thoughts with a person that I trust and there's a difference with that i don't sit over
here and just spill my guts to anyone because again keeping 100 I don't know who's going to take that information and possibly use it against me in whatever way shape or form as I said find your person if you're my person got no
problem having that oneonone whatever it may be right but again be selective about who you let in your circle and if you are selective and these people have shown themselves trustworthy they have your best interest at heart and you have
seen how they interact outside of you if I see you over here doing a bunch of silly stuff that is causing a lot of negative attention for yourself does it make sense for me hey man I'm having a bad day does that make sense because at
some particular point you telling that individual you're having a bad day may not work out for you because they're they may find a way to either a make fun of you or that deep dark secret you just told they keep it to themselves i had to go run away to tell
somebody why I tell y'all when I'm in school doing this entertainment what's funny about y'all y'all are so easy to geek up to sit down on crash out missions strictly for the entertainment of other people hey I heard such and
such said X Y and Z about you what you don't even go verify what was being said all of a sudden your easy button was pushed and now you're out on a mission to go take care of your ego so to answer your question yes but it just has to be
the right person thank you thank you thank you for your vulnerability did you want to comment yeah just talk about the uh therapist piece you know in the black community with black males this taboo you don't need to talk to nobody suck it up three years ago my mom
passed away unexpected me being the oldest with a family I didn't know how to grieve so how did I grieve when I'm coaching my son I'm taking it out on him boy why you miss this layup you should have got that rebound for two weeks until my wife
pulled me to the side you about to lose him he's about to quit she said "You need some help." She said "I don't know what kind of help you going to get cuz you better get some help cuz you about to lose your son your daughters and you about to lose me." That was a wakeup call the next day
I found a therapist and I was able to talk to them about things that I suppressed for years when I was in the fifth grade my parents got divorced you don't understand how stuff happened when you was younger but when you get older have a family how does it affect you so all that stuff
came out so for two months I talked to my therapist twice a week plus with our learning work we're givers we're always giving to help people out my therapist asked me "What do you do for yourself?" I had to think "Yeah what do
I do for myself do I ask people for help?" So she gave they gave me a task to do ask for help so my line of work every day at Michigan works i get phone calls try to help people find jobs training i'm always doing doing doing i
supervise 30 people so that's 30 different personalities I have to deal with so I can't go to work driving in listening to Pac or Biggie because I'm hyped up i'm older now i gotta listen to some OJ's some Luther because it calm me down because I
know what my day is about to entail but at the same time getting that help and like what he said someone you trust that's the big difference you have to trust someone because what you tell them they can run away with it tell everybody else now my ego about to kick in and
it's about to be a whole different situation but sometime you got to find that person you trust talk to them and sometime you got to look into yourself my big saying I only worry about things you can control if you can't control it don't let it
worry about you i tell my wife every day oh we got I said we can't control that we can't control that it's raining but we can't control you go outside put that umbrella up so you have to worry about things you can control and it's okay to talk someone for help
and assistance thank you for sharing okay we're gonna get into our culture topic so my question to the panel is from a Gen X perspective how do you feel you are now represented in media and popular culture
what do you mean by representative black men or just older guys yes black family all right so it may be unpopular we hear it i as a older male and and being
brought up by the men that that raised me there was something to be said about manhood there was something to be said about being presented in a strong masculinity and there was a lot of
things in the media when that whole toxic masculinity thing came out y'all he remember that so anyway toxic toxic masculinity was a term that came out a few years ago
that was counterculture to what I would say we as Gen Xers exers was raised upon um I believe that as black men and a lot of the media senses that we show are
shown in less than strong positions um that a lot of times um we are left out from a lot of the the nuclear family nuances that that you may have going on and my biggest thing right now is is
that as O said either you evolve or you die i think as a Gen Xer I have evolved to be able to say exactly what I just told y'all i was dealing with stuff and I needed to go talk to someone at the same point in time if I need to stand up and
be that protector or provider I'm able to do that all day but as we evolve as a culture I'm more in tune with my emotional state and as long as I'm with my person I'm a lot more comfortable talking about my emotional
state if I'm having issues with her does that make sense i'm still that old grumpy man that I'm becoming my front yard guy but at the same point in time I don't
have a problem talking about if emotionally I may be struggling and I think that's where as a Gen Xer and whatever we call this time right now that's where I feel like at least for me I'm starting to have that connection
because old me was hey you suck it up and you just push forward and you put that in this little box and you put that with the rest of your little boxes do you guys know what generation you are speak about Z okay okay i know i was like XYZ
something like that millennials right the millennials and Gen X is the only uh generation that's been in five different decades that's crazy so when it when it comes to um and we're gonna this will be our last because we have uh people on Zoom that are going to be joining us
okay when it comes to how we're portrayed as black males or as males um I would say my biggest focus or my biggest concern is how we portray ourselves a lot of time um through social media um through our music um which I'm okay with music i grew up with
rap i like rap um some of the artists older too short again I don't like to push the big difference because the music you listen to now of course is different and it's 20 30 years later but a lot of the content a lot of the hurt a lot of the stress a lot of the anxiety
emotional distress it's all the same thing some of it is elevated and it's not your fault it's probably our fault because we came before you but when it comes down to how we're portrayed um I feel like we we as a people we can't always control what other people do or
how other people portray us but we can control how we portray ourselves i'm not big on telling young men that they got to pull their pants up about sagging um now yeah if your pants is down too far whereas but I in my generation you guys
