A Transcript of an Innovators, Artists & Solutions Podcast, Part 2, G.I.R.L. Inc. with Jovon Gerald and Steven Gerald
With Hosts Elizabeth Bruce and Michael Oliver
If you would like to read a transcript of Part 2 of our conversation with Jovon and Steven Gerald you’re in luck. Below is the opening with a link to the whole conversation here.
On Wednesday, we share Part 1 of our Theatre in Community Podcast with Teatro de la Luna’s Nucky Walder and Marcela Ferlito.
Jovon Gerald has worked as a manager of Student Success and is a 6th-grade science and history teacher at KIPP DC Public Charter School. She holds an MBA in Business from Averett University and a BA in Communications, Public Relations/ African American Studies from Virginia State University.
She's a member of District Mother Hue Society, The National Coalition of 100 Black Women, and Chair of the Virginia State University Alumni Association's Book Scholarship. In addition to being an educator, Jovon is also a musician, public speaker, and advocate for children's civil rights and human rights, social action, economic empowerment and poverty alleviation, science and technology, and social services.
Steven Gerald works in business management and in his free time, coaches for Nike Elite Youth Basketball League (EYBL). The team is called “Team Takeover” (TTO), which he's been coaching for 15 years. He also loves to talk about mental health and wellness.
For more information about G.I.R.L. INC., click here.
We begin part two of our conversation with Jovon and Steven Gerald, talking with Steven about his work with young high school basketball players who aspire to advance their love and talent for the game and more. Then, Jovon and Steven discuss how they worked together to develop the mission of G.I.R.L. Inc. to meet the ever-changing needs of girls in the greater metropolitan DC area.
Michael: You're a basketball coach. Can you talk about your approach, from how you got into being a basketball coach? You mentioned earlier that you were in sports earlier on. So, you've been a basketball coach now for, what, 15 years, did you [00:40:00] say, or something like that?
Steven: Since 2005, so what's that? 18 years.
Michael: Oh, wow. Okay.
Elizabeth: 18 years, wow.
Michael: Yeah, so can you talk a bit about, sort of, your approach to being a coach?
Steven: Yeah, sure, no problem. I actually started coaching because my younger brother had graduated from high school and was looking for opportunities to pursue in college, to play college basketball. I had some connections, just from friends, that were coaching in college. And I said, “Okay, hey, my younger brother's pretty good, come check him out.” And I organized a workout at our local high school. So it went from one person, my brother, to one of his boys, to his boys, to his friends. And we had about 37 kids show up to a workout that was supposed to be for one person.
Elizabeth: Oh my gosh! Wow.
Steven: My brother. You can imagine how we felt about that, but it was cool. Had two colleges come out. And I was like, you know what? I [00:41:00] probably need to really pursue this or really look at it because I had a lot of free time and I felt like I was pretty good at it. So I ended up coaching at, my first stop was one of my childhood friends ended up getting a job at Forestville Military Academy in Forestville, Maryland. His name's OJ Johnson. And OJ saw what I did with the workout, he said, “Hey man, do you want to coach?” I was like, “High school? I'm not that much older than these guys, but okay, let's do it.” And I started at Fordsville Military Academy, haven’t looked back.
I've been blessed to, at this point, I've coached over 170 Division I players.
Elizabeth: Wow!
Steven: Dozens of professionals.
Elizabeth: Wow!
Steven: Been all over the country—the world, actually—just being an advocate for the game of basketball and mentorship, really. So, things really took off when I got with an organization called Triple Threat in 2007, which was a Reebok affiliate. A lot of the shoe companies have their dibs into summer [00:42:00] sports, basketball in particular. And we did pretty well as Triple Threat, and then we ended up getting a Nike contract with an organization called Team Takeover. So we, we had to change our name when we left Reebok, because that was Reebok’s.
Elizabeth: Oh, Triple Threat was Reebok, yeah.
