My favorite part of my job is to get out in the public and speak to athletes from all across the country about their sport experiences. This summer Major League Baseball held their RBI softball national championships in Minnesota. The RBI programs serves young athletes from disadvantaged communities and gets them involved in softball and baseball. It’s a fantastic mission and the Minnesota Twins have done an excellent job with their RBI program.
I was thrilled when the Twins asked me to take a few hours out of my day and share my sports broadcasting career with the 140 softball players from around the country. There were many other female speakers who shared their varied work experiences from broadcasting to scouting to working as a C-suite executive
I think it is so important to always give athletes not only the opportunity to participate in sport around the country but to open up their minds to careers and opportunities they may not have even known even existed. This is exactly what Rethink the Win is all about — seeing the athlete as a whole person and making sure they leave their sport better and more informed than when they started.
A few weeks later I headed down to Northfield, Minnesota to speak to the St. Olaf Volleyball team. St. Olaf’s head coach Emily Foster invited me down to help prepare her athletes for the season.
One of the topics I spoke about was how so many athletes face different fears while trying to be the best athlete they can be. Fear of disappointing parents, fear of failure, or fear of not being good enough. We talked about the importance of first acknowledging and being able to articulate what the fear is and then working on releasing it.
Building a championship team was another topic I talked with the team about. Being great means always putting the team first. This sometimes is not the easiest thing to do, but realizing that you may have to give up playing time to someone else for the betterment of the team is critical.
It was so great to connect in with the Oles and I was very impressed with the opportunities these young ladies were experiencing as a team both on and off the court.
Cheers,
Lea B.
Read more about the RBI softball national championships and the wonderful athletes it impacted:
https://www.mlb.com/news/rbi-world-series-hosts-roundtable-discussion/c-290341648