didn't start sagging we did sagging started when I was in high school so but I was always this I always had an issue with someone to focus on someone's pants more than what can come out of their mouth or out of their head sagging is a
style um a lot of your styles your Crocs I hear people all these kids coming I don't care if wear Crocs only my only issue with my son with Crocs is say man if something happening you have to run and he told me that they got sport mode so I I learned something I said
okay they got sport mode you know um listen I came to speak at the school and I had an issue with the hoods on and with the hats like a lot of you guys have on right now when I was in school we couldn't do that but I had to understand that there's a It's a change
but even with their hats you see how old that is because we had those back in the day yeah they had college teams on it it's it's like this man um people can think of you and they can look at you a certain way and feel a certain way or have their own and their mind made up of
what you are and that's fine it's more important about how you portray yourself and then actually not even just how you portray yourself how you really carry yourself what's your real who are you how do you present yourself how do you talk to people how do you treat people
how do you take care of business you know are you kind how do you handle yourself in your community that's the portrayal and if we as men young men teenagers if we control our own you know the way we're portrayed it
it really won't matter it'll change what's on the TV and like a lot of people say this the rap music now listen the rap music is not just something that people just made up they just made they not just making up the lyrics and making up what's they see it somewhere so these are things that are happening in our
community that people are rapping about and talking about the way the kids act in the schools the way you young men come to school and behave and act that is a direct reflection of our community that's what goes on in our households that's what goes on in our community
good and bad even the good thing so I you know Yeah so when it comes to portrayal or how we're portrayed as men man life is hard but it's fair deal with it you know paint your own picture you know people could think of me in a
certain way or they could but by the time you get a chance to know me by the time you get a chance to talk to me and interact with me that's gonna really that'll paint the picture all right thank you so I would like to thank JD and George um Jaylen sorry
sorry for being our student um question askers right now we're going to have uh the younger portion of our Just a Kid from Ipsy so we have Corey Allen and KJ Oh just Corey Allen on and air Osborne
um Corey Allen is a former basketball player at Flanny High School and he's now playing in Romania uh overseas which is a great experience if you have the ability and I know YCS does this very well of traveling outside of the United
States do it um I know a lot of these people on this um on this panel have traveled outside of the United States and it's just so nice to see what other people and what other cultures do and Corey Allen has now had that ability to
do that and he's going to chat with us a little bit and he getting paid so we are going to let's do this guys stand up stretch out everybody stand up stretch out i know you guys have been here for about an hour stand up cuz we got to make we have to make
anywhere we are going to get started in like two minutes i just want you to stand up and stretch out please check them out so next years you know why the figure out
okay on the top a little bit to me i think That means All right thank you so much for being a part thank you so much gentlemen we got about 20
more minutes and then you can get up and move around my phone um before we get started I want to introduce you our mayor is here anybody know the mayor any of you know the mayor
you do not count you do not count anybody else anybody know the mayor all right who's the mayor she a black woman okay you know that right she a black one okay black woman mayor stand up all right mayor Nicole
Brown is here today with us we have our principal from ACE lesie Davis is here where is Dr kelsey dr kelsey she's the high school principal she's here
with you today all right and so we are getting ready to start the second half with Corey Allen and Amir Osborne and this half we're just talking about as said the grit part of it the mental toughness what it takes
to be in sports to be an athlete but not just that but how it intersects with your everyday life the dedication the determination the focus and the cons consistency and the commitment to do
what you want to do okay so I am going to turn it back over to Taran Willer and Corey Allen amir Osborne turn on your cameras and come on live please turn on your cameras please
oh hold on hold on one second hold on for a second hold on mayor and Cory hold on oh that's right now both of these young men attended Ipsilani Community High School they are Grizzly alum they are Grizzly
alum class of 2016 corey is here to my left he is in Romania amir Osborne currently he is in Miami I believe i don't know he been moving around a lot i don't know but um
give them a hand for coming on i think Corey is towards bedtime now it's about he's we're about seven hours out so I don't know what time it is in Romania but he's been uh willing to participate amir you're gonna take your
cue from Taran and Melanie all right turn on your mics come off of mute hi can you guys hear yes oh great welcome to uh You Don't Know My Story and Just from Ipsy um we're excited to
have you here thank you for joining us via Zoom um so the premise of this discussion is around mental health we have a room full of young men here um and Corey we'll start with you you graduated from Ilani Community High
School in what year uh 2016 2016 so pretty recent and now playing basketball in Romania tell us a little bit about being out in Romania and um what you're doing there as your profession
uh it's different it's definitely different you know it's a it's a different culture out here um they eat different they move different all that type of stuff um I don't know i've been out here for two years so I'm kind of adjusted this is my third year playing
professionally though oh nice um and so when you're in Romania are there Excuse me are there any people of color there uh yeah you usually probably see some just It's not a lot though um I've ran
into a couple of like black people like American black people but they like come on like military duties and stuff like that but usually you'll see like probably somebody from like France or something out here and stuff like that okay and so when you're in Romania like
what do you do outside of basketball like anything fun that you do to kind of relax your mind relax your work day um I go walk around walk around outside um just seeing different buildings and stuff in Europe is different so um I
like to go to the mall and stuff and shop too so that's pretty much what I do okay and so um one of the topics that we're discussing is like grit and mental health um in order for you to get to the level of professional basketball that you're playing that takes a lot of
dedication so tell us like what you did throughout high school college to get to where you are and how you had to really um hone in on that grit yeah pretty much um I was like I grew up in a household that we
had to work all the time you know um work hard no matter what uh my dad would wake me up early in the morning we go to workouts amir is my cousin so he you know what I'm saying he stayed at my house a few times and he know what it is he he was um athlete as well so we got