Steven: So now we've changed, in 2008 we've changed to Triple Team Takeover. And since 2008, we are probably the winningest—they call it grassroots—we are the winningest grassroots organization in the country. And we represent the Washington, DC metro area.
Jovon: And they just won.
Steven: We just won something called the Peach Jam.
Michael: And so how old are the players?
Steven: So I coach 17-year-olds. But my organization goes 9 to 17, boys and girls. So we're Nike's darling, so to speak.
Michael: Okay. So is this, I've heard of the soccer clubs—
Steven: Same concept.
Michael: Same concept, okay.
Steven: Same concept. So what we do with Team Takeover, it's a select team where we go out and [00:43:00] recruit players to join our organization. We compete in what they call Nike's Elite Youth Basketball League, EYBL. And that's a league of 40 teams across the United States that travel from city to play in league play. And then our championship is in Augusta, South Carolina. It's called the Peach Jam. But each of those 40 organizations represent a region in the country. So Team Takeover represents Washington, DC. But we also have Team Durant, which represents DC. And Team Melo, which represents Baltimore.
Elizabeth: Team Mellow, did you say?
Steven: And we all compete.
Jovon: For Carmelo Anthony.
Steven: Yeah, it's named after a player.
Elizabeth: Oh, okay!
Michael: Oh, I was here going—
Steven: That wouldn't be a good basketball, business name. But we all, all 40 of those Nike teams represent a region. So it's, in that industry of grassroots basketball, that's the [00:44:00] top of the food chain, to be one of the EYBL teams. So, we've been able—and the DC area has the most Division I boys and girls basketball players.
Elizabeth: Wow.
Steven: More than the whole state of California. More than the whole state of Texas.
Elizabeth: Wow!
Steven: More than New York. All the boroughs. Chicago. Actually, Prince George's is really what it is, but when you include DC, there's more here than anywhere else.
Elizabeth: It's a much smaller geographic area, too.
Steven: But the way we do things here is different than the rest of the country. So that's probably why it's become the hotbed of basketball recruiting. It's a, it's saturated with a lot of people trying to do the same thing, so the competition is super, super high. But, if you can make it out of this area, you're probably going to do pretty well on a national team.
Michael: You must have strategies for—‘cause a team sport, coming from a theater background, you're, the job is to try to get everyone to work together.
Steven: Same thing.[00:45:00]
Michael: And good actors can be very egotistical and I'm certain good basketball players can be, so are there tricks to getting them to understand, sort of, the team game aspects as opposed to their individual talent aspects.
Steven: So that's when the sale comes in. You got, especially, so I call 17-year-olds, so most of the time by the time they get to me, they are already on a trajectory going one way or another. What we have to do is put, as you said, with the actors that have big egos, you may have a showing of Macbeth and there's only one Macbeth.
Elizabeth: “The Scottish play.”
Steven: There's only one. However, there's multiple people that may have, could have been Macbeth. Maybe he didn't get the role. How do you get that guy to buy-in? Who may have auditioned for Macbeth, but he still wants to be a part of that show. Okay, maybe lighting. Maybe you do lighting. Maybe you collect tickets. And there's other roles that are important.
Jovon: [00:46:00] Yeah, I did all of that.
Steven: She did. Yeah. But, there are always people that you have to get to buy-in. And it doesn't matter if you're talking nonprofit, if you're talking military, if you're talking politics, if you're talking sports. A lot of times there's a hierarchy, and if you can get people to buy into what you're trying to sell, and a goal, you can be successful. But it's all about management.
Michael: So that's all that creative communication, persuasion.
Steven: There it is.
Michael: Alright.
Steven: ‘Cause you gotta have some, when you have a track record that you can point to it, then it's easier—
Michael: That helps.
Elizabeth: Yeah, take you seriously. They’ll listen to you.
Steven: They’ll know the words you’re speaking are true. Whereas if, you're just hoping and wishing and praying maybe it might work, it's a little different. So we do rely on our track record. But it is a mental gymnastic exercise to get people on the same page.
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