up worked out um high school probably two workouts a day you know I have we had practice um that's pretty much it i I was just a a super hard worker and I'm I'm happy that I able to be able to go to college
and play division one basketball and once I got there it never changed you know what I'm saying i stick to my grind and the words I use in grit um I felt like I had a lot of grit especially growing up where I grew up um you know what I'm saying in the
household I grew up in and all that type of stuff you know what I'm saying i I definitely had to work hard so that's pretty much what got me here now one of the things that we were discussing were uh was about ego and coaches so tell us a little bit because if I remember
correctly Brooks was your coach right and Brooks is a tough coach um so tell me how that helped build your character and who you are now it helped build it a lot you know what I'm saying brook Brooks was um he's a he's a great guy
but he's a crazy individual he's he's funny though like you know what I'm saying but uh he's a guy that's going to test you a lot you know what I'm saying um I heard somebody say um teachers test your ego and all that type of stuff but bricks are test you day in and day out
you know um he'll say stuff you don't like but at the end of the day it's all love you know he's uh he's a super loving guy and um I think he pushed me to be who I am today he pushed me
super hard you know um he was like a father figure to my dad so you see how that works like a it's a triangle um but yeah he he's a he's a super great guy super great coach and he got me I I give him a lot of credit for where I am today
okay and now I know you have a younger brother um who is a basketball player under him and so what advice do you give to your younger brother or to these gentlemen in regards to um moving forward with their athletic career and
again like maintaining grades maintaining their mental health yeah um pretty much just his whole life I I kind of been trying to be that big brother to just make sure that he's on the right track and stuff like that so I
just tell him the simple things you know I don't really like to preach to him a lot because he's my little brother and you know he's around y'all age you know what I'm saying junior in high school about to be a senior so he not gonna want to hear it all the time but when I can or when I when I see that he down
and stuff like that I make sure that you know come on bro like you got to be on this track you got to do this do this this and that and uh it just always stuck with him you know me my dad and um my family members all my family members we push him because we want to see him
be great and um I feel like for y'all y'all should do the same within each other like challenge each other to be the best the best you guys can be for sure yeah that's good advice all right we're gonna jump over to Amir real quick um air hi welcome to Just a Kid from
Ipsy um a bit about you and your athletic background and what you're currently doing because you pretty you have a pretty exciting job um yeah uh so like Corey said um I graduated from Ipsy in uh 2016 played baseball i was a baseball
player my whole life um I literally kind of like lived eat breathe baseball um but when I got to college um I knew I could still play um we played a couple division we were playing some division one schools and I was doing good during those times uh which kind of gave me the
fuel to hey I could probably play college ball for real um but God had other callings and plans for me i had other talents that I wanted to kind of seek out um and just through moving from um Michigan moving to Atlanta in 2017 uh
for college played a major part um it kind of gave me a different perspective of things outside of sports life being around new people creating new environments and from there I started to get into a whole whirlwind of things of social media um internships with record
labels and I slowly started kind of trying to find myself you know outside of sports i was trying to figure out you know um basically what's my identity you know what do I want to do um I was a baseball player my whole life okay I gave that up now what am I trying to do and you know just through the grace of
God I was able to land some intern uh positions uh started working with like record labels and then from there I started working with like um big music artists um some people might know like the wife and luchi the little babies the young thugs
um lados i started to work around all of them um and had a career i actually um got God got willing I had a career after I before I even graduated uh college which is very rare especially being a black man to do something like that so from there I was working in music um but
slowly I was starting to lose the love for music uh for just other reasons and I have a cousin that plays in the NFL KJ Osborne and one day he gave me a call and was like "Hey do you want to quit your job and come work with me come do the same thing you're doing with me."
And I was a little nervous at first uh because it was something new something that I haven't done yet um but I was like you know it's an exciting it can be exciting it can be something you know a new journey so got the call and for the last two years I've been working uh with
my cousin and then from doing a lot of work with him moving around showing my skills um showing my usage I was able to get connected through other people some people might know Ray Lewis um NFL Hall of Famer um and he was actually he actually started his own agency which um
now I work with them so I started my own company um and still working with my cousin and then I was blessed with another opportunity to uh do a joint venture um with Ray Lewis and Andre Reed with their marketing company so now I do um marketing and management for
professional and college um athletes oh thank you thank you you went to Clark Atlanta right uh yes I did okay so tell us a little bit about um your experience at a historically black college or university
um it was a life-changing experience honestly um can you guys hear me yeah um it it was life-changing i tell uh I think my auntie had asked me that one time about um uh my decision on going to Clark and I told her it was the best decision I ever
made in life and I needed college and I needed to get away and I think um when you're younger you're 18 17 we kind of have this fear of moving away or you know moving far away not just moving out up the street to like Wayne State or
something but like really moving far away no friends no family it was kind of nerve-wracking at first but from going through that experience and then also going to an H.B.CU as prestigious as Clark Atlanta University was and learning my school's history and how
rich my school was with alumni and the different avenues and things that I would be able to do just from being in Atlanta uh changed it changed everything um from my professors a lot of my professors in the mass media department teaching was basically like their second
job their main job would always be something major within the entertainment industry whether it was working in music doing being a journalist doing radio and I'm talking about this is at a high level this isn't like lowlevel stuff so I had a chance to you know just having
those resources and connections i I took advantage of it and that was one thing in college that I always wanted to make sure I did was I didn't want to be like everybody else i didn't want to go to college and waste my four years in college and then I graduate and I didn't have nothing um so during those times when I had those
professors having Atlanta just in general just being in Atlanta and understanding this is black Hollywood the black mecca there's so many opportunities um it just it's a it's a fear thing that you have to get over so once I really start getting out start meeting people I start utilizing my
skills and my talent and not just waiting on opportunities to come to me but you know going to fill out internships going to talk to people i wanted to do interviews celebrities everywhere in Atlanta i find them here and there they'll be walking through our campus a lot of celebrities graduated from Clark Atlanta and they still live
in Atlanta so just taking advantage of all those resources uh definitely made me grateful and it definitely molded me to who I am today um our motto at Clark Atlanta was always um I'm a find a way or I'm a make a way and I still live with that motto um to this day so I
always um young men and young women uh if you can going to H.B.CU is definitely expensive so I would definitely say if you can get a scholarship to go because paying out of pocket can be expensive but if you can get away and go to college um and really get out on your own I would definitely say do it it's
life-changing it makes you grow up very fast it makes you create new friends it makes you get to new relationships it it it you know it kind of builds out something within you you find you start finding yourself you're going to have a lot of struggles cuz moving away is as people might make it seem like it's easy
it's not and from my mom can tell you she's seen kids you know graduate go off far to school and they come right back a couple months later that was always me that was almost me not always me that was almost me um moving away is very hard from especially when you move to areas where you just don't know anybody
like moving to Atlanta in 2017 was was different they didn't listen to the music we listen to in Detroit or Michigan they don't talk like us people in the south they don't you know they don't talk like us they dress different they act different they shake hands different um so it's like a you know
you're it makes you uncomfortable but when you're uncomfortable that brings the best out of you if you're willing to survive so going to Clark Atlanta just in a nutshell it like like I said it was the best decision I ever made in my life um it got me off into my career and everything things that I'm doing today
anybody in the audience interested in the HGCU okay guess what wc has an H.CU Pathways program hold on hold on hold on um real quick real quick i have a special guest um KJ was able to uh join he wanted to um come on uh and say a few things to
you guys what's up guys how y'all doing welcome KJ um my name is Taran and we're with Jessica from Ipsy today thank you for joining us we're here with about 37 uh young men so we understand now what team are you playing for currently i play for the Washington Commanders oh
okay okay okay in DC which is the greatest black mecca along with Atlanta so uh enjoy that space so we're just really here talking about what got you to where you are um things that motivated you and how you dealt with stress so kind of give us a little recap
on what you're doing and how you manage stress right now of course well first of all I appreciate you guys uh for having me i I got a a flight to jump on so I wasn't sure if I was going to be able to make it but I I definitely got some time and I I definitely wanted to prioritize this and um you know being where I'm from where we from um I always made it a
goal of you know when I when I made it to the league that I would always come back and and give to my community so you know I'm uh you know I always tell people it's a dream come true even me being able to be in this position to speak to you guys um number one always how I've uh managed stress and how I've got to where I am today number one my
faith um you know I tell people it's like it's not a secret you know that's that's the number one thing that that drives my life and what keeps me going and um you know what helps me to be able to manage you know all the the ups and the downs is is my foundation and um you know second just you know motivation you
know you know where we come from and you know I'm sure there's there's uh everyone in the room there could be want to be you know doctors lawyers you know teachers um you know I wanted to be an athlete and every time you tell people you know you want to be an athlete they're like "Okay well you know you got to have a second plan you know cuz I you know I don't know about that and this
and I'm just being where we're from you know it's not too many people that you know have just made it to the professional ranks." And um you know my friend group was was very important at the time um I'm actually you know I'm going to a conference here uh in Atlanta in a couple hours with Tyler Mabry who who went to Lincoln with me and now
plays for the Seahawks and um you know we were really really tight in our in our friend group and you know we uh we call each other our accountability partners and you know we would um you know keep each other out of trouble keeping our grades up make sure we you know men of our word you know putting the work in putting the time in and um you know that helped us you know get to
where we are today i would say with dealing with stress um I think it depends on like kind of where that that stress level you know is is is coming from you know for me in my profession with social media and um you know when when uh uh people talking about you on
TV and all types of things you know it's it's discipline you know it's it's blocking out that noise and staying focused you know keeping the main thing the main thing it's so many things to to be distracted by um but you know uh you know I always go off the Bible you know the the the the eyes you know what I'm
saying it's a light to your to your soul you know what I'm saying and what you looking at what are you feeding your spirit you know what are you reading you know for me and my profession am I looking my name up after a game and I having a bad game of course they ain't going to say nothing good about me so of course why would you be looking you know uh you know if and if you're having a great game you know they're going to feed your ego you know so it's never as
you're never as bad as they say you are you're never as good as they say you are so I think it would take you know just just a lot of discipline um having you know leaders you know I'm sure you guys have plenty of leaders you know all around the room um and and mentors that you know want to help you out you know being able to talk you know being able to speak to people finding someone you
trust um you know young women you know uh young men you know finding an older woman older uh older man you know people with wisdom people that are in the room that's better than you are um and and that have been to to where you are and that have the answers to you know the these people have been in high school they've been in college they you know
have have grown and they have wisdom being able to speak to those people about um things that you are stressed about and you know just being able to talk to them and um you know give them advice on how to manage that stuff okay so what I want to do real quick is that I'd like to take one question from the
audience does anybody have a question for um Corey or KJ no one okay go ahead stand up speak loud please when you traveling do you be taking people with you or like you be traveling
all by yourself uh a lot of times my cousin uh like this is like my you know uh when you're in professional sports you know a lot of times um you know you have a lot of people that want to come around come around come around and uh you know it just so happened that you know I do have my my first cousin here
with me and um even some of my other friends they want to come on you know we say like the team you know and you know what role they can have you know in the team because they want to be around if I tell people you know air um you know I don't just have him on my team because he's my cousin you know he does an amazing job and he's very very helpful
in what he does and it's not just a thing of oh he my family member so he just you know he's just with me um he's very very helpful so um having air around with me this is usually who I travel with um whether it be wherever we go I mean we've been blessed to to go all around the world um so usually it's
it's us two that's cool because that's a good emotional support person that you know you trust you could be around and um just have that support family support I had one other person over here who a question go ahead stand up please
oh go ahead go ahead Jaylen first and then uh this for uh Corey is it more competitive overseas cory though um what you mean more competitive like
like basketball is it more competitive over there um it's it's super competitive uh it's competitive everywhere you know in the States as well but over here it's definitely a different game it really depends on like what country you in um
where I'm at right now it's more so like a kind of a bully ball game you know what I'm saying they like to they they real handsy you know what I'm saying they foul and stuff like that but it's it's it's super it's super competitive you know it's always competitive
wherever you at cool uh one other question and then we're gonna have Melanie ask you a couple of questions in regards to culture this more of a question both of y'all what go through your mindset about this plan um like before the game or during the
game barely both um I'll say before the games you know I I always get butterflies i always have butterflies before a game you know what I'm saying that's that's never going to um go away but as soon as I step on the
court you know what I'm saying it's I'm in between the lines with you you know what I'm saying we got to match up you tie your shoes just like I tie my shoes you put your stuff on just like I put my stuff on so you know um it's just what I work on every day day in and day out you
know i put that to uh put that on the court and um do my best I can you know i would say um I'll say pretty pretty similar i mean most of the time before before a game I'm kind of going over
going over my prep i'm going I'm going over my preparation uh about you know my film study things I wanted to emphasize throughout the week and uh most of the time you know your preparation should be so should be so good that you know on game day you just we say just cut it loose you know so
it's just not a lot of thinking the more you thinking on the court on the field you know whatever your sport is um you know that's that's where you play slower you know so like you want to put your time in put your work in that's why practice is so important to be so intentional in practice throughout the week so when a game time come you know
you can just you can just let it fly and your body is you know know what to do because you've been you've been working it all week your mind is sharp um and you also you get that confidence you know what I'm saying i've been eating right i've been sleeping right i studied i put in the work so on Sundays Thursday nights Monday nights whatever it is uh when you get out there you can go play
and uh then in the game you know you don't want to be distracted by you know all the other external things which you know I've been a victim of i think that's one thing um I would say you know younger in my career it's like okay uh all right ball game you know uh DB broke
it up oh god dang like man am I am I going to get another target you know is this going to affect my contract you know is coach going to do this is coach going to do that like you know that stuff you know in professional sports and even high school like you know I'm like dang like I got to get these offers like man I got to score a touchdown every time I touch the ball like you
don't want to get yourself into that mindset like focus on the game and and what you have to do uh in the game to you know to be successful and then you know that stuff will come you know later you know off the field let that stuff you know worry about itself like when you in the game like focus on the game I
feel like uh in my younger career you know I have been I have fell victim to that but you know just becoming like a veteran now you know I'm just to stay focused on the game and you know the what's in between the lines and like not the external things because it can impact you yeah that's good advice like just bas basically blocking out the
noise and focusing on your work um I have one gentleman left who wants to ask a follow-up question go ahead um what do you do it for what did you say what do you do it for like what's your mindset doing
originally man when I when I first started it was it was for my family it was it was for my family um that was that was my mindset and it was you know to help my family to be able to you know provide for my for my mom for my dad just to to help my family i have a giving heart and a giving spirit um my
mom she still works but you know I I I give her you know a stipen every month and so she's you know she's um you know living well i'm able to provide for my sister she's in law school so you know just being a a student a college student you know I was a college student you know you broke you know what I'm saying you don't got no money you got to do this she got to do that you know
something so being able to you know provide her proh provide her some money provide money for my for my uh for my pops you know and different things he's doing um you know being able to give back to my to my church home you know when I was when I was there in Ipsellani um I feel like that was always my my
mindset as a younger uh you know kid growing up just to be able to provide for my family and then just as you get older you know it's just different it's different motivations okay like you you make the league okay now what now you made the league okay now you want to stay in the league i've been blessed to go on year six so I've just had different motivations whether whether it
was climbing the depth chart okay now I'm a starter okay now I'm trying to have you know certain accolades or you know now I want this for myself you know like how good do I want to be um and pushing myself now it it became like um you know an internal motivation not more so for the accolades or um the trophies
or contracts or anything like that it was you know God blessed me with this gift and I want to extract everything I can you know you know out of myself um to be the highest you know or the best possible player that I can be in this short time um that I have to to play the game you know these guys you know in the
NFL you know play to you know I think the average year is two years or something like that i've been blessed to you know I'm going on six and you know guys probably stop you know low 30s you know 30s i'm going to have the rest of my life to live so um I'm really focused on this time in my life you know this
short time that I have extracting everything out of it um have you know meeting relationships and and people and and things like that and um you know so I think it's just kind of different motivations just kind of as you as you kind of climb the ranks and kind of cross off your goals thank you um and I
feel like that applies to everybody you know what I mean whether you're working a regular nineto-ive job or an athlete like you still have to focus and maintain structure you want to move up make more money um do things that are going to uh make you capitalize off your goals all right so we have Melanie who
is an intern from Eastern Michigan University and she's going to ask you a couple of questions in regards to cultural thing hello everyone hello panelist um my question to you is how do you celebrate and express your cultural
identity when you travel take a second when you say like cultural identity does that uh do you like does that close mean that clothes that's a part of that like like fashion yeah I would I would say so uh you know me and Amir uh we just went
to uh we went to Mexico for on you know on a vacation and uh you know like the the the popular thing now like airport fits you know like like what you wearing to the airport you know what I'm saying like people I mean I know like people do like get ready with me and all you know traveling stuff like that and um you
know me and Amir we went to Mexico we had like chains on we had like you know just like our our culture you know what I'm saying like the like the black culture and you know I remember when we went to Mexico like you know we just got a lot of eyes you know we just look a lot different than people like the security pulled us over like oh we want to check your bag we want you know are
you guys rappers like you know like it's all types of stuff and I just feel like um probably wasn't right but it came from us just expressing you know our our culture and and uh you know like we got like hats or I got dreads you know like jewelry on you know different uh you
know just just different things like that I think uh throughout travel you know just um you know it's kind of just uh and it's just fashion you know just just dressing you know people like to look nice you know have cologne on smell nice and things like that um I think that's just a way and just probably kind
of um indirectly just uh you know expressing your your the culture i think for me it's uh the music that I listen to really um when I work out in the gym like before practice and stuff like that I always got a speaker and I
play my music and some of the younger um like Europeans out here or Romanians out here they kind of like to tap into the music that I listen to you know they they listen to like more so old rap and stuff like that you know the music or
the hits that they heard or people know about you know what I'm saying i play kind of underground music and stuff like that so they kind of be like "What's this what's this song?" All that type of stuff so I kind of like to put them hip to the new stuff that we got going on
that is cool have you ever experienced microaggressions or racial bias in your sport if so have they ever affected your mental health i was good in baseball probably good baseball yeah I
say baseball probably seemed more I was I Amir was the the base like more of the baseball guy when I played baseball I stopped when I was in eighth grade and a lot of times like the the better you kind of got in baseball like just like the culture it was like you might be only black kid on the team and
uh so he was the fastest he was probably the most athletic and I remember there was a tournament where I stole home and uh just so happened like I like trucked the catcher where like little league baseball you can't do that you know you can do that in the big in the pros but you can't do that in the in in little league and I trucked the catcher and the
kid got hurt and it raised a like a uproar oh my gosh i had my aunties pulling up my mom yelling and the it's like a you know like a heavy set like white guy you know he coming at my mom and kick this kid out the game and you know all type of like just racial stuff
and stuff going on in the parking lot um I would say you know football there's more like you know like black kids basketball obviously more black kids but baseball it was more you know going to those tournaments and you know you might be the only black kid there especially if your parents may not be there with you if you traveling um you know you
might be the only black kid there you might be the only black kid on the team and um so you kind of you know deal with that you know you kind of it's just kind of like the stereotypes you know like I get up they they expect me to steal they expect me to be fast and uh you know that's just kind of like what it was that's what I'm saying amir you know
playing baseball I'm sure he can relate to that uh yeah I can um speak to that uh just briefly uh like they said um as you progress in baseball um over time I did start to realize uh not even over time I was kind of always the only black kid
kid on the team but I was I was definitely better than most of I was I was better than most of the kids I played with um but from that looking back at it now I was also in a way black ballalled from playing with other good kids because people see me as a threat
um so a lot of the times they would put me on the worst teams but we would still do good and I would do good like and I would kind of perform so good that you couldn't deny my talent but I'm the only black kid on the team and I remember one time actually this was in like 2013 when
the Trayvon Martin thing had happened um I had a teammate after they had announced he was uh the guy was innocent or whatever i had a teammate that had made a comment or something like we're happy George Zimmerman got off air like u kind of joking around they didn't they
didn't say the N word with the R on it but kind of trying to be funny alluding to that just young stuff kind of you know young white guys trying to be funny quote unquote but really being racist but looking back at that you know I'm the only black kid on the team i'm playing with a bunch of white kids um
like KJ said they kind of put you on under a lot of stereos so as I got older it definitely I wouldn't say at the time it probably affected me because I was just young and what you just don't know at the time you just don't know but definitely looking back and as I'm older
I do start to see kind of how I was basically treated from playing a sport that's predominantly white and Hispanics and I'm a good black kid so I kind of got the short end of the stick most of the time on on a lot of things so anybody in the audience does anybody play
baseball anybody over here anybody play a predominantly white sport anybody tennis i like to lacrosse lacrosse lacrosse is
cool we have actually um our Damian Butler yeah Damen Butler one of our director of finance he's a lacrosse team and I coach tennis and let me tell you it is difficult bringing a all black or minority team to a predominantly white space i have to fully prepare them like
listen you don't need to say anything let me handle it so um I can only imagine what it's like especially for you Corey being in Romania like are there any um obstacles that you deal with that is in regards to rape um not
really it's just uh they kind of look at you different you know um walking to restaurants walking back home and stuff like that i get a lot of eyes just walking past and stuff like that so um that's pretty much it it's not It's not bad you know um in the city that I
play in it's a the fans love us they love the team and I'm playing um I'm playing right now so um they love me as well so when they see me it's all love and stuff like that but like for people that don't know who I am or people not
fan fans of basketball and when I'm walking around they definitely kind of look at me a little weird you know what I'm saying because probably they never seen a black person before or it's it's different you know crazy all right we have one final question in regards to culture that Melanie is or Okay that
Melanie is gonna ask okay so sorry do you feel like athletic programs provide enough mental health support especially for black athletes um
I don't think so i never really like me personally I never really like thought that deep into the mental health stuff um but I don't know i think it it definitely needs to be pushed more so I think Yeah I think it needs to be pushed
more for sure i agree i think it could be pushed more i feel like I wasn't really exposed to the mental health side of things until I got to college um and it's still it was just kind of the the therapist they could be someone you might not relate to um they kind of it's
like the the vibes it's like you know you're just not someone I would really talk to like that and that's why I kind of encourage you guys earlier you know finding um whether it be a spiritual leader a mentor um you know even at at this age but I feel like now it's just it's became I'm not sure you know prior
in the prior years but I feel like nowadays like it's become just so much more relevant a talked about topic and especially just like with this social media stuff it's just so much so many eyes on you you know it's so many eyes on you and people um can comment on on you know anything and uh you know as
they say the internet is undefeated and that's why I talk about you know having that that eye discipline as far as you know like what you kind of feed your spirit But it definitely was not exposed to me until college um in college I did not use it um in NFL they have you know a
person in the in the facility i think I've probably done like two sessions with him and it was like I'm I ain't really know what I ain't really like it like that you know and then being a um just being a believer it was like okay I
even myself I had to balance like okay should I be talking to a therapist should I be talking to my pastor like you know like I didn't feel guilty for talking to a therapist i'm like okay can this guy really help me like my pastor would help me so I kind of had to learn that like it's okay to speak to a therapist and your pastor you know what I'm saying it's just it's different
things i had to kind of learn that um but um this year I'm actually open to speaking to a therapist i think the perception of it is always like a negative thing like you got to kind of be going through something or something got to be wrong um but I mean some of the best players in the NFL um for
instance like my quarterback Kirk Cousins kirk that made probably over $300 million in the NFL he talked to a therapist every week and you know it's not because anything is wrong he's just talking he's chatting you know talking about his goals talking about his financial goals just talk it's almost like verbal uh verbal journaling you
know it's not like that anything is wrong so a lot of times it has like a negative kind of connotation and it actually doesn't um you don't have to go to a therapist just because we think something is wrong it could just be again that expression of hey what are my goals what do I want to do you know
trying to talk through that um okay my last question and then we're going to let you uh go we appreciate you being here do you think that we put too much pressure on student athletes to be great and going into the NFL and NBA like as a
parent like do you think like do you think uh parents like live vicariously through their students or you know is it just too much pressure right now i don't think it's too much pressure just I feel like it's it's up to the kid uh if you know if you if you know I
don't have kids but I can imagine if my kid was uh you know a 13-year-old kid 12-year-old kid and he looks at me he said "Dad I want to go to the NFL." But me being said "Okay I'm I'm going to show you the steps to get there." And I feel like it's on the parent to discern you know what is too much you know like
what is you know what's too serious you know you shouldn't have your kid lifting weights when he's six years old you know I'm like that's that's too much you know like just have them do push-ups or some sit-ups or something like that let the kid let the kids be kids until they theirelves can decide okay this is something that I want to be serious with
you know um so I I would I would say that I feel like it's just kind of up to the kid and I think that's just the parents discernment of okay like what what can my kid handle um like the competition level how how hard my my kid you know wants to work and I think that's all I think it all kind of goes
back down to communication so like sometimes you know if you're a single mother you know you don't have experience with that you know talking to to someone talking to a a youth coach talking to um you know someone else that you know may have played even if it was not the professional level just about
you know advice about that um and but I I feel like there is a world where there's you know it can be too much you know um but I don't think there should be you know parents you know pressuring their kids that you know you got to make it to the league definitely definitely not because um you know football you
know sports it's just an avenue you know this is this is not it's a we playing a kids game you know and and you play until a certain years old years old and then you have so much more life ahead ahead of you and it's just an avenue and a and a platform to do what um we really all called here to do thank you um Corey
and then we're going to wrap it up um yeah i don't think it's I don't think uh well I know my my dad was the type of parent to he put the ball he put the ball in my hand first and then after that it was me like you know what I'm
saying if you want to do this you got to work hard you know what I'm saying and I'm asking him to go work out and do all this type of stuff so u like like KJ said I think it's I think it's more so for the kid like the kid got to want it you know what I'm saying uh but also I
don't think parents should be like super oh you got to do this do this this and that you know what I'm saying i feel like the kids should want it and if the kid don't want it then that's that but the audience do you guys feel pressure to play sports or like your parents are
pressuring you to do great a little bit over here i will say uh I will say one of the things that my mom had had kind of taught me like originally she put me in sports because I was a I was a a young black kid with a bunch of energy and so they were like "Oh this kid you know when I'm my auntie
Reese can probably uh allude to this but when I was a kid they like "Oh this this kid might have ADHD he has so much energy." And the teacher she's like "He's fine he just got energy." So my mom that's why my mom put me in sports to you know teach me discipline to teach me teamwork to teach me um you know adversity you know cuz sports teaches
you so many other things but the one thing that she did you know teach me is like if you do this you're not going to quit you know things don't things don't go bad you're not going to quit you're not going to just go quit on your team if you have a bad play you know I was a little kid like my mom she tell me all these stories like I used to yell at my teammates tell them they suck and all
types of stuff and I'm like and I was a kid and she like that that I had to you know learn teamwork I had to learn the communication Um and it was like okay if you're going to do something you're going to work your hardest at it and excel at it if you're hardest and and um the best you could do was two points that's what it was but you put your all into it you
know what I'm saying and if you're gifted then you know you can have 20 points you know and but you putting your all into it um that was one of the things how kind of it was more measured more than you know what is your level of greatness you know if your if your best is is two points hey kid you did your best you know what I'm saying and and
okay maybe the NBA ain't for you but you did your best and you know you learn that and when you go take that to your next career um you know you can use that so I think in in that way more so of you got to make it to the NFL or you got to do like you just got to give your best and if the Lord bless you enough with talents to you know to go to those
levels and things like that then um you know so be it well we appreciate you all coming on um is definitely very proud sera is very proud all of the administration um you guys we appreciate you giving back to the community and talking to the young
men um so if I can get one more round of applause for them thank you the adults please come in please please please please come in so they can see you guys step back there so they can see
your whole crew here all my my principles all of you guys come in the panelists come in please ladies come on in k all of them panelist y'all come up here please
and we got one other uh panelist fred Koffield is a Iani High School player he is on his way um panelist come up here principal um I personally want to say thank you so
much i am a social worker mental health is near and dear to my heart for my own personal reason and I am determined that our men all of our men especially our black
men be comfortable enough to talk about be put yourself oh to be comfortable enough to talk about mental health vulnerable um enough to share their story to understand that somebody
somewhere is waiting to hear what they're going through i hope you gentlemen out here who came who made I don't know if you had a choice or you were just signed up because I said I need 30 people um but um I thank you for coming i thank you for asking questions
um I am proud of Corey Allen i'm proud of KJ Osborne Amir Osborne they gave me the flux um me and KJ going to have some conversation me him and Amir gonna have some conversation when I get over to DC cuz um I've been sweating me and Taran
been talking she like "They coming?" I'm like "I don't really know they grown they do whatever they want to do." But um I am very proud i'm proud of all of these are my friends all of the everybody in here all my adults these are my friends johnny we played baseball
co-ed baseball tell them I can play johnny yes she can play it was years ago but yeah you can do Can't play no more uh OPO tell them I'm a good friend genuine
right there it is genuine wise tell them how my mama love you more she love me it's a fact leave that boy alone thank you mama um Coach Bry tell them how I am your biggest headache no I'm probably the
biggest headache um Turquoise let me say this i'm calling out people but I because I love them uh Turquoise is behind the scenes she like stop calling my name she is truly behind the scenes she did all the decorations i got Steve out there me and Steve met
when he looked like Jesus y know thought he was Jesus at one time he had long hair but he been rocking kyle out there rocks with me santino I met him and I still don't know if I'm pronouncing his name right i just say it
um but he came on and brought Sean on and has been excited so y'all meet with him this afternoon pennea made herself she like I'm gonna meet you Sheresa uh Vine that's my girl she my piece that's my media she my piece right there and
then I got Dr chelsea and where Leslie at i don't know dr chelsea this my girl right here that's my sister Kenyatta back there i just tell her what to do i just tell everybody what to do i lie y'all y'all know me i have little I lean
into it i tell everybody i tell them what to do i tell them how to do i call Opio he said "What you want on the shirt?" Finally I said "I'm a social worker you're the graphic artist do what you do because if it was me I have a whole lot worse and y'all be mad but um
thank you we love you i'll be with you guys later thank you melanie Taran is I rock with her we rock um we box we box we box
so um thank you Solomon again i appreciate all of you we are getting ready to have lunch and then we'll go into our breakout sessions cantio and Sean will do the breakout sessions this is your time to get up move around use the bathroom um take a break stay on
this side though go to the bathroom and please come back over here stay on this side we have table wash your hands wake up i say goodbye my family say goodbye to them i love y'all so very much
johnny said "Hey you see Johnny here johnny eps your uncle boy what's going on?" Remember what's going on yo I'm good how about y'all good good i was hoping Fred Koffield got here because he soon as I put it out there he texting
like Osborne and Allan gonna be here i need to see them mine's like "Yeah no they playing with the I'm coming to see y'all in uh DC this is Tam." My sister lives there so don't worry kj she said she coming with me so we going to get a ticket for one of them gangs i'm serious we going
oh she and she's serious i promise you i am she not going to let me let you down but I do appreciate y'all y'all know I'm over here in tears uh listening to y'all talk because I don't really get to hear y'all i don't get to hear I hear I hear KJ but I don't get to hear my son or Cy
talk about life so I appreciate you guys um Cy I got to get with you with your W9 so we can get that straight and you got to tell me what how you want me to do it give it to your dad deposit it mail it or whatever and then you could just let me know
where your bank at and I can put it in your bank account all right kj what are you gonna do i mean it's a I don't know i told I told Mirror I don't want you can donate it back to the school or split it between them two or like so I don't I don't Okay I'll figure Let me
because it's a grant so I have to give it to me give it to me i can't give it I can't do that you can write it out to him he gonna send it to me well I can write it out to him he just gonna send that to me that's fine you can send it where he want but I need a W9 and an
invoice so you can give it away but I have to I can only give each person a certain amount all right okay okay i love y'all so much i appreciate y'all y'all have made me happy once again thank you for helping me bring light to
mental health okay and so hopefully we can do something in the summertime bigger where I can get you guys here in person okay maybe we can add Immani to that you know what I'm saying think about that
for me y'all okay okay i love y'all all right love you love you hey Freddy damn how you lead it [ __ ]